Writing battles and fight scenes

I should probably add that the whole fight takes less than 20 seconds once it starts, and the MC and her BFF don't talk while they fight. They can see each other but are coming at the punks from different directions. (They are rescuing some other people.)

Both woman where trained to fight by a special-forces type. No posing, no taunts, no one liners, just brutally efficient non-lethal (but crippling) take-downs.

Thanks, I may do that. But if it was just one of them, or if only te thoughts of one of them were important, I wouldn't be as troubled.

 

Is there some way you can write your scene from the POV of only one of the characters? Can the other character's thoughts be inferred by what the POV character sees her doing?

Head hopping is such a difficult thing to pull off. One of the down sides is that it yanks the reader out of BOTH heads, so instead of giving an up-close and personal view of the action from two perspectives, what you get is a semi-confused bystander's view of both.

I never say never, but I would caution you to consider using only one POV in a scene like this. It's good training as a writer, and it's much easier on the reader. After all, if you are in a physical fight yourself, you're not in somebody else's head as well as your own, are you? That would be very weird. It's weird for a reader, for the same reason. It's not natural.

 

I second @jannert . If you use headhopping (and I am not a fan), it should be either in the whole of the story or not used at all. I don't quite see how you couldn't show the thoughts of one of the MCs in the next scene, assuming you are writing both MCs viewpoints as POVs. Write the fight scene from 1POV and the aftermath from 2POV.

And another thing: Have you been in a fight? I don't think people think much during (I certainly don't). It's all about the objective, and relying on training to get there. Are higher thoughts possible? I am honestly not sure. Now during a lull in the action one can think, but I still believe that the impact of what one has done comes afterwards. Not in the situation itself.

Anyone wants to contradict me?

Oh, and yet another thing: This type of fighting takes a lot of guts to learn. It would have taken years. You need to have a good reason why your MCs have learned it. They would have been pretty determined. Just a thought.

 

Thanks for the advice, jannert and Lifeline. I'll try a single person POV with no thinking during the actual fight.

As to why the MCs learned to fight that way - the reason is implicit in the character's arcs and the setting.

 

Two people who are highly trained fighters enter a fight against multiple opponents. Presumably they talked to each other before or as entering the area.
They will think because they are a team and teams think, they had some kind of plan. They would have to think to stay out of each others way.
It may not be a stream of thought, but more like a basketball player that throws a bounce pass between two defenders in motion right into the hands of a teammate to score, or almost an after thought.

"As Jane buried her hand up under the second baddie's rib cage immobilizing him, she heard a satisfactory snap of a major bone and knew Rachel was doing fine. There was no immediate follow up sound, except a painful moan, so Jane spun and used the leverage to throw her man back first into the edge of the counter. A strange stretching sound occurred, followed by breath forced from lungs, then a crunch as Rachel smashed his sternum. Their eyes briefly met and both could tell the other was still enjoying their chosen vocation."

They can think without having the 'I thought' type of thing. The thoughts can be part of the description of the fight.

 

More than anything with head-hopping, give us something, anything, that let's us know POV has switched. I think three or more paragraphs is plenty, but when the switch happens, if there's nothing in the way of context to let me know, then there's a lot of back-track reading, and in a fight scene not only is this an annoyance but it will ruin the reader's sense of pace.

I recently read Destination Void by Frank Herbert and gracious me, but there was some really heavy head-hopping. And it's Frank Herbert, you know, DUNE! You would think he would have handled it better, but no. I found myself flicking back, and back, and back every time he gave inner thought of someone new without giving me the slightest heads-up that POV had changed.

What would a heads-up look like? I don't know. It would depend on what's going on. I can't direct you there, but I can say that without something to clue me in prior to the new thought from a different person, even the likes of Herbert started to get under my skin.

 

Head hopping is not the same as having multiple POVs. One is confusing. The other one works. And I think we can all figure out which one is to be avoided.

