Writing fight scenes

Ian Nathaniel Cohen · Jun 12, 2014

For those of you who incorporate fight scenes into your works, I'm always curious as to how other people write them. I'm particularly interested in how - or if - you choreograph them and translate your choreography into prose while making it exciting at the same time.

I've been fascinated with the process of fight choreography for a very long time (to the point where I've not only taken fencing lessons, but fight choreography and stage combat). Most of my novels are inspired by classic Hollywood swashbucklers, and as a result, I want my fight choreography to look more cinematic than realistic. In the Robin Hood novel I have in progress, for example, my goal is to get the fights to look more like this than this. I have another novel set in the Bruceploitation film industry in 1979, and the fight scenes in that are based on the choreography of fake Bruce Lee movies (like this for instance) - stylized, long, fast-paced, and nothing at all like a real fight.

With big army vs. army battles, I'm less inclined to go into detail on those than I am for a one-on-one duel. I don't go blow-by-blow on duels (those can be boring and hard to follow), but I do show a few specific moves here and there in the midst of staying inside the POV character's head and emotional state.

What about the rest of you fight-scene authors? How do you put your fight scenes together and keep them exciting and easy to follow at the same time?

Jamesaritchie · Jun 12, 2014

I've written a bunch of fight scenes, but I have no special technique for doing so. I write a fight scene like any other scene, though my experience of being in fights is probably a big help.

folkchick · Jun 12, 2014

There's two in the novel I just finished. They weren't as difficult to write as I thought they'd be. It's kind of a nice mix of incorporating action with the MC's reactions both inner and physical. Hard to explain. Just write it and think later.

Dave.C.Robinson · Jun 12, 2014

Short sentences, short paragraphs. Since the character is intensely focused on the fight, I do the same with my writing. I don't drift off into long descriptions of things no one would be paying attention to in the middle of a life-and-death struggle.

Maryn · Jun 12, 2014

One thing I find important is to make sure I'm really tightly in my POV. My fighting character cannot see the battle, or the rest of the bar, only focus on his own actions and experiences. Even a huge battle which appears organized to the generals on the hills will seem a melee to the fighting men.

Maryn, who doesn't do a lot of fights, but some

Drachen Jager · Jun 12, 2014

I don't choreograph them in advance. I have a pretty good understanding of both hand-to-hand combat and fighting with firearms (I don't generally do swords and such).

I know basically how I want the fight to go, then I just point the characters in the right direction and let 'er rip.

One key thing to remember is your audience should always believe the hero will lose (unless he's actually going to lose, then you can go either way). As soon as they start to believe he's on top, you've lost them. Rob Roy has one of the best finale fights for that reason. The odds simply look impossible until he turns it around.

amillimiles · Jun 12, 2014

Drachen Jager said:
One key thing to remember is your audience should always believe the hero will lose (unless he's actually going to lose, then you can go either way). As soon as they start to believe he's on top, you've lost them. Rob Roy has one of the best finale fights for that reason. The odds simply look impossible until he turns it around.

LOL orrrr you can make the audience believe your hero is winning until they actually lose. *coughGameofThronescough* *sob*

For me, I have a general idea of how the character fights - hand-to-hand, sword, other weapons - and I either watch videos or I read about it so that I know what moves work and what moves don't work.

I never choreograph ... that would be weird. To me. I just pause from my writing and imagine the scene, and keep on writing.

Drachen Jager · Jun 12, 2014

Snowbeamer9 said:
LOL orrrr you can make the audience believe your hero is winning until they actually lose.

Yeah... that's what I said.

guttersquid · Jun 12, 2014

Drachen Jager said:
One key thing to remember is your audience should always believe the hero will lose (unless he's actually going to lose, then you can go either way). As soon as they start to believe he's on top, you've lost them.

Oh, I don't know. Depends on what you're going for. It doesn't always have to be dramatic. Sometimes you just want to see a guy get his butt whipped.

MynaOphelia · Jun 12, 2014

My last project was a superhero fic, so there were a few fight scenes. A lot of the fighting I based off of martial arts training. I used to do martial arts (my instructor wanted me to teach it when I was older, but then my mom got in a fight with the academy and let's just say it didn't pan out haha) so I base it off of sparring, for the most part.

One thing to keep in mind also is that during a fight, your senses are often heightened, and you pick up on more sense of smell/taste/touch than the typical sight/sound people fall back on.

