I’m going to say this now. I’m not an expert in writing combat scenes. This is one of the few skills I am learning. So, I thought we could learn together on how to write combat scenes. I will post a couple of articles that go over a rule of thumb on how to write them. In truth, writing combat scenes are as tough as writing dance scenes. You have to get the reader to imagine the scene as if they were watching a movie or thinking they were fighting like this.
First Rule: Fights Should Move The Story
This means the fight has to have tied into the next scene. Otherwise, you have a scene describing fancy moves. A good way to check to see if the fight scene is cut out the scene from the story. Read the scenes before and after if it flows with no real effect to the plotline then start back over. If the two scenes don’t connect smoothly then keep the fight scene in. Fight scenes do rely solely on physical moves. You can also go over a fight mentally.
A good example would be a scene where the mc is attacked by someone/something which they barely get away alive. The mc would then go over what had just happened. They can distress for having to kill the person that attacked them which could lead to the next scene as the mc getting somewhere to clean up from the fight. They could even still be processing what just happened even in this scene. It just depends on what route you want to go with.
Second Rule: Fight Scenes should improve the character
As I said in rule one, the fight can cause mental scarring to the character. You want to convey how the fight changed the mc. You will need to do research to get the right words to fit this part of the story. This can even go for the antagonist in the story. Each death empowers their control with power over others. The colder they are the more dangerous they tend to be. This brings to light some information about the character because of what they went through.The characterization of your characters are important to the flow of your story, Here are some questions to think about:
- Why does the character make the choices that they make in the fight?
- How does each choice reinforce their characterization?
- How does each choice impact their internal and/ or external goals?
- Is this conflict getting the character closer or further away from their goals? How?
- What are the stakes for each character? What do they stand to win? What will they lose?
- What type of fighter is the character? What are their physical or mental abilities? (Remember that not every protagonist will be a trained assassin, so they’re prone to make sloppy mistakes during a fight.)
I would suggest going over these other question forms as well to help build your character even more. Now, you don’t have to answer every question but the more you answer the better the character turns out.
Third Rule: Fight Scenes should never slow the pace of the story
Fights go by quickly in real life. You want to keep that same pace in the story as well. Writing with shorter sentences can help shorten the scene. Also, coupling dialogue with actions is another way to make the scene flow smoothly and faster. Do not worry about thoughts during a fight scene. Only put those before or after the fight otherwise it boggles down the scene with unnecessary lines. The biggest part is fighting scenes should not last for multiple pages unless it’s about different fights happening at the same time. So, if you’re writing a battle with armies fighting then multiple pages are good but not for two people fighting only. Just remember the scene needs to be quick but still convey the fight to the reader so they can imagine the fight in front of them.
Fourth Rule: Use all of the senses in the Scene
You can make the reader truly feel the scene if you trigger all the senses they have. That means you need to hit all five senses which are sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. This is the goal for a story to engage the reader so that the fight seems real to them.
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Sight: Descriptive details are the best way to convey the scene but remember to keep the scene short. This is where the thesaurus comes in handy. Or you can try this site out too: https://describingwords.io/
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Hearing: You will need to rely on words that describe the sound of what is going on in the fight. This is when you use onomatopoeias this is where that site I listed above comes in handy to help convey sounds.
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Taste: Vague sentences will not help you convey the scene well when it comes to taste. You need to describe what they are tasting during the fight. Such as, “blood mixed with strawberry lip gloss was a strange taste indeed.”
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Touch: One of the easiest to describe when writing. You want the reader to understand what the character is feeling when they touch their surroundings which can help move the scene along.
Smell: This sense is rarely used because when it comes to writing you don’t have to think much about the smell but that’s where you are wrong. A smell can add certain nuances to the scene that can be reflected by the reader. For instance, they can imagine what the smell must smell like whether it’s sweet or putrid even. Descriptive detail is the key when it comes to writing out the five senses in a story but you want to make sure that you don’t bog down the scene with too many details.
Fifth Rule: When writing a fight scene “Edit” is your friend!
You want to go back over the scene so that you can clean it up. You do not want to confuse the reader with a sloppy scene. The biggest thing to do is not write a blow by blow scene because it can slow down the scene. Remove non-essential parts that slow will the reading pace down. Delete any flowery language if it comes off too confusing in the scene. Being straight forwards is usually best when it comes to fighting scenes but you can still use descriptive details but make sure it flows well. You want to make the characterization stronger so that it is the center of the attention otherwise the scene will overpower the whole fight.
This is the article I used for this post. I used passages plus added my own thoughts to the rules as well.
This is another article about fighting scenes that you can check out.
