McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Action Scenes / Fight Sequences
blgarver:
Hello everyone. I searched for a thread on this topic before I posted this and I didn't see anything similar. It seems like a topic that we would havet talked about already, so pardon me if there's an existing thread that I missed.
Anywho...
I was wondering how you other writers handle actions scenes and fighting. Action scenes flow pretty well for me (think wide shots in a movie; the roof scene in Die Hard, the drain chase in Terminator 2, that kind of stuff.) But close up hand to hand brawling type of stuff always gives me problems. It just seems to slow the pace down when I describe each punch and kick and movement. And I don't know enough about martial arts to really know what each move is called. But even if I did I wouldn't want to fill the scene with a bunch of fighting stances and terms for each move.
I'm in the middle of a big brawl right now where the main char is fighting a big group of people, and so far i'm just doing my best to write what happens. But it's hard to write with much style when you're describing each move. So it's like 80% a breakdown of the fight with about 20% storytelling and voice.
Anyone ever run into this problem? More importantly, has anyone worked out a way to solve it?
Josh:
Fight scenes can be a lot of fun, but you're right, too much detail can bog them down. If you have twenty pages of detailed layouts of joint locks, nerve pinches (describing the medical terms for the surrounding bone) and angles of fire adjusting for the wind speed and so on, yea...that's a bit overkill. Personally, I find that switching back and forth between those "summarized" portions and the "detailed" portions helps keep the flow jaunty, but adds a sense of the fight being real. Also, one can easily visualize things like punches and kicks, so you can blend a series of thrusts and blocks just by saying, "Jamie threw a flurry of punches at Mark, who backed away time and again." But maybe your character has a special move with a weapon...or some critical hit sneaks in that you really want to emphasize because it turned the result of the fight one way or another.
Also, I would agree that you want to cut down on what you might call the storytelling aspect of it. You don't want a lot of flowery details creeping things along (Mark took a blow to the right eye and stumbled backward like an elephant sideblinded by a train. As he fell, he gazed upon his visage in the lake they were fighting nearby, and noticed the how his skin already was turning a vivid blue and green, and so thought unto himself with no small amount of funky, black, icky depression, Yeah, that's gonna be a shiner.).
I often go for short, choppy sentences that give a sense of action, occasionally interspersed with longer, flowing descriptions that summarize larger portions of time. This way the pacing doesn't get boring, and you can still throw in a few quick details to create some good mental images. Let the reader's imagination work for you, though.
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the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: blgarver on February 09, 2007, 06:15:52 PM ---I'm in the middle of a big brawl right now where the main char is fighting a big group of people, and so far i'm just doing my best to write what happens. But it's hard to write with much style when you're describing each move. So it's like 80% a breakdown of the fight with about 20% storytelling and voice.
--- End quote ---
Whose point of view is it ?
In main character POV, if the main character's good enough not to need to think about what they're actually doing in detail, stick with what they're thinking, and the results of the fight, with the description of what happens when background and only the bits that don't work, or work suprisingly well, really catching their attention.
[ If they're not that good, against a bunch of people, it's either going to be a short fight, or they need some trick advantage which you can foreground in their thoughts instead. Like Indiana Jones shooting the showy swordsman in Raiders. ]
If it's somebody else's POV, you have a pile of options, "Wow, look at that !", or "oh dear, it's going to be me next unless I'm careful", or "how did I get into this mess ?", or "Yeah, right, another boring Protagonist fighting insuperable odds, get it over with already, do I want pizza or Thai for dinner tonight... " would all fit plausible other character reactions there at least as well as a technical breakdown of your main character's style.
What's the point of the fight ? What consequences has it for people you want the reader to care about, and for the plot ? Communicate those, and the rest is secondary.
blgarver:
Well, it's 3PL, so it's from the main char's pov right now. And he's trained in martial arts, but hasn't used any in a couple of decades, so he's got nothing but the fundamentals that have been engrained into his instincts. And he's old and overweight.
I can already tell I'm gonna have to rewrite this scene, because I wanted to get across his effort to fight. Ultimately he loses the fight because of his age and poor fitness. I wanted it to be kind of comical, with Boone, the main character, stumbling around and huffing and getting punched in his fat gut, all while doing his damndest to do kung fu. But as usual, I'm not a comedic writer...all my stuff comes out dark and melodramatic.
So I think I'll just go ahead and write it the way it's going right now, and then go back and clean it up with a comedic eye. I guess I should work to create those humorous visuals instead of worrying about what exactly is happening in the fight.
Anyway, thanks for the input.
Cathy Clamp:
Okay, then--what you need to do is concentrate on what's happening TO Boone as he fights. He's out of shape? Well, a side kick above his hip, even if he doesn't connect anything is probably going to pull a groin muscle (OUCH!) A fist to the villain's face? Possibly a strained rotator cuff (the muscle that surrounds your shoulder joint.) Shrugging will later hurt. Turning his head beyond a 30% angle will probably give him white lights in his vision and make him suck in a sharp breath for DAYS. If he gets punched in the stomach, bending down to put on shoes/boots (even if sitting on the bed) will be an exercise in frustration. And, it'll definitely be chiropractor time for all the joints he'll be knocking out of place. You can, in the morning, have a friend/girlfriend test his rotator cuff in a really easy manner. You hold out your arm at shoulder height, close your fist, point your thumb at the ceiling and try to PREVENT the other person from using the flat of their palm on the thumb to push down your arm. You got a strained/sprained cuff? Oh, you'll KNOW it. It's a drop-to-the-floor-whimpering sort of pain (you can't tell I've had it happen before, right? ;) )
For the fight scene itself, have him concentrate on the pain each motion causes. His instincts will kick in, and it'll TERRIFY him what damage he's inflicting on his body as his muscles react without his brain's input, causing him to scream in agony. He'll probably screw up the actions because his instincts will expect him to kick or punch X high or far, and he simply can't do it--overbalancing himself. He'll do a lot more damage to himself than the bad guys, which will be even more humiliating. It'll be like watching Al Bundy from Married with Children fame trying to relive his glory days and scrimmage with the current high school team. ::) You know he'll give his all, and it's flat painful to watch...
Good luck. Sounds like a fun scene. ;D
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