Fights without fighting words

[subtletylost]

I've been trying for many years to write a believable fight that wasn't just an argument. There's just something about fight scenes that I've never managed to get the hang of. I don't know what it is. I've come across the terrible problem of now having to write about a character who has to fight a war, and yet, I still can't really write fight scenes.

What I did write instead was this:

"Ancient Elves used to have statues like these all over the place, honoring the creators..." Tamlen rambled on for a moment about the history.

Meiriana was ill at ease. She couldn't figure out why, until she heard a clicking sound. It was the distinct clicking of bone on bone. She watched in silent horror as the skeletons rose. They were horrid looking and acted like grotesque string puppets controlled by a demon as they rose. It was creepier that once upright they were as graceful as any warrior.

Her abject horror did not last long though, when they drew their blades she was quick to respond letting loose two arrows before dropping her bow, and drawing her daggers in a graceful spin that left Tamlen face down on the stone floor with only the cold ring of steel on steel and Meiriana's angry, "this is no time for a history lesson," to let him know what was happening.​

I feel like I should be doing something different, but my beta reader assures me that as long as the scenes flow most of my readers won't even notice that I don't know how to write violence.

I'm just wondering now, what if any general or specific advice has helped other people learn to write fight scenes.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I'd recommend reading a few fantasy novels carefully, to see how they specifically do this. If you buy Kindle versions of books you can call them up on your PC via the Kindle for PC program to reference them at will.

 

[Locrian]

Personally, I like combat to be quite abrupt. Less is more, everything short and sharp, as few adjectives as possible, as it makes the pace faster and makes it feel more visceral to me. Punctuated with emotion and sensation where it fits. That is my personal preference.

One thing people often do with writing combat is focus on visuals. Sure, you need visual stuff to build a picture in your head, but you aren't making a movie. The strength of books over movies is that you can be inside somebody's head rather than looking at them from outside, it is best to make use of that rather than trying to work in a different medium.

 

[goldhawk]

Peter Jackson on the Battle of Helm's Deep, "Editorial:
Refining the Story" [12:27], Special Extended DVD Edition,
disc 4, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.

"We found when we were cutting, you really needed to follow your main
characters, your principle characters. If we had two or three shots of stunt
guys fighting, you wanted to come back to one of your heroes.

"I think with any battle sequence, there has to be a fundamental purpose to
the battle. If it's a global, strategic kind of purpose, you're trying to
defend your castle because this person wants to take your castle, it's not
compelling. And that's really what we had with Helm's Deep. When we were
beginning to cut it together, it was just an attack on a castle. We felt
strongly that we needed to make the battle have more a human quality, that
there had to be more of an emotional reason for the battle to take place.

"So when we did our pickups for the Two Towers, we spent a day during our
pickup shoot actually filming a group of actors and extras being terrified,
huddled refugees, hearing the sounds of battle, reacting to various moments of
the battle, suddenly, it had a purpose. I mean to have Viggo standing on the
ramparts, drawing a sword, facing the Uriks, and then you cut into the huddled
women and children in the cave, and then back to Viggo, you felt, wow, this
guy is defending his people."​

 

[subtletylost]

@Locrian Traditionally written fights like that, quick and abrupt short sentences even shorter time frame, I don't know what it is about them but they've always felt fake to me. I've read so many books and example scenes over the years trying to understand them. Trying to take in the knowledge. I've read much advice repeatedly about how to write them, most of it boiling down to "short sentences and very little said." If I knew what it was about that that I didn't understand this would be a lot easier, and not a problem at all.

What about non-traditional fight scenes? Does anyone know of any examples of those that I might be able to take a look at?

 

[Toby Frost]

A few questions to consider:

1) What is the skill of the combatants - are they experts or just really angry people/things?
2) What is the person like through whose eyes the story is being told (I assume this is Meiriana)? To an untrained eye a fight might just look like terrifying chaos, whereas a skilled fighter might have a better idea of what's going on and also be more willing to wade in.
3) When violence happens in this book, is it a sort of swashbuckling adventure-type violence, where people can take a lot of hits, or a more realistic or grisly setting where one blow from a sword can incapacitate or kill?

I think all of these will affect the way that the fighting is described.

I too think that the quick and simple method of fighting is best. In terms of slightly less brief description, there's the style used by Tolkien, Steinbeck in The Acts of King Arthur and Rider Haggard, where you might be more general and epic but less precise: "The enemy surged forward, but were met with furious resistance. In seconds they had broken and fled, leaving the ground strewn with the dead" or something like that. Steinbeck often talks about knights trading blows until they were exhausted, but doesn't say what the blows were. Haggard in Alan Quartermain has a long fight on a staircase, which I remember being more in the epic style and well-written. I think it's important to suit the style to the story.

 

[subtletylost]

Would it help if I made a thread in critiques, with more of the scene so people can see how it fits with the rest of the narrative?

Or even just a blog post of it?

 

[subtletylost]

Would it help if I made a thread in critiques, with more of the scene so people can see how it fits with the rest of the narrative?

Or even just a blog post of it?

I made a critique thread for it, if that helps any at all.

 

[JC Kang]

Before I jump to the critique thread, the one thing that stood out to me was shooting with a bow-- I don't think they'd be particularly effective on skeletons.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

I don't think its nessecary to use any fighting words, because most readers don't really know how to fight professional either. Theres some podcasts about writing combat (i think writing excuses has a few) and theres many different takes on it.

Depends what your fighting style seems to be. If you are writing a fantasy epic with star wars/chinese fantasy style fighting, theres going to be alot of flips, spins and acrobatics.

If you are doing medieval western style, then you'll probably be writing about glances, knees to the groin and hilts to the face with some ear biting thrown in.

I believe writing combat is as unique as each writer's prose are. Robert Jordan uses made up techniques for different moves like in eastern martial arts, letting the reader fill in the blanks. Some like to do describe each movement as the fight goes on. Some just write the thoughts running through a person's head.

I'm pretty sure there are not many writers who would write a fight scene like I do and thats totally fine as long as it works.