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The Dreaded Fight Scene - Some Lesser-Heard Advice

A short list of what this post will include:

Perspective Problems

Decent Advice About Paragraph Length

Semi-Nuanced Advice about Sentence Length (Featuring: Either It's Boring or Somebody Could Die [again with actual nuance])

The Most Evil Antagonist: Suddenly (AKA Really Short Advice)

Death to All Adverbs

For the Love of God Stop Using Adjectives In the Place of Nouns

Verbs Should Punch Your Reader As Much As Your Characters

Immerse Me (Sensory, Sensory, Sensory)

Pacing (God help me)

Don't Write Like It's a Movie Because It Isn't (and writing like that means it never will be)

Keeping It Interesting (Featuring: Mix It Up, Advantages Should Be Temporary Until Asses Are Thoroughly Whooped, Cause Many Problems On Purpose and Hope Your Characters Are Smart Enough to Get Out, and If You've Got a Good Plot Twist Sic 'Em)

In case you can't tell I'm trying to be suave and charming and funny like a first person narrator titling their chapters with sarcasm (which is a trope I learned from Percy Jackson I have not fallen out of love with, even though I've fallen out of love with that particular series).

I am not a popular blog. As far as I know no popular blogs follow me. This will probably land with a thud. One day I will probably dredge up this post from the unnavigable dredges of Tumblr (watch Tumblr have finally gone extinct by then), pretty it up, and post it on a website I make specifically for writing advice and my original fiction once that exists. However, for now, I bless you with this that will likely be a complete dud. May the few souls who see it glean something valuable from it.

Disclaimer: I am not a published author. I've just been told I'm good at this. Do with that what you will.

Without further ado (God save me):

Perspective Problems

If you're writing from a third-person omniescent style (your narrator describes all characters in the third person (she/he/they/it/various neopronouns) and they know everything that is going on from every character's perspective), then I'll be honest: I do not know how to give you advice. From here on out this advice will be most applicable to limited perspectives--narrator fixed to one character's perceptions at a time. I write almost exclusively in third person limited and first person narrative; I have very little practice with omniscient perspectives, and the practice I do have either didn't have fight scenes or didn't care much about fight scenes because they weren't the point of the story. I also don't read a lot of omniscient perspectives--I have yet to make it all the way through The Lord of the Rings trilogy, although I really liked The Hobbit. That also didn't care about conflict much, and cared more about humor than maintaining tension. So I'm gonna stick to what I know. Like I said, I am not a master word smith. I have not studied every facet of this craft, I am not the most qualified to be writing this post.

That all being said, hopefully I can still help you.

Let's get the mundane, everyday, boring shit out of the way first.

Paragraph Length

Why am I starting here and not on sentence advice even though that might make more logical sense? Because I find this infinitely more important than sentence length.

My advice for paragraph length boils down to one thing: you want your single-sentence paragraphs to pack a punch.

Which means: on average, your paragraphs should be at least three sentences long. In a fight scene, I would say don't let them exceed five sentences unless it's a super-duper special paragraph, and even then that might be pushing it. (This advice may conflict for you: if you want single-sentence paragraphs to pack a punch but your sentences should be short in fight scenes, then don't you have to have paragraphs longer than five sentences? Yeah, wait for the second piece of advice.)

The reason? Single-line paragraphs are incredibly powerful. Have you ever read something where it was going along normally and then they suddenly smack you in the face with a single sentence or a single line, the shorter the better? One of those paragraphs that completely changes the tone or direction of a scene? A realization that shakes the foundation the MC built their world upon, a decisive defeat or miraculous victory, an irreparable betrayal, a plot twist that rattles you and the protagonists to their core. You remember the power in that?

You completely forfeit that power if your paragraphs are too short. And that can be very effective in a fight scene if you use it wisely.

Look elsewhere for advice on how exactly to determine when you need to change paragraphs. All I'll say is: walls of text are an accessibility nightmare, and for the love of Neil Gaiman new speakers get their own paragraphs.

