posted
(I'll get it right, one of these days, I swear.)
How do you prefer to write/read your action?
In broad, general tones: "The two came together in a flurry of parries and thrusts; occasional grunts of effort punctuated the frenzied fray."
Or more specifically: "John came at Jim with an overhand swipe-double thrust; Jim parried with a double-swipe, overhand thrust." (I'm making these up. Obviously.)
In my (albeit limited) experience, I've found I prefer the broader view of a battle, but when it's a one-on-one duel, it doesn't really work. When I focus on a small battle, the broad view makes it feel like I'm looking at it through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. This would work for an epic war. Not so much for a fist fight, but explaining every blow, and every reaction to every blow slows the action, and takes away some of the excitement.
posted
I write really bad action scenes. I write "and then the evil robot monkeys killed them all" and call it good enough. Usually you need more detail than that. So, don't write your action scenes like I do.
Posts: 1750 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
One thing to remember is that even in one scene it doesn't have to be written one way. You can detail some movements and actions, then generalize if it's there's a lot of fast movements that would take longer to read than to do and go back to detail when you want to.
Pathetic example: He raised his sword, pointing at my chest, then lunged. My blade struck his as I moved to the left and out of his path. Again he thrusted and this time I swung my sword up and forward, locking the pommels. We were face to face. "You can't win, so why are you bothering?" I asked him. His response was a yell of rage as he stepped back. Finally he began to fight in earnest. He struck again and again, raining blows on me, but never getting through my defenses. Overhand, side swipes, thrusts and lunges, his sword became a blurr of silver streaks. Then I saw my opening during one of his wild swings. I landed my sword against his and twirled my wrist, bringing my blade under and behind his and knocking it out of his hand.
posted
I like the broader perspective. When authors get tied down with "over hand thrusts" "back hand parries" and "he braced his left foot, pivoted on his right, turned his shoulders and ..." I start to skim.
posted
Do like Survivor said, but also ask yourself what this scene is meant to accomplish. Perhaps the answer lies there.
Posts: 2710 | Registered: Jul 2004
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One of the biggest problems in writing a fight scene seems to be the choreography. You don't want to be Paula Abdul in this instance - A did such so B did that, yada yada. You need the emotion - to get in the head of the POV.
I didn't find many articles on how to craft a fight scene - but plenty with people talking about their own experiences. Interestingly enough, I found the same article elsewhere:
posted
I like the summary or broad view here, but it's probably because I'm bored by swordfighting, and would rather you get it over with quickly!
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
There's always two strings pulling at your actions scenes. One is pacing; if the action is quick in real life, you want it read as if it's quick, you don't want to bog the reader down with too much detail. The other is drama; if the action is a high emotional point for the characters involved, and is a real danger to the MC or POV character, you want to take your time over it. So the decision of how to cover it has to balance those needs. JMariC's "pathetic" excample is actually quite a good balance (though it should be "thrust", not "thrusted", and it's quillons, not pommels, that lock). Don't describe every blow, just describe the key moments. And don't try and convey too many physical details; it runs the risk of appearing dry and dull.
quote:How do you prefer to write/read your action?
I prefer my action with no doggone swords at all! I've seen too many of the tired old things. Show me something fresh. Though it had swords, Snow Crash also had a cool type of virtual combat I had never seen before. Perdido Street Station showed me the slake moths and extreme measures needed to combat them. Heck, even The Hunt for red October showed me modern naval combat in ways I had never seen before.
If you must write a sword battle, do so to maximize suspense. Make the situation look ever more hopeless for a character I like and I will keep reading. If you slip in any unnecessary details or fancy wordsmithing then I will close your book and never open it again.
I once took a fencing course and the important things happened really fast. Mostly it is weeks of training, five minutes getting into just the right position and exahanging taps then blink and that's all. So from the POV of the character it is just thrust, parry, thrust, ripost, fake, fake, thrust, wipe off the blood.
I think it might be more interesting to spend less time on the fight itself and more on the three hours the character takes to die plus how he spends his last ounce of strength dismboweling the harridan that has come to rob his corpse.
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited September 26, 2005).]
quote:I once took a fencing course and the important things happened really fast.
One of my favorite fight scenes of all time is from the end of Sergio Leone's "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" (I'm going to pull this back to literature I promise). The scene is about five minutes long, and 4 minutes and 55 seconds of it is just two guys staring at each other. Then they both pull their guns and have time to fire one shot each. And its over, that's it.
If you think about it, it's obvious who's going to win, but that scene has me on the edge of my seat every time.
The reason why the scene works is the tension. You're waiting for the action to happen, desperately trying to read emotions and potential actions, waiting for the action. And then when it does come it's so fast, and so furious, and so damn deadly it takes my breath away. That's the perfect action scene as far as I'm concerned, you're right in the characters head, with everything they're feeling and then action bursts suddenly and violently into life. And then, almost before you know it, you're left with the consequences.
But be sure to deliver on the build up. When I read "The Scar" by China Mieville, there was a moment when two super-powerful figures squared up for a fight, and then the scene cut away just before they went at it. The next few pages were a blur as I desperately read to get to the enormously bad ass fight scene I knew was coming. And then the next thing I know the fight's happened in the background - I never saw it, only the outcomes. I hadn't felt that cheated in a long time. He had all the build up of Leone's 4 minutes and 55 seconds but skipped those last 5 seconds.
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