EnginEsq -- Are you sure you're head hopping here? I'm confused by what you said about it being one POV and then several paragraphs later it is another POV. Do those paragraphs in between stay with one POV? And if this really is a quick scene, you don't want to jam it up by giving readers too much to look at, to much to follow, to much to pay attention to just because you had to have another POV. I don't know that it's such a great idea to try and do this. You know your story better than any of us, but quick POV switches and/or too many POVs can mess with clarity, and you never want to mess with clarity.

 

When I had this situation I split the fight between two chapters. The first was from one MC's POV, and at a cliffhanger-y moment I started a new chapter with the other MC's POV. I think it worked.

I wouldn't ever head hop.

 

That sounds right. The MCs get the drop on two of the six, and there's an additional unexpected element to their attack, so it's two on four shortly after that. But there are a few handguns involved, and they don't get through the fight unscathed.

 

My WIP is also third person omniscient but I'm not sure it'll stay that way on my 2nd draft. There is quite some head hopping but I'm sure there are ways you can do it cleanly and still be effective.

 

I have a little problem when it comes to my stories and it comes in two shapes. First the problem.

When I write my stories I find myself picturing all the details on the go, and many actions come to my mind and I try to describe them as good as I can without being too overbearing on details. Problem comes when I am writing actions in battles. I can't seem to find the right way to decribe every action my characters do to help the reader picture all in detail and exactly what I am picturing or as close as I can. The reasons for this are the next two:

a) I find myself struggling between adding too many details (like a sword slash: direction, lenght, speed, etc.) and leave the work overwhelming and maybe tedious to read or add less details and risk the reader not understanding anything that happens.

b) I find myself at a complete lack of words that can actually explain what I want. Like I am not English Native. I do understand, read and write good (I hope) but sometimes words are simply lost. So I end up explaining in detail with the words I know but I fear it might lead to misunderstanding and boring scenes that I could have easily helped with knowing a word to explain certain actions.

So I need some help and advice in how to do better action battle scenes, like when is it too much detail and when is it too vague? What should I put on the script and what should I skip cause it is not needed? And a little lexicon help, a place where I can get words dedicated to these scenes specifically, like weapon names, part names, battle actions, that kind of stuff. Maybe even good stories I can read that actually do these kind of scenes good and I can learn a bit more.

If I knew how to draw better I would do a Manga, seriously, hehe. But for now it has to remain in text format.

What kind of battle scenes I am looking for? Well, to be honest if Manga doesn't say it all, I want it to be Mangaish or Animeish, hehe. If I could read Japanese I would jump right away to read Light Novels of my Anime, but i don't. So is there equivalent works in English? Or something you think is better and would help?

P.S.: If you gonna mock my Grammar, be nice. I know I am still a newb sometimes.

 

Tranquilo, pai'. Nadie te va reclamar por asuntos gramáticos. Aquí tenemos gente del mundo entero.
Relax, bro. No one's going to dog you for your grammar. We have people here from all over the world.

A la pregunta...
To the question....

Creo que lo más importante de una escena de batalla es la forma en que los protagonistas canalizan lo que está pasando. No tanto los detalles de los empujones de las espadas o los disparos de una pistola. Si solo me das detalles externos, eso falta emoción. Quiero saber lo que está pasando dentro del guerrero, no afuera.
I think the most important part of a battle scene is way the characters engage what's going on. Not so much the details of sword thrusts or shots fired. If you only give me external detail, that lacks emotion. I need to know what's happening inside the warrior.

 

You can stay in English if you want, x3, but thanks, it was really welcoming actually that you answered that way.

To the point:

So should I use a balance between external actions and internal reactions? Like 50/50? Or should I concentrate more on one? And I understand that the inner reactions should have a spot too now that you mention it. But still, that left me with the same questions, hehe, cause I still don't know how to face the part that involves the actions the character is taking and what is happening around him/her.

