What a Good Fight Scene Needs

A fight scene is put into the plot not only to liven up the action but also to move the plot forward. Figure out what is at stake for the viewpoint character and the other characters. Make the possible results of the fight, beyond dying, as dangerous as getting killed.

This is the beginning of a fight scene in STAR-CROSSED. Kellen is being transported by two soldiers to his first owner and a life as a sex slave, and one decides to try him herself.

When she invaded his mouth, Kellen heaved with nausea. For the first time, he understood the violation of rape. He fell backwards onto the floorboard with her on top of him. She weighed more than he did. Her hand slid into his pants.

As she touched him, he realized that it would be die or escape. No middle ground of surviving in the harem was acceptable to him. He hit her then, a killing blow to the throat. She gurgled and arced like a woman in orgasm and went limp.

For Kellen, at this moment, death is preferable to what is in store for him, and escape or death are his only options, and the reader knows this, too.

The fight should also offer at least one or two pieces of the viewpoint character's emotional puzzle to the reader as well as telling the reader something about the opponent. 

In this scene from THE ONCE AND FUTURE QUEEN, I wanted to show my hero Val's skill at stopping a fight, not in winning one. He's facing his rival for the Queen in an exhibition match that quickly turns real. Prince Gregory also shows his true nature in this fight.

During the first blows, Val concentrated on his defense and let his muscles settle into the rhythm of swordplay. 

After several minutes of attempting to get past his defenses, Prince Gregory began to batter at him as if to pound him into the ground. The prince had expected a quick defeat and easy humiliation, not an equal opponent, and his simmering anger about Fira now boiled. He wouldn't be content with pretend wounds and victory; he was out for blood.

The crowd, who had chattered and cheered their local favorite, became completely silent, and the air rang with the tintinnabulation of the singing blades and the hoarse rasp of both fighters' breathes.

Val thought desperately for a way out of the mess. 

Gregory's weapon slipped past his defenses and slashed toward his throat. Val dodged, laughing as if having a marvelous time. He praised loudly, "A wonderful strategy."

When Gregory slashed backhanded in a return blow, Val thrust his blade vertically and caught it before it cut him in half. "Excellent. Excellent. You're one of the finest swordsmen I've ever seen."

Gregory blinked as if coming out of a daze but continued to go for blood.

Val laughed and spouted praise for almost a minute before the prince's attack began to ease in its brutality. Their weapons caught each other high in the air, and they stood belly to belly, face to face.

Gregory whispered, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Dying is a messy, bloody, ugly thing. I don't want to kill you in front of Fira, and I don't particularly want to die in front of her either. Where I come from that's not acceptable. If we must fight, we do it without a female audience."

The boy glanced toward Fira who stood white and silent, her hands clinched in painful distress. "I had forgotten...." He danced away, bringing his sword forward. "Another time then."

Creating a Character's Physical Actions

When I write physical fights like a sword battle, I picture the fight like it's a movie. I see what each character is doing and what is happening around them.

I also get up from the computer and pretend I'm holding a sword, imagine the opponent's move, and block it noting my balance, what I'm leaving open, and the possible return blow. 

To vary the fighting, I use the physical location of the hero. The floor may be bloody from his first opponent so the hero or villain may slip and fail to parry a blow, etc. If more than one good guy is fighting, the fighters may affect each other as an enemy steps into the hero's range, or he falls beside him. 

I rarely write out blow for blow because I think that's boring. Instead, I'll give occasional overviews of what's happening while staying in the character's viewpoint. For example, the hero is thinking about how his body is learning the rhythm of the fight, or he's aware of other fighters around him.

I try to avoid using technical terms to describe the fight because I'm writing as much for those unfamiliar with swordplay as those who are, but I try to be accurate about how to use the weapon, and I use a sprinkling of correct terminology to make it seem more realistic. 

I've never fought with a sword, but I've held a number in my hand, and I've watched others fight with them. I try to remember the weight of the weapon, the sound a fighter makes as he swings the heavy sword, and the sheer weariness of the weight of fighting something or someone above you. 

