Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Whoopee! Fight Scene

Finished 47; 84,090 word count

Writing Tip: First, when writing a fight scene, don't have too many participants. In a battle scene you can say the flank took a hit, but that means all the men in the flank are counted as one person.
In a fight scene you have to stage the people in your mind and have your hero tackle one person at a time. Or two in quick succession. But don't, don't, don't have the hero all over the place. You have to move him through his offense and defense with precision.
Also it is handy if your foes are named. Named foes don't have to be labeled the burly man, the thin man, or the redhead. After you've said the thin man did this and the thin man did that, then the thin man did this and then the thin man did that, you and your reader are going to wish the thin man had a name.

5 comments:

  1. I love fight scenes. My boys laugh at my invisible sword - like Kales, fighting foes in the living room.
    Realized today I didn't have book 3 of Dragon Keepers. I ordered it immediately.

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  2. Oh thank you! That helps me so much! My friend always makes me write the fight scenes in our stories and I hate doing it just because I don't know how! This post helps me alot! ♥

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  3. I love writing fight scenes. Unfortunately, we can no longer write in the omnicient POV. Hmmm.... What if God IS writing the story? :-) And according to Jeff Gerke, we shouldn't use monikers either. I'm going to have to rewrite my book again. I love your blog and all the helpful information and websites you have posted on here. Thanks!

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  4. Fight scenes can be either really fun, or dreadfully messy. :) I used to struggle ALL of the time with my characters popping up everwhere- I'm sure my readers used to wonder if there was a series of gopher tunnels that my characters delved into so they could pop out of the ground in all sorts of random times and places. One thing I've found helpful is to introduce some enemies by name, beforehand in the book. It makes the fight lots more interesting! :D

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  5. I tend to go for single combat in my stories...that makes it much easier to describe in detail.

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