Sentence Length

Actually, your sentences should not all be two or three words long. That actually takes your pacing and readability into the sewer, and not on an epic gross adventure. Anyone who tells you all your sentences should be short in a fight scene is either lying to you or leaving off a significant chunk of nuance.

Let me show you an example of "keep sentences short" taken to its logical conclusion without nuance.

He lunged. She parried. It almost caught her. He leapt over the divide. She stumbled back. He slashed her leg. She cried out. She punched him in the nose. He wiped away blood. She swiped for his neck. He dodged.

That is unbearably monotonous, and that was with me instinctively adding more nuance and variability to the fight.

Now then, that is not to say you should make action lengthy or wordy. However:

He lunged. She barely caught it in time, her own blade cool and stinging against her side. She tried to hold her ground, but another slash gave him opportunity to leap their divide. She stumbled back, searching for something else to put between them without taking her eyes off him.

He lunged for her again. She was too slow to parry the gash to her leg. White-hot pain erupted from the wound, blood gushing hot to the ground as she screamed, but she channeled that pain into her fist, slamming it into his nose with all the might she had.

He wiped away the blood with a snarl, but more poured behind it. She tried to take his head, but he dodged it too easily. She wasn't going to leave here with her life if she didn't think of something soon.

(Note I used several different techniques we'll get into for that last excerpt, but all of those are difficult to use if you stick to the advice of short sentences relentlessly.)

Which brings me to:

Either It's Boring or Somebody Could Die

This advice should not be taken literally. It is possible to have a fight scene where the stakes aren't "somebody could die." It could be someone's pride. It could be the respect of a mentor or trusted friend. It could be the interest of a romantic partner for all I care (although except in rare instances I find any sort of "fighting for the love interest" distasteful and toxic).

What should become clear to you: stakes are very, very hard to establish if your sentences are too short. Furthermore, emotion and sensory experiences are extremely hard to insert with short sentence length. Your fight scene lives and dies on whether the reader feels like its stakes are imminent; a fun sparring match is just not going to be interesting, no matter what you do. Unless you're inserting a plot twist about how the opponent is actually trying to kill them while maintaining the plausible deniability of "it was just an accident!" let it establish its point with character or world-building and then move on. (Fighting lessons count toward both, as far as I'm concerned, so as long as it's doing that you're fine.)

Another thing you should notice about the above excerpt: the protagonist is consistently losing. More on that in a bit.

The Most Evil Antagonist: "Suddenly"

Just cut it. If you're doing everything else right cut it. You do not need it. It contributes nothing. It does not make things more clear, it just slows down your pacing. Cut it.

Death to All Adverbs

This is pretty average advice, and it should be applied to everything you write, but for the love of God use barely any adverbs in your fight scenes. Avoid them everywhere at all costs but they will only screw up your pacing. Pick a better verb, and if there is not a better verb then you're forfeiting the reader understanding exactly what is in your head to tell a better story. Sometimes you've got to do that as a writer: it is impossible to make them see it happen in front of them like they're watching a movie (which is another thing we'll get into). Just focus on the pacing.

If you can really, really stand there and justify that adverb, then I respect you. But very, very few. Very few. Make 'em count.

For the Love of God Stop Using Adjectives in the Place of Nouns

This goes to my fanfic writers (who admittedly make up a predominant amount of my reading material anymore because gifted kid burnout is real).

No "the anxious man," "the blonde girl," "the bubbly friend" or whatever. I read Sanders' Sides fanfiction and I feel personally affronted by the words "the anxious side." They've committed war crimes against me personally and I will sue for emotional damages.

Unless your narrator does not know the character's name or you have not revealed their name yet, you should not be using adjectives in the subject of your sentence. Full-stop. It screws readability all to hell. It's confusing. It's cliche and annoying. Either it serves a demonstrable purpose in the scene or you need to use a name.

And if you're worried about names getting repetitious, to a large extent they're like "said." They will largely disappear in the reader's mind except to establish who the rest of the sentence is referring to. You wouldn't feel that way about pronouns, you shouldn't feel much worse about names.

