Struggling with writing fight scenes?

aryamajor

Curious Adventurer
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Hi all! For a long time I have struggled with writing fight scenes! They either sound too clinical and boring, or come out muddy and poorly done. I've tried different styles and different PoV's but I still cant seem to develop a style of fight scene creation that reads well. That said, I thought I might post here to see if anyone has the same issue.
Does anyone else have this struggle? All suggestions, advice, opinions, discussion and comments are welcome!
 
My recommendation is to read some fight scenes in books to get a feel for how they flow, and with writing combat, less is often more.

If you bog it down with too much detail, the reader is left trying to awkwardly visualize precise body movements and stumbling through what should be an exciting and rapid exchange of actions.

Better to keep the writing simple but colorful while capturing the mood and pace of the fight. The reader can fill in the gaps with their imagination when it comes to the exact angle and speed of a sword slash, but they'll quickly lose the sense of immersion necessary to capture the thrill of a fight if they need to keep pausing to try and figure out complex positioning.

Often when I write combat with other people, we will collaborate the posting in a way to write scenic and colorful combat (like an exchange of blows that neither opponent lands a hit with) and then wrap up each post with a more precises attack. This gives that feel of rapid combat but still allow for some competition without having to write out every single blow in perfect detail.

I can post you up some examples later when I'm not on my phone if you would like.
 
I was going to add something, but, Tiko's really said all I could on the matter. I have no purpose for being here I suppose other than to fluff another user's ego.

Oh well.

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To vrite out a decent fight scene, you need to know how to vizualize multi-actions, not go blow-by-blow. Thats not how a fight vorks, so structured (it does in movies, but thats just koreography bulshit, its about as realistic as Superman flying around). Take it from someone whos in the game - there is *never* just 1 action going on, in a fight, in any given moment. A real fight is a instinct-driven frenzy, and it shuld look like a frenzy, in text. I'l use a example from that link Tiko put up:

Instead of looking who had pushed him, Fletch tried to save himself from falling. The edge of the parade route’s pavement shot out from under him.
Someone pushed him again.
He fell to the right, into the parade.
A foot came up from the pavement and kicked him in the face.

Yes... that reads just like a movie scene. No multi-tasking, no simultaneus actions, no reflexive counter-reactions by the one being attacked, totaly step-by-step, as in folowing a koreographyd set of movements. Heres how it shuld be (asuming this Fletch guy is competent):

As he lost balance, being pushed, Fletch jerked his head half-way around to get a look at his attacker, at the same time as his hands reflexivly tryed to find purchase, to keep him-self from falling off the edge.
Out of corner of his eye, he catched a glimpse of his attacker, about to shove him agen. Too late to regain his footing or body-check the other guy, he started falling to the right, off the edge. Franticaly twisting around in mid-air,
he managed to land on the palms of his hands, the rough pavement diging in-to his skin. He shot back to his feet, as a foot sudenly blurred in-to his vision, going for his face. He reflexivly jerked his head away from it, going vith the kick, taking it as a graze to the chin, at the same time as he spinned-around vithout looking, throwing up his right elbow, on a trajectory that wuld hopefuly connect vith the face or neck of his attacker, judgeing from vhere that kick came from.

At no point is Fletch only doing 1 thing at any given moment; he reacts to the push, he looks for who pushed him, he trys to keep him-self from falling, and he reacts to the folow-up attack, vhile he scrambles back to his feet. 2-3 actions at the same time; thats vhat I mean by multi-actions, and not blow-by-blow.
 
In my mind, only a very selective range of combatants can draw out a fight into something necessarily needing multiple posts of detail. That is, unless you wish to improve your skill in the art of written fighting. Otherwise, skill or circumstances are usually so different, that realistically the fight would be over in a move or two. That is if coming to blows is necessary in the first place.

On second thought, maybe my characters are crappy fighters :)
 
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