Top ten tips for writing great fight scenes

Fight scenes

Mary Thinks She Knows Everything!?

Before I begin on this blog...that I wrote about two months ago...I need to explain why I have been totally (or almost) absent from Seekerville for a while, including missing my FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH POSTS for two months.

One day post surgery. Tina yelled at me for being on social media

I had a detached retina. I'm sure many of you have heard that, but I've never mentioned it (well maybe in the comments?) here.
So I had the surgery then was told I had to spend TEN DAYS lying FACE DOWN. Oh My Gosh, never ever has a treatment seemed so STRANGE. "Seriously Doc, you are requiring me to SMOTHER MYSELF?"
Doc sez, "Why you always gotta look at the dark side?"
So ten days face down...I survived with my sanity intact....trust me, I know this, because My Cowboy has serious doubts and insisted on having me tested!"
Now I've been up for about a month and MY LEFT EYE DOESN'T WORK WELL! It's so weird, my left eye is all messed up and supposed to heal but it's so SLOW.
So anyway, here I am, still a little shaky from the surgery. But finally writing again (I've been doing that for a while, but some days that's the limit of my computer time....
And now, with out further ado, I am going to write about fight scenes.

Go home. Lie face down. Ten days. Good luck.

BTW when they asked me how I got a small tear in my retina...which started the process that led to a detached retina...the doc asked, "Did you have a car crash? A fall? Take a blow to the head?...like six months ago?
I can't think of anything like that.
Doc Sez: Well, sometimes these things just happen.
Terrifying comment.
But speaking of 'a blow to the head'...no, I never got into a fist fight six months ago. And so my fist fighting blog makes some sense. (almost)

1. First write the scene

You need to write it out, over write it, not worry about the length…then tighten it, revise it.

This is true of all writing, but never moreso than in an action scene

2. Always remember character.

Your characters must remain in character while they are moving faster than ever, fighting hard, swinging a fist.

3. Advance the story with the fight

Always remember that, although these scenes, as a writer, are tense, taut, hard, important…it’s not that uncommon for the reader to skim or skip them. Can you think of an example of this?

My example: Have you ever read a Louis L’Amour book? I love Louis L'Amour. He's a huge inspiration. But his fight scenes are so cookie cutter that I never read them. My girls and I read the whole library collection of L'Amour, and we’d talk. The girls used to say L’Amour probably copied and pasted the same fight scene into every book, then went through and changed the names, and locations. Even though they were obviously climax scenes, black moment scenes, life and death scenes…we all skipped them.

It reminds me a little of the modern blockbuster movies like the Batman and Superman movies, the Transformer and Ninja Turtles movies. The fight scenes are ENDLESS AND BORING. Seriously, if I have to watch the poor Statue of Liberty get knocked over one more time, I’m doing a boycott.

Let’s face it, if it’s one of L’Amour’s Sacketts, or Superman, I KNEW the hero would win. Sure he’d get hurt, but he’d win. So if it's a movie, I check my email or try to get a few words written during a

Marvel Comic Movies, if it's a book, I skim along looking for when it ends, and then read the AFTERMATH of the fight scene. That’s very often when the fun really lurks.

4. Don't skimp on writing the AFTERMATH.

This is often the point of the whole exercise. Emotions should be sky high. Blood needs to be staunched. If he's not too badly hurt, a man should be full of sap. (define that for yourself)

5. Keep it short.

Make the fight scene not one word longer than you need it to be. You need to reveal character and

advance the plot with the fight. You need wit, action, surprises. You need to make the fight worth the read. Keep your reader in mind, much as you need to with backstory. You want them to stay with you, make what you write high stakes, charming, unique and brief.

I can remember one L’Amour shootout where the villain called out the hero to do a High Noon type shootout.

The hero came out of the saloon and just walked straight for the bad guy. No hesitation. This mental dialogue is going on in the hero’s head. Bad Guy expects us to exchange threats. He expects to tell me why he wants to kill me. He expects ‘brace yourself’ ‘face off’ ‘draw and fire’. Bad Guy's eyes are shifting, he's not as brave as he sounds. Thinking, walking, hero just keeps closing in steady, fast. Bad Guy is confused, hesitates, the hero walks right up to him and slugs him so hard he knocks him on his backside, then picks him up, punches him hard a few times, takes his gun and tosses him in a water trough.

The point here is, I remember this scene. It was different, surprising. That’s the kind of fight scene you want to write.

I rarely do fight scenes. I do running, shooting, falling, screaming, burning, chasing. But fist fights?

Nope.

I’ve done one. A fight scene in the end of Stuck Together. I can think of one other but the scene isn’t about the fight. The two brothers in the Cimarron Legacy start swinging at each other and knock over a lamp and the room catches fire while they’re fighting.

The scene is about their sister, Sadie and hired man, Heath Kincaid putting out the fire while dodging the two men rolling around on the floor slugging each other. I’m attempting to write one right now for my WIP and it’s an interesting challenge…trying to make it good enough to keep the reader reading!

5. Read great fight scenes.

Several times. As Tina would say, Deconstruct it.

6. Be true to genre.

Do you use western words, words like right cross, left jab, those are boxer words, would your character know them and think them?

If you're writing contemporary detective fiction, be aware of how those characters would talk.

If you're writing Amish....well, if you're writing Amish you probably will be keeping your fights to a minimum.

But you get my point right?

7. EMOTION.

There is emotion in the scene, this may be the MOST important.

It's not just swinging punches.

Emotion goes with pain, with fear, with anger.

KEEP EMOTION IN THE SCENE

8. Make your fight movie worthy.

Write like your book is a movie.

Think in terms of visual, living and moving people. 

9. Use the five senses.

Punches HURT. Falling and crashing into tables and chairs is noisy. Knuckles bleed. Sweat has a smell and you feel it rolling down your face. Blood has a taste. Using the senses draws the reader into any scene better than any other device in your writer’s toolkit.

10. Balance the elements. It’s very tough to balance the action, the thoughts, dialogue, the emotion, the scene setting. Any asides, any interior monologue had to be pared down and done just right or it stops action in it’s tracks. But neither can fists just swing and

connect, swing and connect.

A final bonus sort of non-writing tip.

Get a second set of eyes on your scene.

If you feel confident in your fight scene writing skills then go for it, but if you are new to it, get some neutral eyes on it. NOT YOUR MOTHER. She loves you too much to admit she daydreamed from sentence five on. A writer, not someone who will savage you, but who will be honest. Someone else can tell if the scene MOVES. They can tell if this piece of internal musing stops the action, the scene is emotionally flat. I'm amazed what others can see in my work that I can't seem to see.

Leave a comment about a great fight scene you've read, watched, written or...if you've actually been in a fist fight, you can tell me about that... to get your name in a drawing for a signed copy of 

Long Time Gone

by Mary Connealy

Click to Buy--just in case you don't win!!!!

The Boden clan thought their problems had ended with the death of a dangerous enemy, but have they truly uncovered the real plot to take their New Mexico ranch? Rancher Justin Boden is now in charge. He is normally an unshakable and rugged man, but with his brother, Cole, shot and in mortal danger, even a tough man faces doubts. And it doesn't help that Angie DuPree, the assistant to the doctor trying to save Cole, is as distracting a woman as Justin ever laid eyes on.

With her and the doc's timely skills, Cole looks to be on the mend, and Justin and the rest of the Bodens can turn their attention back to the dangers facing them. It's clear now that everything that's occurred is part of a much bigger plot that could date back to a decades-old secret. Can they uncover all the pieces before danger closes in on them, or is the threat to the ranch even bigger than any of the Bodens could imagine?