Let's say for a moment this is an example of what I would write:

The blade laid broken in front of him, while his heart raced with the fury of the battle and the despair he felt without a weapon. He rushed to pick up one from the abandoned pile of weapons on his every corner, jumping and rolling to one of them and quickly used it to defend the attack incoming from the front. He was pushed back a bit and gasped as he felt for a moment he could lose control of the situation. But there he remained, slicing to parry all the attacks that he received from his opponent and the sound of metal clashing against each other simply served to burn out his doubts and light his spirit.

That I just made to make an example of what I would do with the information I just got from you. Is it good or does it lacks something? Does it overdoes something? Is it good enough as it is? Can I enhance it?

Also, I like to add a few bits about the inner thoughts and reactions on the character yet I still want the action to be the clearest possible. Is it a bad thing?

Also N. 2, I still have the issue of the lack of words I kinda have sometimes. It doesn't only affect my action scenes, sometimes it can be quite troublesome to not know what I want to write my char doing when I know what it is but cannot name it.

 

Do you usually know a similar word to what you're looking for? You can use an online thesaurus to look for synonyms (other words with a similar or same meaning). If you don't even know a similar word, or still can't find the one you're looking for, you can always ask on this forum.

As for fight scenes, I'm certainly no expert. I've researched "how to write a good fight scene," and I've pretty much gotten the same advice every time, which is what Wreybies said. Then the challenge became, "How do I show the motives and emotions of the main character?" Well, I've read a few blow-by-blow fight scenes, and they got boring fast. Staying inside the MC's head without giving any blow-by-blow also bored me and was impossible for me to write. Have you ever heard of show and tell? The fight scenes I've discovered that I like best are the ones with a mixture of blow-by-blow and summarizing. In other words, a mixture of showing and telling. Once the reader gets an idea of what's going on, you can give a summary, then if the fight goes a different direction, you can give a little more blow-by-blow. Just don't drag it out! Fight scenes can only keep a person in suspense for so long before they simply get bored. Of course, if the scene is short enough, I don't think blow-by-blow is bad as long as it's interesting and understandable.

I've read a couple articles/blogs/whatever that praised Bandon Sanderson's ability to write fight scenes in his book Mistborn. I read the book, and he does do a great job at making the scenes understandable, but he always did it blow-by-blow. One scene in particular was long, and I thought it was never going to end. I enjoyed the cleverness of the scene, of how the MC defeated his opponents, but that scene really needed some summarizing to keep my interest.

The blade laid broken in front of him (the rules for "lay" and "lie" can be very confusing; even I have to look them up frequently, but I'm pretty sure the correct word here is "lay," not "laid." Did the sword just break, or was it broken before the fight started? If it just broke, I'd suggest you bring this action to the character's present. For example: The blade fell to the ground, broken. This makes it a much stronger scene. I'd also suggest end this sentence right here, as shorter sentences can also improve tension), while his heart raced with the fury of the battle and the despair he felt without a weapon (instead of saying what his heart raced with, try to make the reader feel it. The reader knows he's defenseless now, so take advantage of that and show him struggling to stay alive. If you want, now's a good time to show some internal thought.). He rushed to pick up one from the abandoned pile of weapons on his every corner, jumping and rolling to one of them and quickly used it to defend the attack incoming from the front (this sentence confused me due in part to the grammar. How many piles of weapons are on the floor? I'm assuming there are several. If you can, introduce the piles before the fight scene. That way you can leave out the extra information here and just say he rushed for a pile of weapons. You're aiming for tension here, so try not to add extra info. Also, why was he jumping and rolling? I assume it's because he's dodging enemy blows, but you need to mention that somehow). He was pushed back a bit and gasped as he felt for a moment he could lose control of the situation (try to show him being pushed back, and instead of saying "he felt for a moment he could lose control," try showing him trying to regain it. For example: "The blow pushed him back. He gasped, and fought to regain control."). But there he remained, slicing to parry all the attacks that he received from his opponent and the sound of metal clashing against each other simply served to burn out his doubts and light his spirit (This sentence feels like it's in omniscient point of view. You need to write it more from his point of view [unless you are writing from omniscient, in which case I really can't help you]).