I also include different senses in the description. What is the character hearing? Feeling? Smelling? Tasting? 

This method also works with fist fights and other man to man combat.

Love in Action Scenes

In a recent blog, I discussed how sexual attraction can detract from an action scene--a person facing an enemy is more likely to die if they are thinking about sex with their romantic and fighting partner so such thoughts in fiction makes the scene unrealistic, and the pace of the action scene is also ruined by the constant interruptions.

Long declarations and discussions of love or long introspective moments when a character is fighting are no more appropriate, but, surprisingly, the emotion of love isn’t such an interruption if used correctly as motivation. Love, particularly a love that makes the lover’s life more important than his own, will make a character do unexpected things in a fight. 

She may be so busy keeping an eye on her lover that she isn’t protecting herself well enough. He may be so concerned about keeping her safe that he doesn’t trust her to fight as she is capable of doing and interferes disastrously in her fight.

Love as a motivation in battle can make the strong weaker, and the weak stronger. It can be the Achilles heel of a powerful fighter if the enemy recognizes it.

A life-threatening moment can also be a revelation for a character. He may not have realized the intensity of his feelings for the woman until her life stands in balance. 

She may know how she feels, but never said anything until the fight is over, and they cling to each other after nearly dying, then she blurts out her feelings without meaning to. 

Love is the most powerful motivation in the world, and using the characters’ feelings for each other can make an action scene even more powerful. 

Character Emotions During Action Scenes

 The viewpoint character's emotions and senses must be as much at play in a fight or action scene as his body and weapons. 

I make a special effort to include all the senses in my descriptions. What does he hear? See? Smell? Taste? Feel?

How do he react to killing someone? The death of a friend?

Adding emotion isn't an either/or situation. It's just as vital to add emotional layers to the physical action as it is to have brief moments of introspection when the battle isn't going on.

Characterization also isn't just introspection. It's characters interacting with each other and revealing themselves in bits and pieces.

Your band of adventurers may not sit around "sharing their feelings" in touchie-feelie moments like a Dr. Phil show, but they've been around each other enough to know that one hates the bad guys because they murdered his wife and kids, and he's liable to attack without thought and ruin their surprise attack.

He may be clutching the sword at his side, his other hand opening and closing in nervous energy, and another adventurer may warn him to relax and may mention the wife and kiddies.

The image of his wife's raped and brutalized body could flash through his mind, and he fights his raw anger and lust to kill. That won't slow the action down like having a long interior flashback of him finding his family's bodies, and his vow of revenge. Instead, it adds to the excitement of the coming action because the reader now questions whether this guy will lose his cool and get everyone killed.

An even better way to present this information is to put it in an earlier scene that isn't action intensive so the reader will know the details and will only need a slight reminder of this character's motivation and tendency to attack without thought.

Remember, though, that a character's emotions are meant to increase the intensity of the scene, not slow it down or mar its pacing.

The Physical Limitations of Power

Movies like THE FANTASTIC FOUR (2005 version) and SPIDER MAN seem to get the emotional cost of power right. For example, Peter Parker and Ben Grimm face emotional difficulties by having that second identity and the need to save the world, one villain at a time. 

Peter has a rough time with relationships and finances because he's always running off to wear that red spider suit, and he has a weird, but not likely tendency, to have friends and professors who have a supervillian within or as a member of the family. 

Poor Ben Grimm gets changed into The Thing who makes the Incredible Hulk look like the Incredible Hunk, and at two tons with massive hands, he finds the simplest task like eating or lifting a coffee cup just about impossible. He also loses his wife who can't deal with his physical change, and he's stared at and shunned.

What these movies and the comics they are based on sometimes don't get right is the physical cost of having a superpower.

Johnny Storm, The Human Torch, of THE FANTASTIC FOUR, is a perfect example. He puts out an incredible amount of heat when he ignites himself and flies. At the end of the movie, he is involved in a long chase scene then becomes a supernova, but he is only winded by the end of the final confrontation with Dr. Doom.

Where does this energy come from, and why isn't he starving or weak after such an expenditure? 