(Obviously description is different and oftentimes you will preface a noun with an adjective then, as well as some other instances. Mostly, your writing decisions should be deliberate. If you cannot justify it, then really ask yourself why you're doing it.)

Verbs Should Punch Your Reader As Much As the Characters

We touched on this in "Death to All Adverbs," but your verbs should pack a punch in a fight scene. I won't exhaust the subject here, but there are multiple lists online of verbs and other parts of syntax useful for fight scenes. I recommend going through them--and recognizing your internal reaction to them. Certain words are going to create a more intense reaction--"crack" versus "break," "wound" versus "gash," "jostle" versus "jerk." Obviously you start getting into what exactly those words mean, but if the more visceral option works for your scene, it will probably improve it.

Immerse Me

Some good practice: before the fight starts, or in a lull in the action, describe your setting. You don't have to describe every facet of it. Focus primarily on parts relevant to the scene or plot; throw in a couple fun facts that don't take up too much time so you can keep your reader from guessing every twist and turn. And then use your setting. White room fights are boring. Use the space. Have characters switch out on the high ground (in one-on-one fights that's basically useless, if it isn't more advantageous to have the low ground, but changing angles changes dynamics). If a character is disarmed, let them use something in their environment. Kick dust into your enemy's eyes. Throw things at them. Eat up your scenery. It will help, but to do that your reader needs to know what things look like first, or using that environment in the fight is gonna feel like deus ex machina after deus ex machina.

Don't stop at the visual aspects of the scenery, though. Tap into every sensation your narrator has. Taste, smell, hearing, sight, touch. Even their kinesthetics (how they feel their orientation in the space they're occupying). It suddenly gets a lot harder to fight when you're dizzy (though not impossible--I had a temporary disability that made me chronically dizzy for about two years, and I continued training in Kung Fu in that time; accommodations were needed and my Si Gong and classmates had to be made of the problem in case something went wrong, but I was still able to do it). That's a great way to keep your character on the back foot, depending on how dizzy you make them. Temper it, though--if they're badly concussed and the world is spinning so badly they puke, they're not going to be able to defend themselves.

To a (limited) extent, feeding your sensory information through the character's emotions will also strengthen the prose. Don't go overboard on this because you will grind the pacing to a halt.

Speaking of pacing:

Pacing

(God help me)

This video is better than anything I'm going to give you here, and it tells you what to do on a plot level, too. Pacing is impossible to explain and I hardly understand it myself. Frankly I don't think I'm that good at it.

However, that video isn't specific to fight scenes, and I'm going to try to give you some satisfactory advice for writing fight scenes with strong pacing. Bear with me.

First off: if your fight scene is short, then keep it quick. No adverbs, sharp verbs, pretty short sentences, and then move on.

But here's the thing: short fight scenes are boring.

There's no time to establish stakes. There's no time to feel like the narrator is losing. There's no time to gnaw your fingernails off and cuss passionately at the page. It also doesn't feel all that much worth it. Your fight scenes should all have an impact on the plot and if it genuinely doesn't need to be long to serve its role in the plot, that's fine but if you want to write fight scenes that are engaging and epic, they need to be longer.

Part of that is going to be keeping it interesting, which we'll get to in a minute. But another huge part is varying your pacing.

Generally, fight scenes should be fast. Your reader should be trying to read as much as they can as fast as possible because they're worried they're gonna die. But a fast pace for too long gets tiring; when you're going for a run, you don't sprint for the whole way. You sprint for a few seconds, then jog, then sprint again. Pace in a fight scene is going to be the inverse of that balance--it will be predominantly fast-paced with short breathers, but you should still give your reader moments to collect themselves.

Now there is a type of fight (that is absolutely impossible to write) that is incredibly effective and maintains a fast pace for pages upon pages upon pages. If your antagonist is absolutely unstoppable--everything the MCs can throw at them only slows them down, and they keep coming--then you can create a very engaging horror atmosphere of stress. However, then the pace is going to be more middling--it's not as ruthless or sharp or quick like it is when both parties are trying to win as quickly as possible because losing could mean death. This is a character who knows they are not going down any time soon. They aren't in a rush. They're persistent, but they don't need to hurry. Think The Terminator or Predator.

