Guys, I enjoyed the cast as always, thanks!

“How does writing a physical fight scene differ from a vehicle/space fighter battle scene? I was just thinking about David Weber as I listened because he writes space battles that I can understand and follow, rather than just ships flying around and shooting at each other.”

First of all I think Weber may not be the best example of a … ‘typical’ space battle scene. His setting allows him time to tighten the pace or relax it whenever it suits him, dwell on the physical aspects of the battle or concentrate on the characters, given that his space battles are often like a long-range artillery duell would be in the real world (or so I would think).

Second, if you see space battles as ship flying around and shooting at each other I think you are missing the point – or at least a writing opportunity. It’s not ships that shoot at each other – it’s people piloting those ships.

So I would say there is not much of a difference, regardless of what tools the characters employ, be it fists, broken bottles, guns, or starfighters. In the end it all has to be about what the people in the story do. Everything else is just window dressing.

Not much difference – storywise – between a punch on the nose and a proton torpedo ripping into an enemy starfighter.

One thought going through my head right now is “write your fight scenes to serve a purpose in your story”. That is, tailor your fights so that at the end of it there will be consequences for the protagonist, and there will be consequences for the story to deal with.

I think what those consequences will be should play a role in how abstract you write a fight scene. If you want to make a point that the forces of evil have overwhelming strength you can just eradicate an army in a very abstract way. But if you want to have your protagonist deal with the consequences of his first act of violence, or something equally personal, you have to be prepared to go into more details. Perhaps not in the actual fight, but in flashbacks or other ways that reference the violence in some detail.

Oh, and when it comes to skilled, well-trained fighters, I think taking a cue from Hollywood screenplays might not be such a bad thing. What often happens in action movies is that the protagonist faces a horde of ‘mooks’ he dispatches with relative ease, just so the viewer knows that our hero really is a good fighter. That can be accomplished easily in a story with a simple sentence like “ten seconds later three man lay on the floor, groaning in pain”, or something along those lines. Same for ‘action horror’, e.g. a vampire or werewolf throwing people around like ragdolls.
Perhaps trying to translate a movie script to a novel blow-by-blow ain’t such a good idea, but I think the timing and pacing of a movie scene can provide some inspiration for structuring the action of a fight scene in a novel.

One last thought, before I end my rambling: Usually I am a friend of long sentences, perhaps more so than I should be. But when I write action scenes I often make a conscious effort to keep my sentences short and simple.

Short paragraphs.

Less commas.

Fast-paced writing for fast-paced action.

Has anyone else here experimented with style changes for action scenes?

To the Battlefield: How to Handle Fight Scenes P1

http://thewonderingswordsman.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/to-the-battlefield/

Ah good, a definition of blocking! That really confused me too. Towards the middle of the ‘cast I figured out the general gist of what it meant, but thanks for the definition Raethe.