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  1. Smoke Z

    Smoke Z Active Member

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    Please recommend stories with complicated fight scenes.

    Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Smoke Z, Apr 15, 2014.

    I'm trying to write a complicated fight scene. Basically there are several important details, but they don't all happen to the same sets of combatants.

    What are some examples that might help me figure out how to write such a scene?
     
  2. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    You mean something like The Illiad, with it's book after book of depictions of war and fighting en-mass?
     
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  3. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    You need to be more specific. Are you talking about a free-for-all like a gang fight, a running battle between skilled fighters without firearms, with firearms, a semi organised melee like a Viking shield wall, a very organised battle like Waterloo, more complicated battles like in WW2, and so forth.
     
  4. Smoke Z

    Smoke Z Active Member

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    Found Illiad online and got two lines in... I was thinking about something a little more modern. Maybe something written after Call of Cthulu.
     
  5. Smoke Z

    Smoke Z Active Member

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    It's swords and sorcery with most of the emphasis on the swords. 3 v 5 though I treat it more like 2 v 3. If dungeons and dragons minitures had chess-like notation for a battle, that would be the driest way to describe it. It's my latest entry to the writing workshop.

    A decent brawling bar-fight might actually give me the tone I'm after. I might go to a Jackie Chan fanboard and see if anyone MST'd a particular scene from Shanghi Noon.
     
  6. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    How about the Jason Bourne series By Robert Ludlum?
     
  7. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    There are some pretty good melee sword combat scenes in S.M. Stirling's "Dies The Fire" trilogy. Also Bernard Cornwell's Alfred the Great series starting with "The Last Kingdom" and Simon Scarrow's "Cato" series starting with "Under the Eagle". The first is SF Fantasy, the other two historical.

    For frantic slashing around, try Simon Green's "Haven" series (fantasy).
     
  8. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Read Joe Abercrombie. Some of the stuff is unrealistic, but he sure can put together a riveting fight scene.
     
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  9. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Are you going for a more realistic, grittier tone (i.e. as realistic as can be with magic involved) or for a flashier, Jackie Chan / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon -type of feel?
    If it's the former:

    I'd second Abercrombie and throw in G.R.R.Martin as well, especially the scenes with Brienne.

    It's an autobiography (takes place in the 1980s, so no swords, alas), but I really liked the fight scenes in Geoff Thompson's Watch My Back (it had everything: 1 on 1, 1 on several, group fights etc). Not only does it have really intense, brutal, and realistic fight scenes, it's also funny as hell.
     
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  10. Chiv

    Chiv Active Member

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    I've heard that R. A. Salvatore does very good fight scenes. I plan to give his books a read sometime after I finish A Song of Ice and Fire. And yes, I support that GRRM does very good fight scenes. Also Stephen King's Dark Tower if you want gunfights.
    If you want to write good fight scenes you should see if you can find some movie scripts of fights. They are really helpful.
     
  11. justlang

    justlang Banned

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    There is perhaps no better alternative.
    Try the English translations.
     
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  12. TWErvin2

    TWErvin2 Contributor Contributor

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    Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series, specifically Dragon. The main character joins the Dragerean army, and fights in a variety of battles, from individual to squad and company level (at least from his perspective).

    Also, The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, specifically Nine Princes in Amber and The Guns of Avalon, the first and second novels in the series.

    In the first there is a major assault up the side of the mountain to reach the main city of Amber. Included is a sea battle as well. The second is a second assault, but this time the main character brings along firearms (previously nobody had been able to get gunpowder to work in Amber.

    Those examples should give you something to consider. They're two of what I looked at carefully while writing my fantasy novels.
     
  13. Smoke Z

    Smoke Z Active Member

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    Aha, some series I can reference without hitting the library. It's a shame that those are both in first-person when I'll be writing omniscient.

    I found a good scene in Yendi where Vlad is just watching for half of it. Some of his first-person fights get a little confusing, like earlier when the assassin team attacks him, one seems to keel over for no reason.
     
  14. Tyler Danann

    Tyler Danann Active Member

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    Mountain Hold has some complicated fight and battle scenes. These are not hand-to-hand but firearms vs beasts as well as firefights and airborne assaults.

    Spartan's last march is kinda complex too.
     
  15. DeadChannel

    DeadChannel New Member

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    Snow Crash is really good at action, although I'm not sure if there's a lot of stand out fight scenes. Still, worth checking out.
     
  16. Frankovitch

    Frankovitch Member

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    Although his fight scenes are more along 1vsMany, you could try Brandon Sanderson's "The Way of Kings", "The Final Empire" or "The Alloy of Law". He uses some very neat magic systems which play with the laws of physics, so you have people running across walls and ceilings, force-pushing weapons from enemy hands, that kind of thing. I usually do not care that much for fight scenes, but I really think he makes them work.
     
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