High tension also leads to more intense pacing. We'll touch more on tension later.

Don't Write It Like a Movie Because It Isn't (and it never will be if you write like that)

This is coming from someone who was a master at making fight scenes immensely boring. I'm a black belt, and for years and years I wanted to channel my lessons into my fiction. And there is a way to do it, but it is not with blow-by-blow narrative. If your characters are wailing on each other with swords, most attacks and defenses in that fight are going to be very routine.

I'm going to try to give you a solid understanding of what to skip or summarize and what to dramatize. This will likely not be exhaustive.

First thing you want to keep: shifts to the status quo. If something changes in the dynamics of the fight--someone gets or loses an advantage, new challenges arise, someone's (especially your perspective character) injured, scenery shifts--then definitely include that. Otherwise the resolution is going to come out of nowhere.

It's also good to include anything that increases tension--AKA your reader's and character's stakes in the fight, or how close they are to losing. Monotony does not help this--again, blow-by-blow is useless.

See this example of a blow-by-blow:

I lunged for his thigh. He blocked with a clang that shook through my arm. He swiped for my knees and I dodged. He moved for my neck; I parried; he tried again and I parried. I advanced with a lunge; he retreated but pushed me back with a slash the next minute.

Imagine that continuing for several more paragraphs, as opposed to:

Sweat poured down my neck, into my eyes as my sword weighed heavy in my hand, each block shuddering through me. I panted, struggling to see, struggling not to block out from lack of oxygen because every parry, every lunge, every attack just wore me down further. If something didn't change soon I wouldn't be able to go on. I was losing. More blows rained; I held my ground. But none of that would make a difference if the exhaustion thickening in my veins did me in before it did him.

The latter doesn't bog itself down in minutiae; what matters is how the character is faring in the fight, how close they are to losing. Obviously this would be interspersed with described action, but just for the back and forth, focus on how the exhaustion is getting to your character. How the pain is affecting them. Establish what's at stake if they lose and focus on status-quo changes.

There is a way to utilize monotony well, but it's through an emotional lens. If your character is disillusioned with violence, has done this a thousand times and is just tired, then blow-by-blow within reason communicates that numbness really well. There's no emotion behind their side of the fight; they don't feel the stakes. This is how it's always been, what they can't escape. But still, use it sparingly. It gets boring fast.

Also, don't use technical names for any fighting moves. They do not translate to most readers and between martial arts. Use words everyone is going to understand, and if you can't find ones sharp or quick enough, pick the closest you can that maintains pacing and settle for your readers not perfectly understanding everything that happens precisely as it does in the scene.

Keeping It Interesting

Here's where we enter the arena I am really actually scared of. This is also the part I cannot find any advice for anywhere on the internet: in a prolonged fight scene, how do you keep it engaging?

Let's take this piece by piece.

Mix It Up

Constantly switch up the dynamics of the fight. What weapons are they fighting with? Wound them, take away advantages. Change up the setting if you can. Add advantages and then take them away. Change up how they're fighting, on what terrain. Let your characters get clever. Engage your inner tactician. Do not let something go on too long without something changing up the dynamic. That being said:

Advantages Should Be Temporary Until Asses Are Thoroughly Whooped

This is where we get into tension. If your protagonists are winning, it's boring. Occasional victories are great, especially if they give your character a moment of hope that is immediately squashed by the antagonist having already thought of that, or having a plan to counter it, or what have you. Any victory while the fight is still going should be brief. Hope should be wrested away from them repeatedly. Brilliant ideas in the heat of the moment should fall apart. The longer the fight goes, the more disappointments, the thinner hope becomes.

If you need to, you can give them a more dramatic victory, but if the fight continues after that then you are going to end up in the fun situation of coming up with a reason why the antagonist is still winning even when they just got their ass handed to them. From experience, that is not an easy position to be in. It's hard to climb out of that hole.