Ian Nathaniel Cohen · Jun 12, 2014

guttersquid said:
Oh, I don't know. Depends on what you're going for. It doesn't always have to be dramatic. Sometimes you just want to see a guy get his butt whipped.

Yeah, I've written several swordfights where the characters are just sparring with each other.

When my MC for one of my novels is going up against a master swordsman in a friendly not-to-the-death duel, I have him enjoying going up against someone who can give him a good fight. He doesn't like real combat and fighting to the death - a maelstrom of blood and madness that no sane man can enjoy, as he puts it - although he does it when he has to. But when it's just him and another expert trying each other out, it's fun for him.

Layla Nahar · Jun 12, 2014

I just bear in mind that if everything is happening quick, you want the reader to get it quick, so I'm careful about (not) using too many words. It means that if often takes me quite a while to write a fight scene, because I test and abandon many ways of expressing the action I want to convey. If a sentence is accurate but too complex, I toss it and keep thinking till I get something pithy, even if it means losing a bit of accuracy and detail.

Gunzen · Jun 12, 2014

Short sentences, the a one word ending paragraph.

Jamesaritchie · Jun 13, 2014

Drachen Jager said:
One key thing to remember is your audience should always believe the hero will lose (unless he's actually going to lose, then you can go either way). As soon as they start to believe he's on top, you've lost them. Rob Roy has one of the best finale fights for that reason. The odds simply look impossible until he turns it around.

I don't write them this way, and don't like reading them this way.

Laer Carroll · Jun 13, 2014

It depends a lot on the purpose of the fight scene. Do you want your MC to lose, and so become ever-more-determined to win the next, so much that s/he will use horrible means? Or stretch herself? Or get into a certain plot situation?

Fight scenes are often very fast paced. Then it makes sense to take others’ advice and use short vivid sentences. But some fights are long affairs, where no one dares to show themselves much. Then the pace needs to convey that constant fear and suppressed anger which might get you or your buddies killed.

WeaselFire · Jun 13, 2014

Ian Nathaniel Cohen said:
How do you put your fight scenes together and keep them exciting and easy to follow at the same time?

Write 'em read 'em, rewrite 'em.

There are no secrets, you just need to write. Okay, maybe one secret. Everything you see in the movies is wrong.

Jeff

Ailsa · Jun 13, 2014

I have a scene in my latest WIP where two groups of shapeshifters are fighting. There's a lot going on, but I really only know what the fight looked like from my two narrator's POVs. It's definitely a scene that I'm looking forward to getting feedback on from beta readers because I really don't know if it's worked or not. I didn't 'choreograph' this one as such (although with smaller, one-on-one, fights I have done) but everything happened so quickly - the characters are struggling to keep up with things.

Ian Nathaniel Cohen · Jun 13, 2014

WeaselFire said:
Okay, maybe one secret. Everything you see in the movies is wrong.

Jeff

Yeah, but it's so much fun to watch - and I enjoy the challenge of trying to translate cinematic fights to the printed page (at least when trying to pay homage to those movies).

Lord of Chaos · Jun 13, 2014

Definitely no choreography for me. Fights like the one in the OP drive me insane because they look so fake and not at all like the characters' lives are on the line. Therefore, when I write, I need to convey a sense of reality on the fight.

I wrested for a long time, and matches only went three ways and only two of them were worthy of much detail.

In the first, one opponet is grossly overmatched and is kicked around the mat until he is summarilly defeated. This would be a standard hero vs. evil grunt battle.

In the second, both opponents are of relatively equal skill and the match begins fast and furious, with each person attacking, defending, and countering as quickly as possible to gain advantage. If the opponents really are equally skilled, this will show little in terms of points. If they aren't, it will quickly enter the 1st scenario.

In the third, both opponets will be very deliberate in their attacks, attempting to set their opponent up for something they won't be able to defend. Attacks will be fast, and sometimes not even intended to be effective, but instead provoke a reaction. In my experience, the longer scenario two goes on, the more likely it will become scenario three.

