The Top 5 Things I've Learned About Writing Fight Scenes

Let's talk about writing.

So, I'm pretty damn close to self-publishing my first novel Remnants of Chaos: Chaotic Omens. A book that I've been working on for ten years. I sh*t you not. I started writing it back in December 2007. For those of you wondering what it's about, well, the short answer is demon slayers. So, as you may expect, it's on the dark side and has a lot of action. I actually label my book as a Gothic Epic because "action" isn't grandiose enough, and "horror" doesn't really fit. Yes, it's dark, but it's not really scary.

Anyway, when I started ROCCO, I wanted it to be epic and have these great fight scenes in it. As you can imagine from a noob who doesn't have much experience writing, some of my fight scenes dragged on. I also had this notion that all my chapters had to be at least twenty pages when double spaced because I noticed that many of JK's chapters were twenty pages long in the Harry Potter series. Well, that was ridiculous because in print those books are single spaced. But, I digress.

As I got older and wiser, and gave my book to a friend of mine to beta read, some things about the action of ROCCO began to dawn on me, and I would like to pass down these tips to any writers out there interested in writing a fight scene. So, let's get on with it.

1. Highly Detailed Fights are for Film

I love action movies. Films like Underworld, The Matrix, hell, even SuckerPunch. They're just so over the top in their action, incredibly detailed, and so thrilling! However, have you ever imagined what it would be like to read a transcript of a fight scene? Sure, the movements may be epic and fluid, and the characters in the scene are experts of their arts and only a martial arts weeaboo can really wrap his head around how awesome the fight is, but reading how it plays out kind of sucks.

Now, you will need some elementary action description such as "jump kicked," "jabbed and then crossed," or "parried against his enemy's sword with his buckler before following it up with a riposte," but you don't need to break down every little action and reaction; you don't need to detail every attack, counterattack, and then counter to the counterattack. You're not writing a fight manual or an instructional guide for a practitioner. This book is meant to entertain, not teach. You can teach your audience some things like proper technique or terminology if you slip it in quick enough, but remember, it's perfectly acceptable to say, "He gained the upper hand on his enemy, and before delivering the coup de grace, he said, 'blah blah blah.'"

So, leave the fine details of the fight to the film adaptation.

Transcribing this scene would be a bitch!

2. There's a Formula for Writing Fight Scenes

Believe it or not, there is a style or formula that should be adhered to when writing an action scene. Now, this particular tip I get from Jackie Chan. When Jackie Chan ever puts an action or fight scene in one of his movies, there's something they all have in common, and that's that Jackie must overcome an obstacle. Think about it, in many of Jackie Chan's movies, he typically has a handicap of some sort such as he's fighting dozens of baddies, he has to protect someone, or he's using a ladder or bicycle as a weapon. These are all situations that place Jackie at a disadvantage and it's something he has to overcome in order to win. And the great thing about it is that Jackie has been doing this in all of his movies since the very beginning and it's probably one of the reasons why he's so popular and seems so invincible, yet human at the same time.

Think of it like this: I'm sure you're all familiar with how as a story's plot progresses, there's a sequence of rising and falling action. And generally, these smaller challenges are what lead to the big crisis at the climax of the story where the reader will see if the characters have developed enough to evolve as necessary and win in the end. Ergo, as you write, you should think about most fights as an opportunity to show that your characters can change, adapt, and evolve as warriors. Stack the odds against them in some way, and write the scene so that they are able to win using their strengths, or preferably, learning and adapting to new ones.

Takes great skill to be able to fight with a ladder in the first place.

3. Long Action Scenes are Boring

The Battle of the Five Armies from The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies.
It was nowhere near as epic as this in the book. Probably because
it would've been boring as hell to read.

Going back to how super detailed fights should be saved for the cinema, this is another time when you want to leave something to the movie studio. Even if the fight scene isn't super detailed, if all it is, is a fight scene with barely any dialogue, or character or plot development, it's going to be pretty boring. Not to mention, when movie goers think of a long fight scene, they probably think of a scene lasting eight minutes. For a reader, a long fight scene could be a minimum of three pages. Now, that may sound disheartening, but remember, I'm talking pure or mostly action. You don't want it to carry on so readers actually start skipping the hit-by-hit play and just jump to where the dialogue or story picks up again. They could miss something important. So, try to keep unimportant fight scenes short, and give the important ones plenty of breaks. Speaking of which... 

4. Action Scenes Should Have Purpose

If the action in a scene is important or is supposed to be important, then it should have a purpose. What sort of purpose? Well, it needs to reveal character, world, or story detail, or advance the story and/or character development. While there are some of us who love fighting for the sake of fighting, you shouldn't just put an epic fight into your story just because you feel like it. There's a saying in the writing world: if what you're writing doesn't add to the story, don't put it in. Anything's that's pointless will drive your word count up which could piss off your publisher or audience, and it may take away from the rest of the story. Sure, you've got a book 70,000 words long, but a quarter of that is fight scenes for sh*ts and grins. What a rip. Those are words that could have been used adding to the story. So, remember, make most of your fight scenes have a point. The good news is that if your fight scene has a point, you can make it longer and partially disregard point 3.

Try this simple exercise. What can you learn about two characters
when you find out they're women who practice Muay Thai, one of the
most brutal martial arts on the planet?

5. Action Scenes Should Have Impact!

That's a lot of impact!

I'm not talking about story or character impact, I'm talking about impact. Ka-pow! Blam! Boom! If a character punches someone, you don't want to write, "he punched him." No, no. That doesn't have any feel. And it can't be "he punched him hard." Well, no sh*t. If you're going to hit someone, there's a good chance you're going to hit them hard. Now, if your character punched someone softly, that would be different because it's not expected.

So, instead what you need to do is say something like, "he punched him so hard, he was thrown across the room," or "the force of his punch was so incredible that if he hadn't missed, the baddie's head would've gone through the dry wall instead." Another thing to keep in mind is to make sure you use impactful verbs: slash instead of cut, thrust instead of poke, crushed instead of stamped, decked or slugged instead of punch--you know, something with a lot of energy. Make your reader feel the character's pain.

                                                               


So, those are the five most important things I've learned about writing fight scenes from writing about fight scenes. And, you're likely to pick up more as you go along. In fact, if you have any tips or you think there are things I've missed, go ahead and leave your comment below. And, if you want to keep up with all my writing tips and banter, why not sign up to my Let's Talk About Writing mailing list. Everyone who signs up will receive a novel outline template to help you outline your novel.

Keep writing, my friends.

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