The reality is that he should be since these comics are based on pseudo-science, and energy isn't infinite even in pseudo-science.

By giving a superhero limitations in power, the writer is also making the story more exciting because a certain weakness means possible defeat.

Just think of Superman and Kryptonite. Superman isn't very exciting when he's fighting criminals because we know all the bullets will bounce off the chest but toss in Kryptonite, and he's as mortal as the rest of us. 

In your own writing, remember to include the physical cost as well as the emotional cost for your characters, superheroes or not, and your story will be much more exciting.

Now, "Flame On!" but remember to have your character completely depleted and moving on courage by the end of the final fight and have him stop by the all-you-can-eat buffet to celebrate his victory.

Viewpoint in the Catacombs

In last week’s post I discussed how to write viewpoint in a battle.  I’ve never written a large battle of armies, but I’ve written a number of multi-person fight scenes.  Below is a scene from THE ONCE AND FUTURE QUEEN, a now out-of-print space opera.  My viewpoint character and hero is Captain Valerian Grant.  He and three of his ship’s crew have gone into the catacombs under the capital city to help locals find the kidnapped queen of the planet, and, yes, the locals use swords.  

Notice how I switch back and forth in Val’s viewpoint from personal awareness to situational awareness of his group and their opponents.  This allowed me to show both what is happening to and around Val.  

After about ten minutes of travel, they reached a wider portion of tunnel where they could all walk almost abreast.  They fell into groups of two and moved more swiftly.  Prince Gregory came up beside Val, and they stayed close to Patrick at point.  Following behind, Smith and Adam kept a constant eye on their sensors.  Wadja guarded their rear.  

Patrick hissed a warning, but before Val could half unsheathe his sword, the enemy was on them from behind.  He tossed his lighted torch toward the wall to get it out of hand and from under foot, and brought the Lady's Sword out as someone huge, human, and armed with a sword materialized from the darkness in front of them and attacked.  

He had a bare moment to be aware his group was outnumbered and surrounded on both sides before he parried a blow from his opponent.  The swords clanged together, sparks flying in the half darkness.  

Recalling Adam had never handled a sword and couldn't use a stunner because of the booby traps, Val spun and kicked his opponent's groin.  He didn't have time to fight fair right now, but he'd apologize to the man's corpse later.  

The man bent double, and Val smashed him across the face with the hilt of his sword.  The man went down, and Val dodged his body as he studied the melee around him.  

Patrick and Gregory fought back to back a distance away in one of the widest sections of the tunnel.  Around them lay at least three wounded men, and they fought about four more.  From the ease in which they relied on each other and worked as one fighter, Val could tell that part of Gregory's training with Patrick had been for situations such as this.  Patrick's skill, which surpassed Gregory's, sparked a moment of speculation as Val searched for his own people.

With four wounded men at their perimeter, Wajda and Smith had their backs to the wall with Adam between them.  Wajda with his deadly skill struck and darted like a snake at the two men who harried him, but Smith who'd never had training in swords depended on her superior Pandori strength to combat her three more experienced opponents.  

She battered at them, and at each parried blow, the huge men staggered back under her brutal onslaught.  Over a foot shorter, she forced them into awkward blows while she took advantage of the angle of attack by striking at undefended areas.  One of her opponents was bloody across the lower chest and a second limped.

Adam, who had the wisdom to stay out of Wajda and Smith's way, employed his own great height by gigging and prodding the enemy with his sword.  It wasn't the prime way to fight with a sword, but the men who fought Smith and Wajda had Adam to contend with too, and several had bloody heads, and one of the wounded on the floor had an upper shoulder wound only a giant like Adam could have dealt.

Val wondered at his own unpopularity as an opponent since he'd attracted only one fighter, then decided he'd been separated from the others in the first rush of the enemy.  Careful to avoid the wounded who still had enough life to be dangerous, he advanced toward Wajda and Smith. He shouted a Viking cry he'd learned from Adam.

As the catacombs echoed with the frightening and demoralizing summons to battle, two fighters spun toward him.  Val crouched, letting them come to him away from his people, then he exploded at them.  