Every fight is different and many scenarios change them, but most are reactionary because thought is too slow to get the job done. My scenes are fast, scentences short, internal monologue killed off, because my POV character won't be considering anything but staying alive.

rwm4768 · Jun 13, 2014

Point of view is key. If you're in first or close third, you have to describe the fight as your POV character would. In many cases, this means you don't mention every punch, or parry, or martial arts move. If you do that, you'll slow down the fight and make it seem boring. Fights are usually quick. Large-scale battles are usually chaotic.

blacbird · Jun 13, 2014

Ian Nathaniel Cohen said:
For those of you who incorporate fight scenes into your works, I'm always curious as to how other people write them. I'm particularly interested in how - or if - you choreograph them and translate your choreography into prose while making it exciting at the same time.

I've been fascinated with the process of fight choreography for a very long time (to the point where I've not only taken fencing lessons, but fight choreography and stage combat). Most of my novels are inspired by classic Hollywood swashbucklers, and as a result, I want my fight choreography to look more cinematic than realistic.

The bolded above is your major problem. Fights happen fast, and prose rendition of a fight isn't the same as a staged visual presentation in a movie. Moviegoers watch the action with an interest in the outcome, and generally don't pay a lot of attention to the detail the actors and director and post-production people put into the scenes.

My recommendation if you want people to be interested in your "fight" scenes. DO NOT CHOREOGRAPH. Period.

Next issue is: What is the POV of your narrative? Without knowing that, it's really impossible to provide further sensible advice.

caw

VeryBigBeard · Jun 13, 2014

I tend to prefer quick as well, after I read a post here that described real fights in a great deal of detail, and how most of them are actually over within a few seconds. (Unfortunately I forgot to clip the note and with my mind the way it is anything that's not in Evernote is as good as gone... sigh.... Credit to whoever it was said it.)

I don't always apply that because there's a difference between a fight and a battle--battles often being made up of fights. If I'm in tight POV, I try to make a fantasy battle a series of little fights. Quick exchange, quick reaction, then the next problem. I also like trying to change my character's perspective somewhere along the way--not in voice, just by changing how much she can see by moving her, or giving enough of a pause for her to glance into the middle distance, or by using other senses. I think it adds motion. Sometimes my battles are from a distance, in which case there's more room for longer passages that get into the core of the conflict and capture mood, sound, and other things that I think get missed in the realistic rush of a fight. There are always multiple realities to a fight.

In terms of choreography, I find a struggle a bit when I think too much about it. I very much admire both Brian Jacques and Guy Kay, both of whom do (IMHO) great battle scenes in very different ways.

Though I struggle with the planning, I do find it helpful to come into each battle with an angle. It's something I've used more in journalism than fiction--you go to an event with some idea of what it means, what might/should happen, and then watch for what changes your perception of it or operates against expectation. If I over-plan and try to stick to it, I end up losing the core of the action and I get stuck in perma-battle.

screenscope · Jun 14, 2014

In my novel I have long fight sequence on board a sailing ship, a knife, cutlass and sword battle involving a hundred or so men. I covered it from four POVs, two from opposing combatants (detailed descriptions from within the fight), one from an observer (overall view)and the last from a character approaching the action (sounds), but who could not see what was going on.

The switches and accumulated information, I hope, resulted in a very clear sequence for the reader, and the rapid switches of POV, each with a cliff-hanger at the end, gave a great deal of urgency and excitement to the piece.

At least that was the intention!

Jamesaritchie · Jun 14, 2014

VeryBigBeard said:
I tend to prefer quick as well, after I read a post here that described real fights in a great deal of detail, and how most of them are actually over within a few seconds. .

Most fights, fist or sword, last a very short time. Ninety percent of all fistfights end with the first solid punch landed.

But there are fistfights on record that have last more than two hours, and sword fights that have lasted more than one hour.

Gunfights, too, usually end quickly, but under the right circumstances, can last for hours.

So fast or slow, both are accurate, if you write it well.

dondomat · Jun 14, 2014

If you have the balls and the skill you can have a character like Conan or The Saint or Jack Reacher who the reader knows always comes out on top and this doesn't decrease the enjoyment; and the fight scene itself can be even be a two page sentence followed by a three page sentence, if you have the aforementioned set of balls and skill to pull it off:

Godzilla-sentence number one:

