Making that Fight Scene Seem Real

QUESTION:  I’m having trouble writing a decent fight scene.  Any suggestions?

The absolute best way to get the fight scene right is to really put yourself straight into the viewpoint character's head and feel that weapon in your hand, see your enemy in front of you, see the location.  What do you see, feel, touch, taste, and hear?  Are you scared sh*tless or are you a cold killing machine?  Etc.  Etc.

If you have no experience in fighting, try to think of something you have done that can compare to that like a really aggressive game of football or basketball to get a sense of the craziness of a lot of people moving around you.

There are some really great reality documentary style shows like DEADLIEST WARRIOR, which really shows you how warriors from particular eras fought.  I imagine you can find them online or can find the series where you rent TV shows.

If you are writing monster fight scenes, the reality documentary series JURASSIC FIGHT CLUB where dinosaurs fight each other will give you ideas beyond the one monster bites the other scenario.

Also, go to your keeper shelf and pull out those novels where the writer really got it right and study how he did it.  I always recommend Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series where everything from guns to magic are used in small fights to battles.

If nothing else helps, just write the dang scene so you'll have it on the page, then go back and rewrite it until you and your critique partners are happy with the results. 

My blog also has some more articles on the subject under the label "fight scenes."  Read those.

Adding a Romantic Partner

 QUESTION:  I’m writing an action adventure novel and someone told me I needed to add a girlfriend for my hero so he could save her and win her love.  What do you think?

One of the problems with the hero getting the girl/love object in the end is that it harkens back to the idea that the girl is only a sex partner/thing to be won, not an active participant who deserves the happy ending.  The passive love/sex partner really annoys most readers who find it either sexist or boring.  

If you put the girl/sex partner in, you have to make this character a participant in the story in a very important way, and she must be more than a sex object/prize.

My own advice is that it isn't romance but love that makes a novel stand above others.  The main character must love— be it a romantic partner, his family, or some ideal like his country.  That love must drive what the character does and what the character is, or the novel lacks the something that makes it more than a quick read that is quickly forgotten. 

Goal, Motivatin, and Cost

Have you ever started reading a novel where the main character decides to face an impossible task and an implacable enemy with the odds so far in favor of the bad guys that success, let alone survival, is minimal at best?

Sounds like a great novel, doesn't it?

I've just finished two novels where the main character is in that impossible situation.  In one novel, the hero must face these impossible odds to save his young daughter from a very ugly death.  In the second, the heroine must find out the truth about the death of a young woman she's never met, and the outcome appears to have no real value to her.  She's not even working for money.

I zipped through the first novel like a speed-reading lunatic to find out how the hero managed to save his little girl.  I cared about the results from page one to “The End.” 

The second novel I very nearly tossed away after the first few chapters because I hate stupid and suicidal main characters who have no real reason to go forward in an impossible situation, but I persevered out of curiosity and a fondness for dissecting author mistakes.  

After over half the novel, the author of the second novel finally lets the reader know why the heroine has continued forward in the investigation, but by then, the damage has been done to the novel and the reader's reactions to the heroine.  The reader also realizes that the author has cheated by withholding vital information which a fair author would not.  At this point, the odds of the reader picking up the next book by this author are slimmer than the original chance of the hero's survival.

As an author, you must balance the main character’s goal, its cost to him, and his motivation.  If the goal and the probable cost for the main character is great, the character must have motivation that equals both.