Visceral response and years of training took over and the next minutes became a blur of dodging and assaulting his two opponents who were both excellent fighters.  Apparently, the bad fighters had all been wounded in the first round of battle.

These two opponents were far too wily to let him pull the same trick he had on his first enemy so he bashed the hell out of them while he sought an opening in their defenses.  

Finally, the one to his left slipped on the damp catacomb stone.  As the man tottered, Val kicked him in the knee.  With a nasty but oddly satisfying crunch, the kneecap broke, and the man fainted, falling toward the other swordsman.

His other opponent dodged and stumbled.  Val swung his sword like a ball bat toward the man's throat.  The man's head tumbled off his shoulders like a lopsided ball, then the body crashed down.  

Val sidestepped the head and body to avoid the slippery, gushing blood.  In the dancing light of the dropped torches, the catacomb tunnel was littered with bodies and wounded, and around him, he could hear moans of pain and cursing.  He counted important intact heads.  

Patrick and Gregory, surrounded by fallen bodies, stood where they'd fought, and Patrick stanched a wound on Gregory's right forearm while keeping an eye out for enemy.  Adam's blond hair shown in the half light as he bent toward Wajda who, standing, held his bleeding upper left shoulder, and Smith towered before them at guard.  Her fine head fur bristled on end, her teeth bared in defense posture, she watched the fallen enemy and the passages to either side.

With a wordless, heartfelt prayer of thanks for everyone's safety after being attacked three to one, Val grinned and blew the Pandori female a kiss, then with his sword at ready, he made his way through the wounded and bodies toward Patrick and Gregory. 

Viewpoint in Battle

QUESTION:  I want to write an overview of what is happening during battle.  How do I do this?

One of the choices an author makes is what kind of viewpoint to use.  In a novel like a fantasy with lots of action, the advantage of using an omniscient viewpoint is that you can give an overview of a big battle.  The disadvantage is that all immediacy is lost because you aren’t in your main character’s head.  Readers today prefer the immediacy of third or first person viewpoint because they want to feel what the character feels, see what he sees, etc.  Omniscient is more cold, and closer to a camera watching the action.

You can’t switch back and forth between types of viewpoint at your convenience because doing this knocks the reader right out of the book, and that’s one thing you want to avoid at all costs.

If you use a single viewpoint in a big fight, you'll miss some of the action because one fighter can't see everything, but you'll have intensity.  If it is a long battle and you have more than one viewpoint character fighting, you can switch to the other viewpoint character in another scene. 

If you want the reader to know about what’s going on in the big battle, you can have your character end up on a hill above the fight so he can see how the battle is going, or he can talk to another character who relays this information.  

Study novels you've enjoyed where the novelist has really drawn you in during scenes like this.  Seeing how he/she did it is a master's class in writing. 

One particular writer who does great fight scenes and battles is Ilona Andrews who writes the urban fantasy series about Kate Daniels.  It is set in modern times, but the weapons are often swords, etc.  The author is a husband and wife team, and the husband is ex-military, and it really shows in the fight scenes.

Defeating the Bad Guy

In a novel I read recently, the heroine faces a human villain and a major supernatural villain.  She spends the novel avoiding being killed by the human villain’s minions while the supernatural villain lurks in the background waiting to destroy the world.  

Toward the end of the novel, the surviving minions show up for a final showdown with the heroine and her supporters.  A huge battle ensues, and the heroine is trapped.  The human villain reveals himself, and he’s killed within a few paragraphs by one of the heroine’s friends in an offhand manner.  That’s it.

The heroine had a longer scene with a sales clerk selling her a magical weapon than the final confrontation with the human villain, and she didn’t even take a shot at the bad guy.  He’s killed by a secondary character.

Meanwhile, the supernatural villain, a god no less, who has been the lurking big bad for the whole series, finally decides to show up to kill the heroine then wipe out life on Earth.  

He rates half a chapter, most of it a chase scene, before he’s killed in a mildly clever manner.  

