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Tips On Writing Fight Scenes?



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Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:03 am
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Virgil says...



So I've always held this problem of not knowing how to write fight scenes when it comes to prose. I want to be more realistic with them, specifically. I know that a bullet doesn't heal in a day, and I know that there's more to actual fighting than what we write down, I'm just unsure of how to go about writing fight scenes in general, so any tips or sources on that would be wonderful!

Thanks in advance! I'll try to get to your replies as soon as possible.

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Wed Jun 07, 2017 5:20 am
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Rosendorn says...



Re: the mechanics of fighting, this blog is wonderful. Note— it's tumblr, so there's swearing.

Re: how to actually make a fight scene feel like a fight.

Do not focus exclusively on movements. Do not. Even if you have a background in martial arts, most people do not and as a result most people do not know what the terms are, or how the terms fit together into a sequence. Not to mention a real fight lasts seconds, and by the time you've described every component of the movement you've written a page.

Do use short sentences/paragraphs. Short syntax is the automatic weapon of fiction: they let you deliver short. quick. tense blasts over and over. This doesn't work if you've relied on short sentences the whole way through your story, which is why I tend to recommend it people vary their sentence lengths and become conscious of it.

Do focus on the feeling. Desperation to get out? Laboured breathing and get away get away get away. Anger? Tense muscles tunnel vision adrenalin and I will destroy you. Bored? One two three done dusted bye (the one time to focus on movement, but sparingly— clinical dissection reveals a lot about a character's state). You get the gist.

Do focus on the stakes. If a fight is inconsequential to the plot, just get it out of the way and move onto the cool bits (Graceling actually starts off this way, and goes along the bored route I mentioned above; it was definitely a weird opening to read, but a good one). If this is the climactic battle, then you definitely should've spent awhile building up to how important this is and explored multiple feelings your character has. If this is a character establishing battle, ask yourself both what you want to establish and what the character thinks about the fight.

And most importantly, relevant details only. Fight scenes are not the place to wax poetic. They are the place to get in, establish character, and get out.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

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Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:32 am
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Virgil says...



@Rosendorn Thanks so much! I'll check that blog out and try to remember your tips when writing. I figure that writing isn't supposed to be elegant, but quick and dirty, since that's how it often happens in real life, it seems. I'll definitely keep these tips in mind (I wanted to ask since I'm thinking about doing Camp Nano and realized that I didn't know how to go about it very well).

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