Okay whilst I wait for the wife to round up a lemon writer I thought I would address the other major complaint people had in scenes, fight scenes.
Okay now I never wanted this forum to become a Beery masterclass, I have neither the experience or talent to be teaching such things, however I have had to write a few fight scenes in the course of my major fic project Honour and Pride, and so I thought I'd share my experiences.
Unfortunately, writing fights are hard. Why? Because there are a lot of variables to consider and a lot of complex actions to describe, also there is a small time dilation problem in that an hour of work and three pages of writing often amount to about two minutes of real time action.
What I'm going to try and do I reverse engineer my own thoughts when I write one of these puppies and break all the essential consideration downs. Hopeful this will outline a GENERAL METHOD to write close-quarter fights.
Why do I mean by close quarter?
Simple no ballistics, no guns, no bow and arrows. Just fists, feet, and swords knives etc. Thus hopefully this will also help you out Penybirght even though I have no direct experience in fighting mechs.
Preliminaries
Premilinaries in fight scenes are the same with everything else in writing, RESEARCH.
BI peep: But Beery, why do we need to research, after all its just two people kicking ass.
Yes that's true, but as said many times in the pet peeves thread, research is what separates a good writer from a great writer (except when its me). You want to be great yes?
Again like anything else you write the place to start is with the
Character
When you write the personality of the character should shine through in every action. How does this apply to a fight. Well most obviously a characters emotional state affects how they fight, if they are angry (the most common one) they are likely to rush blindly into blows and make mistakes but also likely to shrug off hard hits.
More importantly a characters background and personality affect how they fight. I'm used to writing fight scenes for Ranma, and as such I've had to figure out how every charater fights, what techniques they are likely to use, how they deliver them and what tactics they use based on their characters and the dubious evidence presented in the series. Logic here is your friend.
Since not everyone is familiar with the Ranma cast lets take a couple of examples from GW.
Wu Fei : Wu Fei is a great p[ace to start since we know he can fight, both hand to hand and with a sword and we know he studies martial arts, however the question remains which type.
Well, Wuffles is Chinese so it makes sense to start your search into Chinese martial arts. As an extra note, this would be the time for me to say do not describe Wu Fei as having a katana for blatant reasons.
However there are many styles of Chinese arts ( usually called kung fu) so you may have to narrow them down. So go back to the source, what kind of art does the series suggest Wu Fei would practise? Well he's quite slender and small and though not weak not strong, so a powerful art relying on strength is out.
In the series we see Wu Fei use his skill to help out Sally against three blokes. His style then is quite mobile, very fluid and uses both high kicks and throws. Now if your research was good this should lead you to Northern Chinese styles since southern styles tend to have square stances and hard attacks.
So we're looking at a fluid form of Chinese art most likely from the north. This should narrow it down enough to give you a short list to choose from and look in more detail at, but since I'm feeling generous I'll add that Wu Fei has a dragon obsession so its very likely he studies Northern Shaolin Dragon Kung Fu.
A good general reference for Wu Fei's style would be Jet Li moves to help visualisation.
Heero: Heero likes guns, he doesn't know any martial arts right?
Maybe but lets remember he is supposedly the perfect solider and obviously knows how to pack a good punch from knocking out Duo with one blow in EW. Now although I hate him being referred to as the Perfect Soldier in fics, it does speak to the depth of his training. He is obviously a master of guns and will always use them if he has the choice but most special forces are thought a highly simple but effective style of unarmed combat, it seems unlikley that Dr J would not have had him trained in such.
Also since Heero is less likely to lose his cool he will probably be more apt to fight with a more defined and no-nonsense style. The Borne Identity would be a good place to see such tactics.
The others:
. Now Quatre is not a fighter lets just admit it, he may pull out a nice sucker punch from time to time but in a prolonged fight he'll get his arse handed to him. Its cruel but true, so lets all admit it have a bit of a whine and move on.
The others are no slouches in a fight but show no signs of any sort of training so we ar most likely looking at a few basic fighting skill learnt from street brawls and a hard life, although Trowa may add a few acrobatics to his repetoir.
Relena cannot fight, so unless you want to show her giving a nice slap to some jerk lets just avoid the issue. However one fic I saw claimed that Wu Fei and Trowa had shown her some tricks and the next thing you know she was a female Jackie Chan.
*headdesk*
Part of Relena's charm is that she is strong without the skills or need for violence, she is strong in the mind and word not the kick-ass way. If you use this plotlline my advice is to give Relena no more than the basic self defence traits, the stuff they teach women in those anti-rape classes, loud yells of NO and a knee to the groin with some scratching, since thats what the GW boys would probably teach her.
Its the same with Mechs I would guess. Not only will you have to consider the emotional state of the pilot but the type of mech. Mechs are generally far less agile than people, stronger but slower, so kicks are really out of the question. really we are looking at powerful weapon swings, maybe a few stabs coupled with hooking punches and shoulder barges, sinple fat biker tactics. However I cannot really trell you too much about different mechs other than know the one you are writing about, Wingnut might be able to help you there.
Setting
The battlefield plays a major role in a fight, so ask yourself where they are fighting and make sure you know this place like your own room. Is it in doors or outside, are there people around or is it empty. Is it flat or hilly or an empty room or a a bar.
The environment has to be involved in your description of the fight as well as the action. Are there things to trip over or be thrown through, and how would this affect the action?
Type of fight
BI peeps: Okay Beer, aren't you taking this too far. A fight is a fight.
Not really, the situation and the scenario dicates the type of fight you have to elabourate heres a few general types of fight.
