How to Write a Fight Scene

today we're getting bloody today we're talking about fight scenes when I first started even the awakening I knew I was gonna need a lot of fight scenes and I was nervous because I've never really been involved in a physical fight don't hit me I'm fragile and asthmatic so I wasn't sure I'd be able to do them justice fast-forward to today now fight scenes are pretty much a thing my readers expect from me Oh Jenna's writing a new book I guess that means people are gonna get up in any case a lot of you have read these fight scenes and have asked what it is that I do that makes these blood baths extra bloody and extra bathey so here it is my personal steps for writing impactful fight scenes number one do your research it's your protagonist a trained fighter or they in an army do they fight in any type of fighting style if any of these are true and you yourself are not an expert on fighting tactics you're gonna have to do some research study terminology stances weapons get nice of familiar with fight early so you can feel comfortable writing fight early and I know you might be thinking Jenna it's a fight you throw a few punches shank a few people whatever no not whatever if you know nothing that is gonna translate into your work people are gonna read your fight scenes and imagine it going down like this puppet don't touch me stop meow number two don't use all of your research they want you all that research and then you're not even going to use it hear me out when you research fighting techniques you're gonna learn a lot of really technical and the last thing you want your fight to be is technical fights are fast paced they're intense and you listing a ton of technical terms is only gonna slow it down so definitely do the research but only apply what is absolutely necessary the manuscript I'm currently working on involves a lot of sword fighting and I learned a lot of crazy about swords and about stabbing people with them I learned that if you deflect or block a sword it's called a parry but many readers out there actually know what a Perry is I didn't until I research this so I'm not gonna call it a Perry I'm gonna call it a blog it means virtually the same thing and calling it a block won't require my reader to stop in the middle of a fight scene and pull out a dictionary and sure perry would have illustrated to my audience that I'm smart hey check me out I know my but you never want to brag to your audience at the expense of your fight scene or anything they don't care if you know fancy terminology they care about the fight so put your ego on the back burner and make the fight clear graphic bloody number three use powerful verbs this goes hand-in-hand with not using all of your research you'll learn different kinds of hits and maneuvers all of which have great practical terminology but do you want your fight to be practical or do you want it to be gnarly the more intense your fight is the more powerful you want your verbs to be if your characters are just sparring or training then sure use fancy dancy words but if your character is fighting for her life try to use verbs that sound hard and painful verbs that make you go mmm pound jab slam shove crush hurdle dive smash these type of verbs will make the fight of visceral experience one that readers feel physically involved in you also don't want to spend too much time describing meticulous movements I know you've got a detailed vision in your mind of how the spike goes down but don't waste your time saying he grabbed her left arm with his right hand then punched her right cheek with his left hand that is complicated and stupid and unnecessary and stupid your intention should be to make the fight as gripping as possible not to paint the exact picture of what you see in your mind because no matter what you do or how hard you try you can never fully control what your reader sees so let go of your uptight control freak tendencies and just write the most impactful entertaining fight you can with powerful verbs number four describe the emotion I know that you want your protagonist to be a badass you want them to just seamlessly take down the henchmen like a total boss the problem is this is really boring to read but Jenna it looks really cool in anime in the matrix but you see those things are visual movies and TV shows have special effects with their disposal all you have are words and your readers imagination so you can't rely on pretty pictures to compensate for your lack of emotional intensity make your protagonist scared make them unsure of themselves make them desperate to survive this doesn't make them any less of a badass fear just makes them real it makes them relatable and if fear just doesn't fit your characters mold then ascribe some other emotion to them are they fighting the man who killed their father that dick then they're probably gonna be pissed the off or maybe your character is so caught up in all the killing they feel nothing they're just completely numb and adrenaline emotions went out the window and they've gone full robot my people whatever emotion you choose you want to describe it and you want to describe the physical manifestation it takes hands trembling with rage a heart racing with fear lungs surging brows sweating these descriptions will remind the reader that the character is invested in the fight and if the protagonist is invested the reader should be invested to number five describe the pain it's a fight right getting hit or stabbed hurts so you should probably mention that describing the physical pain is only gonna make the fight that much more intense you want your reader to feel that hits get dirty describe the shooting pain the throbbing that aching the stinging and there are a lot of other elements that accompany pain is there a mouth filling with blood do they have a limp is their vision blurred get your protagonists nice and up this is only gonna reiterate the fact that hey despite the serious business anything could happen your protagonist could die right now you want your reader thinking oh that didn't sound good is she gonna be okay maybe she is gonna be okay or maybe she's not because she's bleeding from her face don't ever ever skip the pain the pain makes the fake seem that much higher which brings us to number 6 what are the stakes every fight has a purpose right what is your protagonist fighting for or against the greater the stakes the more intense the fight should be in evey awakening the very first fight scene is a sparring match and Eve's hand-to-hand combat class if she wins she actually gets to unleash account of whoop-ass on a guy she really hates and if she loses she'll be humiliated thus the stakes are relatively minor on the flip side e participates in other fights where is she loses she dies so basically the stakes are her life and the lives of everyone she cares about no big deal no matter how great or how small the stakes are they need to be there readers do not care about a fight if there's nothing to lose now you don't have to explicitly state the stakes there doesn't need to be some winner gets to live loser gets to die explanation that would be weird but the reader should be aware that the pataga nest means to win this fight these are the moments where you're testing your readers loyalty to the protagonist you want them emotionally invested in their win and in many cases in their survival and lastly we have number 7 give the protagonist a worthy opponent a lot of newbie riders send me manuscripts where the protagonist is untouchable they're immortal they cannot be stopped that is stupid why would anyone be invested in a fight that persons involved in they're obviously gonna win they can't die thus in order to write a good fight scene your antagonist should be as strong or stronger than your hero they need to be a legitimate threat or else what the hell is the point so how do you show that your antagonist is a formidable opponent you make your hero struggle bang them up a little before they hit their stride get them to the point where both the protagonist and the reader think oh they're gonna lose bad this is actually a very popular tactic used in both books and movies if you watch some of the best action movies and focus solely on the fight scenes especially that final fight where the protagonist is up against that main body you'll inevitably find a moment where the protagonist is at their worst they're weak they're gross they're soggy and just pathetic and your hero needs to dig deep and channel whatever morsel of strength they have remaining and take this down regardless of how you go about this you just got to make sure your protagonist isn't untouchable and their victory is all but certain this will make the fight feel much more intense for the reader and it'll make the protagonists win that much more exciting so that's all I got for you today right some fight things kill some people fictionally fictionally it's fake it's fiction not real like and give your protagonist some battle wounds don't forget to subscribe to my channel I post new videos on Wednesdays read the first three chapters of EBU awakening on Jenna Morasca calm or Peter gets it and if you have any questions or if there's something you'd like me to talk about in my next video leave me a comment or tweet me at Jenna Marcy bye

Channel: Writing with Jenna Moreci

Views: 215,453

Rating: 4.9626846 out of 5

Keywords: write, writer, writing, read, reader, reading, book, books, author, novel, sci-fi, science fiction, fight, fantasy, young adult, new adult, book lion, book worm, amwriting, amreading, Library, How-to (Website Category), Scene

Id: vl5KFMOYPKg

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2015