Like I said, I'm not an expert, but I hope I helped at least a little.

 

I would say the most important is whats going on in the soldiers mind or warrior whichever the setting or period is taking place. Also I feel its of equal importance to build this character up so by his actions in day to day we can be a judge of his character, charisma, endurance etc. Its not so much about going into every detail of direction and length but how you convey it ( He pulled his sword high out of his belt, or he took a long draw with his sword as he prepared to unleash his fury.) Small underlying details can make the reader come to their own conclusions in a way, you're not coming right out and being direct with how large his sword may be. Shape the battlefield as well to convey to the reader how hard the battle ahead is or challenge the character may face. hopefully this has helped.

 

Both of these are too flowery for my tastes. I prefer something like:

His sword blade snapped. Heart pounding, he hurled the broken blade at his enemy and seized a sword from the nearest dead hand. The blur of enemy steel forced him back, as he stumbled on the limbs of his fallen brothers. He was surely going mad. "Hold the line!" The order was clear. Stand fast and die.

And you can critique that if you like. But the bottom line is this what we mean by simplicity. You want something easy to read, as asking the reader to follow the sequence and do it with lofty poetic prose is asking too much.

If you want that, go ahead and make that manga. Cos you're not gonna get it in prose. You're going to have to accept that the reader may imagine something different from you, in order to keep a fast pace. Describe these sword slashes in detail in prose, and you kill the scene.

 

James Clavell wrote some pretty engaging battle scenes in his Shogun books. You might also want to check out SM Stirling's books. He is a practising martial artist and does hand to hand combat very well.

with both authors you'll see that they dont try and explain everything, only what is necessary for their readers to imagine a sense of the action.

 

If you would like some good examples of fight scenes read a western Novel by Louis Lamour. He was awesome at giving up everything without too much discription in all his works. The novels are fairly short by todays standards but you should be able to adapt what he uses into your novel.

 

Some of his fight scenes tended to drag for me. He liked to give a blow-by-blow account, and the hand-to-hand combat ones took pages to complete. I like a good blow-by-blow fight scene, but it has to be reasonably short.

 

These are partly stylistic differences, partly what works best for a given writer. What also comes into play is what is important about the battle scene.

If you're trying to relate the chaos of a large battle, it seems to me you're better suited with the lean approach to the action, and focusing largely on the perceptions and emotions of the point of view character.

On the other hand, if you were detailing a duel between two fencing masters, it makes sense to get closer to a blow by blow description, where the deliberation and strategy of the combatants are provided not only to inform the reader but to set the tone for the scene.

Always ask: "What am I trying to accomplish with this scene?" The answer to that will get you at least partway to an answer as to how to approach it

 

Manga and narrative don't really translate well, in my opinion. Manga is, obviously, a visual medium and if you have in mind a manga-esque battle scene while writing plain narrative, you might be making things harder than you need to for yourself. You simply cannot describe everything the way you can show a reader everything in manga.

I'm not great at writing battle scenes myself though so I'm not sure what practical advice I can give. I'd say give your narrating character a goal in the fight and during the battle scene, use that goal as the thing that drives the scene and action, describing anything that is relevant in relation to that goal. With action scenes, it is better for sentences and actions to be short and simple - they need to be clear, above all, rather than fancy. I love my poetry and metaphors, but fight scenes are not the place to use fanciful language. If you're going to be clinical about it, then the details should be accurate and specific, I feel, in order to add to the gravity and realism. If it's going to be heart-pounding, then have your character's heart pound and your language reflect it. Choose specific pieces of action within the battle that would add to the emotional tone you're going for.

As for mini novels - All You Need is Kill has been translated into English. Plenty of fight scenes in it. You could give it a go. I've only read the manga though so I don't know what the mini novel's like