One man army/henchmen fight: This is basically a fight that makes the hero seems more heroic or the bad guy more villianous. Basically our guy is set upon by several attackers often henchmen who are no where near his/her level. In this the hero should defeat the attackers with minimal damage (but in cases of more than 5 attackers he should at least get a bump).
The trick in this sort of scene is spacial awareness, which is fancy words meaning that your hero must be aware of what going on around him and you should try to show him fending and attacke from many different angles. Here's a example that I wrote in a previous chapter of H&P.
Ranma shrugged and buried his hands in his pockets as the large man threw himself forwards with a roar. [Ryoga can handle it], he thought as the lost boy stepped to the outside, swinging the umbrella in a small circle to bat aside the palm strike that shot at his face. Twisting his arm at the elbow he clubbed the attacker across the back, the tip of the weapon whipping into the kidney. The man growled in pain and stumbled forwards, one arm bent behind him to clutch at his spine while the other nursed the bruised organ. [Besides, it's not often I get to watch as a third person,] Ranma thought wryly, eyes trained on his rival's every move and mind comparing each action to their previous bouts.
A second fighter gave a shout and charged from behind. Ryoga's eyes darted, glancing from the corner of his eyes as he spun the umbrella in his hand, reversing his grip on the handle. With a step backwards Ryoga intercepted his new attacker with his back still turned. He swung his arm back, elbow turning to thrust the umbrella back beneath his armpit and into the man's sternum, knocking him off his feet with a hard gasp of expelled air.
The first attacker had recovered and came at Ryoga again, lunging low with arms like pincers for the tackle. Ranma's eyebrows flew upwards as he watched the lost one throw his umbrella forwards with a flick of his wrist, sending the bamboo weapon spinning through the air so as the blunted point arced upward it caught the large fighter square on the chin like an uppercut fist. The man reeled and Ranma's jaw dropped as he watched Ryoga shoot forward, and slam the butt of the still falling umbrella precisely so that it would fly forward into his opponent's nose. The blow whipped the man's face around, and Ryoga grabbed the umbrella as it recoiled from the strike at with a flourish, brought it round in an arc to slam into the top of his foe's battered head. The man crumpled to the floor, out before he hit the dirt.
The small man with the ragged braid came in from the left, sweeping the folds of his robes back as he swung his foot around in a vicious arc at Ryoga's head. The youth dropped into a crouch, folding on leg across the ground in front of him as he sat on his haunches and bowed his head, slashing into the shin of the rat-like man's supporting leg and ploughing the limb from beneath him. He hit the floor hard enough to make his head bounce, even in the soft mud. His weak cry became a loud squawk of pain as Ryoga stepping on his back, planting his heel in between the shoulder blade and pressing him further into the dirt as the lost boy made a fencer's lunge, poking the returning second attacker in his already abused chest and stopping his rush
Here Ryoga takes care of each attacker individually but shows that he is aware of whats happensing around him by fending of other attackers who come at him from other angles.
Brawl A free for all that can either be one on one or all in. The thing that separates this from another fight is damage. Style is a lesser concern here but should be a factor if both characters are trained however the key is damage and that both characters should be taking a lot of it, for every blow the hero deals out he should at least get one in return. Try not to make it one each in turns but mix it up, the pint is that both fighters should be laying and receiving the smackdown. The advantage should sway back and forth to keep up the tension.
Also nasty damage, bleeding lips swllen eyes brised ribs batterd kidneys limps, but rememeber whatever damage you dish out you will have to deal with in the plot later, broken arms don't just go away without a good reason.
Duel A one-on-one fight that exemplifies high skill. A classic example here could be the Kenshin Shishio fight. Both fighters should show a high level of technical skill and the advantage should sway back and forth like in the 1-on-1 brawl but here there should be little damage for the most part. The characters cross swords/fists and draw back with barely a nick for the majority of the battle, really showing that these characters are hard pressed and exceptionally talented.
This is one of the better mediums to display technical skills, if one character gains a lead by the use of some special move let it run for a bit show the other getting a beating before eventually finding someway to counter. This is the standard in anime fights so there are plenty of examples to go on.
War This is when your character is on a battlefield as part of one of two clashing armies. Don't go into technical elemesnt here, the key is to emphasise the constant stream of enemies. One hit exchanges, attacker counter next guy, attack get hit get saved etc. Slash left kill one guy, slash right kill another. Also add element of whats happening around like seeing an get stabbed to your right and another run throuygh an enemy on the left. Chaotic flurry of death and mayhem is what you should aim for.
There are other types but this should help you get started, you need to know what kind of fight is happening before you can write it.
Visual aids
Okay since few people will have a through knowledge of martial arts or fights generally the last thing you should look for is a reference source for what your fight should look like. Many anime and movies have fights in (though live action scenes are generally more reliable). Watch a kung fu movie if you want high kicki ng action, something like braveheart or gladiator if you want hard weapon brawls (that may cross over into mecha) or a samurai flick if you want sword duels (actually highlander would work here).
A good principle to go by as you write these is KISS,
Keep It Simple Stupid. If you are not sure or have much knowledge of throws and arm locks don't write them, kicks and punches are much simpler to write. If you are not sure what the difference between fighting with a a katana and a wakizashi is stick to one.
Okay since this post is already ridiculously long I'll stop there for now and dodge all the rotten fruit you are all likely to throw at me. if anyone has anything to add, please do as the reason I started this topic is so writers can help other writers with all those scenes that plague us.
if you still want me too I'll go into actually planing and writing the scene itself (once i work out how myself
) Also I'd like to say that I'm not trying to plug my own fic here (though if you want to read it it would be nice
) I just wanted to say how I got this dubious experienmce I'm trying to share and also why write examples anew when I have some fight scenes I can sample to explain my point.
Thanks.....Um....I'll shut up now.