Reacher saw the dark blue Chevrolet and instantly linked it through Vincent’s testimony back at the motel to the two men he had seen from Dorothy Coe’s barn, while simultaneously critiquing the connection, in that Chevrolets were very common cars and dark blue was a very common colour, while simultaneously recalling the two matched Iranians and the two matched Arabs he had seen, and asking himself whether the rendezvous of two separate pairs of strange men in winter in a Nebraska hotel could be just a coincidence, and if indeed it wasn’t, whether it might then reasonably imply the presence of a third pair of men, which might or might not be the two tough guys from Dorothy’s farm, however inexplicable those six men’s association might be, however mysterious their purpose, while simultaneously watching the man in front of him dropping his car key, and moving his arm, and putting his hand in his coat pocket, while simultaneously realizing that the guys he had seen on Dorothy’s farm had not been staying at Vincent’s motel, and that there was nowhere else to stay except right there, sixty miles south at the Marriott, which meant that the Chevrolet was likely theirs, at least within the bounds of reasonable possibility, which meant that the Iranian with the moving arm was likely connected with them in some way, which made the guy an enemy, although Reacher had no idea how or why, while simultaneously knowing that likely didn’t mean shit in terms of civilian jurisprudence, while simultaneously recalling years of hard-won experience that told him men like this Iranian went for their pockets in dark parking lots for one of only four reasons, either to pull out a cell phone to call for help, or to pull out a wallet or a passport or an ID to prove their innocence or their authority, or to pull out a knife, or to pull out a gun.

Interlude:

Reacher knew all that, while also knowing that violent reaction ahead of the first two reasons would be inexcusable, but that violent reaction ahead of the latter two reasons would be the only way to save his life.
Starbursts and waterfalls and explosions of thoughts, all jostling and competing and fighting for supremacy.
Better safe than sorry.
Reacher reacted.
He twisted from the waist in a violent spasm and started a low sidearm punch aimed at the centre of the Iranian’s chest.

King King-sentence number two:

Chemical reaction in his brain, instantaneous transmission of the impulse, chemical reaction in every muscle system from his left foot to his right fist, total elapsed time a small fraction of a second, total distance to target less than a yard, total time to target another small fraction of a second, which was good to know right then, because the guy’s hand was all the way in his pocket by that point, his own nervous system reacting just as fast as Reacher’s, his elbow jerking up and back and trying to free whatever the hell it was he wanted, be it a knife, or a gun, or a phone, or a driver’s licence, or a passport, or a government ID, or a perfectly innocent letter from the University of Tehran proving he was a world expert on plant genetics and an honoured guest in Nebraska just days away from increasing local profits a hundredfold and eliminating world hunger at one fell swoop.

50 Foot Woman-sentence number three:

But right or wrong Reacher’s fist was homing in regardless and the guy’s eyes were going wide and panicked in the gloom and his arm was jerking harder and the brown skin and the black hair on the back of his moving hand was showing above the hem of his pocket, and then came his knuckles, all five of them bunched and knotted because his fingers were clamping hard around something big and black.

Interlude number two:

Then Reacher’s blow landed.

Mothra-sentence number four:

Two hundred and fifty pounds of moving mass, a huge fist, a huge impact, the zipper of the guy’s coat driving backward into his breastbone, his breastbone driving backward into his chest cavity, the natural elasticity of his ribcage letting it yield whole inches, the resulting violent compression driving the air from his lungs, the hydrostatic shock driving blood back into his heart, his head snapping forward like a crash test dummy, his shoulders driving backward, his weight coming up off the ground, his head whipping backward again and hitting a plate glass window behind him with a dull boom like a kettle drum, his arms and legs and torso all going down like a rag doll, his body falling, sprawling, the hard polycarbonate click and clatter of something black skittering away on the ground, Reacher tracking it all the way in the corner of his eye, not a wallet, not a phone, not a knife, but a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol, all dark and boxy and wicked.

Writing fight scenes

Ian Nathaniel Cohen

Jamesaritchie

folkchick

Not a new kid

Dave.C.Robinson

... with the High Command

Maryn

At Sea

Drachen Jager

Professor of applied misanthropy

amillimiles

Drachen Jager

Professor of applied misanthropy

guttersquid

I agree with Roxxsmom.

MynaOphelia

lost her spaceship again

Ian Nathaniel Cohen

Layla Nahar

Seashell Seller

Gunzen

Rozez

Jamesaritchie

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer

WeaselFire

Benefactor Member

Ailsa

Ian Nathaniel Cohen

Lord of Chaos

Let Chaos reign

rwm4768

practical experience, FTW

blacbird

VeryBigBeard

Preparing for winter

screenscope

Jamesaritchie

dondomat