How to WRITE FIGHT SCENES

Yes, you needed skill. Yes, you needed focus and balance, but in the end, you needed gall. The will to fight, the will to survive. All in all, courage. And that's nothing you can learn in a simple classroom. It's something rooted inside of you, and if you don't have it, then it's not the teachers fault for teaching you wrong.

- Rei Lee Natsuo, Reconnected

Because I'm tired I'm going to make this as short as possible. Here are a few ways to make fight scenes realistic:

• • • • §

#1: It Hurts

When you fight, it hurts and makes the breath squeeze right out of your lungs, and it takes a few seconds to recover. When someone slashes at you with a sword, it's scary as all hell, and when you are being ganged up on, its threatening.

Remember, your characters are people too - (unless they aren't, but then they don't count. Real people get scared and angry). Things like that aren't a walk in the park and AREN'T fun.

#2: Don't Overwrite

It's a general rule that you should leave as much to the reader's imagination as you can, and this is doubly true for action scenes. The choreography of the fight may be exact in your head but you can't force readers to see the same thing.

Let them know the outline of the fight and they'll imagine their own visceral fight scene. Counter as it is to a writer's instincts, 'they struggled' paints a far more vivid picture than describing the exact position of each combatant's arms.

#3: Pace

Intensifying the pace of your writing can communicate the immediacy and suddenness of conflict. Short, simple sentences keep the reader on their toes. Fights happen quickly and your description needs to match that.

#4: Perspective

"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."

The writing, and thus the reader's experience of events, conforms to Fletch's experience: the attempt to right himself interrupted by sudden acts of violence. You can also write to match the perspective of the attacker: there's something especially brutal about a villain methodically taking an opponent apart.

#5: Verbs not Adverbs

Fight scenes demand brevity and adverbs are the opposite. Instead of 'Adam hit him hard in the chest, again and again' use 'Adam pounded at his chest'.

The occasional adverb might have its place but you want the punch of the sentence to come with the character's action, not lagging after it.

There are a few exceptions. Variations on 'She hit him. Hard' have currency because they're purposefully simplistic. They embrace guttural simplicity to communicate that same quality in the action, but this trick only works once before you start sounding like a caveman.

#6: Sensory Information

Description doesn't work in fight scenes because thought doesn't play a big part in immediate, physical situations. What there is plenty of is sensory information. The taste of blood, the ringing in their ears, the ache of their injuries. Evan Hunter wrote fantastically brutal fight scenes by stating a simple, basic physical act and then following it up with evocative sensory information:

"He pulled him to his feet, almost tearing the collar... He heard the slight rasp of material ripping."

That description, from his short story collection Barking at Butterflies, adds more physicality to the encounter than any physical description could.

Sensory information is also more relatable to readers. Not everyone has been held up by the collar but everyone has heard fabric tear, has tasted their own blood after an accident. You can summon incredibly detailed information through these minor descriptions: the pull needed to tear a collar is something most people can appreciate, so they understand the violence of the grip without ever consciously considering it.

#7: Details are kinda important

Details may be a 'dirty' word for some people who intend to write a quick and easy battle scene, but including some detail may make your scene more vivid.

Here is a fight scene I wrote for a story, where it is three kids, two girls, Rei and Sun, and then one boy, Dex, fighting monsters in an old Roman Colosseum:

• • • • §

Rei's Point of View

"Let's go," I said uncertainly. Sun gave me a look and motioned for Dex to follow her.

"If you say so," Dex stuttered. We grimaced and then stepped closer to the colosseum. I took a deep breath and then started at a rough sprint. Sun followed me, as did Dex, who seemed to be the least athletic out of us. Or at least the one scared the most. We ventured into the dark depths, and instantly you could feel the emotions pouring in this place. The madness, the anger. Sorrow. Hopelessness. The smell inside was also amplified by ten when we got about five feet in. It smelled like something had rotted.

What? I had no idea. "This place creeps me out," Sun whispered to me, grabbing my hand. Dex grabbed her other hand, all of us standing side by side. There was a quick rush of wind to my right, and I looked, but nothing was there. "Uh, guys-" CRASH! A crash sounded to my right, and a huge boulder came tumbling down from the top of the walls. I screamed and dodged it, pushing Dex and Sun down in the process, landing on top of both. "Get off!" Dex yelled. "Shut up!" I whispered and clasped my hand over his mouth. I heard a low growl above me, and I stared wide eyed into the jowls of a beast.

"Oh. Shit." The monster above me was dripping saliva, the trails of spittle still connected to its large, protruding jaw. It resembled a lion, only a more sick and twisted version of one. It was twice the size of a normal lion, its teeth elongated and serrated. The large mane was shaggy and covered in blood stains. His eyes were a deep black color, unfeeling and murky. The creature stood maybe above seven foot, maybe more when it stood straight up. His paws were about the size of my head, and as it loomed over us, I was having a mini panic attack. This was one big ass cat. God I hated cats.