I am serious. I don't care how epic and accomplished and cool your MCs are, if they're winning it's boring. You need tension. You need the stakes to stay high. You need there to be a real and imminent threat they could lose, with whatever consequences come attached. Otherwise your reader is going to find it monotonous and not care. If it doesn't feel like your protagonists are about to lose, then you're not going to keep your audience.

Cause Many Problems On Purpose and Hope Your Characters Are Smart Enough to Escape

Here's a fun fact: it generally doesn't read as a deus ex machina if it screws over your main characters.

I'm serious. You can introduce things you barely set up, if you set it up at all, into a fight scene as long as it makes things worse. If your characters happen to repurpose a grave inconvenience as something they can use, then that shows ingenuity and quick thinking.

Constantly throw up barriers to victory. You can't get too generous with evil deus ex machina or it will start to feel trite, but you can definitely throw in a few depending on length. Turn the heat higher steadily; every time they escape one issue, throw another one at them.

This does however mean your himbos are probably going to need countered by someone with brains. Dumb is not a great combination with "ends up in progressively shittier situations and has to climb back out."

And for the love of fuck, this is your chance to make your smart characters look smart. Actually show them resolving problems it doesn't look like your characters are going to get out of. Craft a scene where the protagonist is still able to be cool but they do it in collaboration with the smart one--not by telling the smart one what to do, but by coming up with a solution together, or reading some clever way the smart one is communicating their plan to them and enacting it. They can edit it as they go if the smart one doesn't do well under pressure. I am tired of reading books telling me how super smart someone is and then they do absolutely nothing about the conflict.

If You've Got a Good Plot Twist Sic 'Em

Here is what I mean by "good" plot twist: it contributes to the themes of the piece, it had actual evidence for it planted previously and does not break any established rules of your universe, and it (generally) makes things worse. Plot twists have twice the impact if they're screwing you over than if they're making it better, but if you can write a protagonist or side character pulling out a brilliant plan they carefully enacted behind the scenes to save them, by all means.

Of course, developmental edits are always an option. If you're writing the fight and you get an excellent plot twist idea in the middle, you can write it then and double back to edit in the evidence. If you're writing fanfiction chapter by chapter and uploading it, you're gonna have a harder time, but fanfic readers are generally more forgiving. Still, this is why I write each installment in completion before uploading (although I still write series, so invariably I get to some intallment down the road that fucks up what's been uploaded and I still have to edit things, but that's the reality of fanfiction).

You will hear from every angle that you need to outline. Outlining would save you a lot of grief. I am not going to shove Outline Gospel down your throat because I have an irrational, consumptive hatred for outlining; everything I've ever outlined made me so viscerally angry I abandoned it and couldn't go back without reawakening that ire. You won't hear me condemn you if you're a discovery writer. It does make your life harder, I'll grant you.

How to write a good plot twist is trickier. You either want four or five little clues, subtle cues, or one or two bigger ones, I'd average, but mastering that balance is hard. I still don't know where I fall on that continuum. I've gotten some awesome feedback on my plot twists from people surprised but cussing because it feels obvious in hindsight...more or less, but it's not easy and readers for original fiction generally read closer. It's hard. Best you can do is a little bit of research, a lot of developmental editing, run it by a beta (or several, if you're publishing for money you need several), and pray. As long as you have something there better than a very minor throwaway line three books ago, the worst you'll probably have to deal with is people guessing your plot twist ahead of time. If you paid any attention to The Owl House fandom, you'd know: audiences don't care. They'd rather the plot twist be predictable and earned than for you to chicken out of it partway through and throw in something completely random or leave obvious plot threads dangling without explanation because you're trying to clumsily plant seeds for a whole new plot twist they haven't guessed yet. (Looking at you, Marvel...and Game of Thrones...and basically every other media property, fucking hell.)

There you have it. Here's hoping this was useful to you and gave you something new to work with than what you had before. If not, I gave it my best shot. I'll work on it and get it right eventually.