If you have a villain, you have to give him a major confrontation with the main character, and it has to be long enough to give the reader a sense of anticipation, a sense of fear that the bad guy may win, and an awareness the hero is worthy of being the hero by having him fight with everything he has and then some to defeat this monster.  

Think of all the great confrontations in the movies.  Luke Skywalker against Darth Vader.  Jake Sully and the Na’vi against the human forces and the Marine commander in AVATAR.  The sheriff’s confrontation with the outlaws in HIGH NOON.  All involved struggles against the bad guy’s forces then a final confrontation between the main character and the bad guy.  All involved enough screen time to make that final confrontation epic.  

Make your own final confrontation epic.

NOTE:  Even if your novel doesn’t involve violence and the main antagonist is your character’s bitchy, controlling mother, you still need that final confrontation—that moment when the main character stands her own ground and says, “I’m not your little girl anymore.  I’m my own woman,”  and walks away to live her own life.  

What a Good Fight Scene Needs

 A fight scene is put into the plot not only to liven up the action but also to move the plot forward. Figure out what is at stake for the viewpoint character and the other characters. Make the possible results of the fight, beyond dying, as dangerous as getting killed.

This is the beginning of a fight scene in STAR-CROSSED. Kellen is being transported by two soldiers to his first owner and a life as a sex slave, and one decides to try him herself.

When she invaded his mouth, Kellen heaved with nausea. For the first time, he understood the violation of rape. He fell backwards onto the floorboard with her on top of him. She weighed more than he did. Her hand slid into his pants.

As she touched him, he realized that it would be die or escape. No middle ground of surviving in the harem was acceptable to him. He hit her then, a killing blow to the throat. She gurgled and arced like a woman in orgasm and went limp.

For Kellen, at this moment, death is preferable to what is in store for him, and escape or death are his only options, and the reader knows this, too.

The fight should also offer at least one or two pieces of the viewpoint character's emotional puzzle to the reader as well as telling the reader something about the opponent. 

In this scene from THE ONCE AND FUTURE QUEEN, I wanted to show my hero Val's skill at stopping a fight, not in winning one. He's facing his rival for the Queen in an exhibition match that quickly turns real. Prince Gregory also shows his true nature in this fight.

During the first blows, Val concentrated on his defense and let his muscles settle into the rhythm of swordplay. 

After several minutes of attempting to get past his defenses, Prince Gregory began to batter at him as if to pound him into the ground. The prince had expected a quick defeat and easy humiliation, not an equal opponent, and his simmering anger about Fira now boiled. He wouldn't be content with pretend wounds and victory; he was out for blood.

The crowd, who had chattered and cheered their local favorite, became completely silent, and the air rang with the tintinnabulation of the singing blades and the hoarse rasp of both fighters' breathes.

Val thought desperately for a way out of the mess. 

Gregory's weapon slipped past his defenses and slashed toward his throat. Val dodged, laughing as if having a marvelous time. He praised loudly, "A wonderful strategy."

When Gregory slashed backhanded in a return blow, Val thrust his blade vertically and caught it before it cut him in half. "Excellent. Excellent. You're one of the finest swordsmen I've ever seen."

Gregory blinked as if coming out of a daze but continued to go for blood.

Val laughed and spouted praise for almost a minute before the prince's attack began to ease in its brutality. Their weapons caught each other high in the air, and they stood belly to belly, face to face.

Gregory whispered, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Dying is a messy, bloody, ugly thing. I don't want to kill you in front of Fira, and I don't particularly want to die in front of her either. Where I come from that's not acceptable. If we must fight, we do it without a female audience."

The boy glanced toward Fira who stood white and silent, her hands clinched in painful distress. "I had forgotten...." He danced away, bringing his sword forward. "Another time then."

The Woman as Warrior

 Movie and TV heroines have a lot to answer for in action/adventure scenes. Some writers see these women as realistic female fighters, and they aren’t even remotely realistic either as women or human beings in fighting methods, stamina, and strength.

Maybe your warrior princess or action babe in leather and overpriced stilettos is as tough as any man, but she will have certain physical limitations. Use those limitations to be creative in fight scenes.