Dex had his head leaned back, his eyes wide, trained on the cats jaws above his head. Sun couldn't see since my butt was in her face, but if she heard that growl she knew that the situation wasn't pretty. I leaned my face close to Dex's and whispered. "When I say three, pick up Sun and run to the other side of the colosseum." He nodded, swallowing something in his throat. "One..." the lion bared its teeth at me. "Two..." it stood up on its hind legs, its stare trained on us. It roared. "THREE!"

Dex bolted out from underneath me and grabbed Sun, running to the other side. The beast roared again and landed back on all fours, its maw opening and closing in anticipation. Well it wasn't going to get much action that was for sure. "Hey you!" I screamed at it. "Look at me ya big pansy!" The lion thing took a look at me and growled, showing its large and razor sharp teeth. It lifted its muzzle and sniffed the air. "Ahaha, I dunno what you can smell, but I smell victory. It smells like pineapples," I smirked. The lion beast roared again and sprinted off toward Dex and Sun. "Oh no, oh no," I chanted. I ran after the kishin beast and panicked as it got closer to my comrades. "DEX! SUN! MOVE!"

The two couldn't hear me, but they could see the large animal thingy get close to them. My legs weren't fast enough and I was stumbling. I tripped and fell, got up and kept chasing the thing. I pushed my legs to go faster. I was gasping, and I could just barely see what was happening. Dex and Sun stepped forward, even after I yelled for them to move, (though, in defense, they couldn't hear me). "MOVE YOUR CRAZY ASSES!" I shouted. "NOW!"

Sun moved closer to the beast as it began to get close to her. I was screaming at her to move, but she just started to jog to the left of it. Dex did the same to the right, and then they reached the lion. Oh no. Sun jumped up simultaneously as Dex, and the lifted their feet. I stared in amazement, my running stopping, as they brought their foot down in an axe kick, as their leg was raised as if they were doing an outside crescent kick, legs pulled down, their heels aimed down. You had to be super flexible to do that, and the force on which they brought it down was incredible.

The beastly lion hit the ground and a large pound was heard as the ground shook. They were masters in martial arts. Well, one of the perks of being in a gang I guess.

I pushed my legs harder to get to Sun and Dex, and when I finally reached them, they were down off of the lion who had just rose back up from the crater in the ground it made. "Together?" I asked. Dex and Sun nodded, and held out their hands. We slapped palms and then stared at the lion who bared his threatening fangs.

"Uh, do you have a plan?" I asked. Sun gave Dex a look. "If we show you something will you promise not to freak out?" I nodded, my eyes sliding back to the beast in front of me. "To be honest nothing could be scarier than this lion at the moment." Dex gave me a look, but grabbed Sun's arm and pulled her close. They stood side by side and took a deep breath.

"Okay, GO NOW!" they screamed and they glowed a bright white. I shielded my eyes and watched as they surged upward, and when they landed, the light faded. I blinked rapidly and stared in...I don't even know at this point. In front of me were two long Katana swords, intricate sun designs adorning the hilts, each blade having one large sun towards the center.

"Y...you're Demon Weapons?" I asked unevenly. "Yeah, but you said you wouldn't freak out," the left one said in Sun's voice. "Anyway, you'll need us to win," the right one in Dex's voice retorted. "Because if you haven't noticed in about the span of a minute another one of those kishin lions appeared. So pick us up and get to steppin'." I sighed picked them up. "You're lucky I'm ambidextrous," I muttered. I was trying so hard to focus on the fight were in, and not on the fact that Sun and Dex were...swords.

I looked over at the lion, and noticed there was another one. He was bigger than the other, with a longer jawline and sharper, more dangerous teeth. I let all my jitters out, kicked the fear out of my gut, and clutched the swords harder in my grip. "Let's go!" I shouted. I was blank was I sprinted toward the smaller lion, and brought my left sword down on it, which sliced it in half, leaving a bright red bulb in the center of the blood and gore.

"That's disgusting," I whispered to myself. "Absolutely disgusting."

The second one I charged at slapped me with its large paw, and I hit the ground with a thud. I wiped my lip and saw blood, but didn't really care. I jumped up and rotated my entire body, sticking my foot out and landed on the lions head, bringing my leg down, and then countering with a double blow from my weapons. The lion monster tried to swat at me but I back flipped out of the way and held my swords in a waiting position. I had to find the weakest point in the body. I remembered the last lion didn't fully die until I hit the very center of its body. So maybe if I tried to slice this one towards its solar plexus it would die. "Guys, on the count of three use all of your power so we can chop this thing in half."

I got two yes's from sun and Dex, and then they began to glow. "This is a one shot type thing," Sun uttered. "We only have enough power for one big blow." I nodded and stood still. "Ready?"

"Ready!" I charged at the lion, Sun and Dex glowing brighter than before. I lifted them above my head, and then brought them down with all of my force, a large scream echoing in my ears. A blast of light left all three of us. A line of light hit the center of the colosseum splitting the whole thing in half.

All I could see was the building collapsing in on us, and thinking, 'Fück. My. Life.'

--------- | § |

Welp, I hoped you enjoyed this chapter, I mostly did copy and pasting since I'm sick and tired UGH, anyway, what did you think of my fight scene?

Do you think you could do that?

Anyway, BYE!

- A_P ♥