During a TV showing of one of the AVENGERS movies, the fight coordinator who trained Scarlett Johansson talked about Black Widow’s fighting style.  Johannson is 5 ft, 3, so the director wanted her fighting to be as realistic as any superhero movie is for such a tiny woman.  That’s why she used her legs to kick and scissor choke big men.  With her much shorter reach with her arms, a punch or martial arts move would be easily avoided or blocked by a man with a much longer reach.  

The strongest woman is rarely as strong as the strongest man, but she may be faster, smarter, or more supple.  She may be trained in combat when he isn’t. Use her realistic strengths rather than using unrealistic strengths.

Many women are pragmatists, as well. The rule that both parties must use the same weapons for the fight to be “fair” has nothing to do with reality, and pragmatists know this. If a huge man with a knife charges toward your action babe, she should shoot him and not feel bad about it later.

In CAPTAIN MARVEL, this attitude is shown perfectly in the last showdown between Carol Danvers and the Jude Law character.  He tries to sucker her into a physical fight where he has all the advantages, but she blasts him into a mountain instead.  That’s not cheating, that’s smart.  That’s a woman fighting.  

Choosing Fighting Skills and Weapons

Once you have figured out what the characters have to lose in a fight scene, you must decide on each character's special abilities, weapons, etc. 

Your viewpoint character/hero's special abilities, weapons, and skills should have been set up long before this fight scene so it won't look like you pulled new abilities or weapons out of the air for your own convenience. 

List the special abilities of the viewpoint character then give his opponent a skill or weapon that is equal to or slightly better than his. Equal powers make interesting contests. Extremely unequal powers make for a dull fight.

Now, you can map out the coming fight. Remember that the hero must barely survive each kind of attack, and he must start running out of options. 

Especially in the final showdown, the hero must be forced to go beyond his abilities and must face some element of his ultimate fear. He must do what he considers unthinkable or impossible to win.

Next up: Writing a Character’s Physical Actions 

Fantasy Creatures in the Real World

Werewolves, vampires, and other supernatural beings have become a staple in current genre fiction. One problem I've seen in many of the fight scenes involving these creatures is created by a flaw in worldbuilding.

Consider this scene from a contemporary novel.  The vampire protagonist is in a dangerous part of a major city, and he's attacked by a large pack of demon-possessed humans. He fights them off until some of his vampire friends arrive, and all the demon-possessed humans are murdered. Fortunately, no normal humans saw the fight so the vampires' existence remains a secret. They stalk away into the night.

What's the problem? Simple. How can a race remain a secret for long with widespread killings and the sheer number of combatants on both sides? Wouldn't the police become a tad suspicious if the murders kept building up? Wouldn't a medical examiner suggest that someone with superhuman strength ripped these guys apart? And what about that weird DNA found on the ripped throat of one of the victims?

The fight itself can be perfectly choreographed and written, but at its end, when all the bodies are lying there, and the vampires are leaving the scene, some readers will go, "Wait a minute. What about the police? What about...." If you leave that kind of question, the fight scene has failed.

In a recent urban fantasy novel, the human-shaped demons spent the novel taking human prey while the vampires were killing the demons and the vampire hunters were killing the vampires, yet the humans and the police were apparently totally clueless about the existence of any of these creatures and unconcerned at a body count that fit a war zone, not an American city.

For a race like vampires or werewolves to remain secret, they must have very small numbers because a large number of anything can't be kept secret, or the race rarely makes contact with humans.

If they take prey, they must dispose of the bodies so no evidence of the deaths will ever be found. Their prey must also be on the edges of human society so that their loss won't be obvious. In other words, vampires should attack a homeless person, not the beautiful young countess surrounded by friends, retainers, and family.

Vampires definitely shouldn't attack tourists in a town which supports itself with tourism. Considering the incredible national coverage and outrage caused by just a few tourist deaths in places like Miami and New Orleans in recent years, it's highly unlikely that dozens of tourists becoming monster chow wouldn't cause a similar outcry and intense scrutiny.

Real world logic applies even to supernatural characters. Make the fight and its outcome logical, or you've failed.