forum Action Scenes
Started by Sophie Herbert
tune

people_alt 48 followers

@Periwinkle_

pfft me toooooooooooo like fr its annoying bc it looks so good in your head but then you read it and you're like

WHAT IS THIS?????

@Cassiopeia

Hey, guys!
I wanted to add onto this thread by first saying that I feel this on a deeper level then perhaps I'd care to admit. Here are a couple of tips quoted from tumblr that help me out a lot on the rare occasion that I do write fight or action scenes! I hope these help. :)

  • Keep fights short and fast paced. This will keep them exciting, especially if you use short sentences to establish the fight’s fast pace. Plus, it’s unrealistic to have characters fighting each other for too long. Fights are exhausting, so they usually only last a few minutes (note that this does not apply to battles, only fights between a fairly small number of characters).
  • Don’t focus on people’s thoughts or have them talk too much. That should help you keep things fast paced.
    Show the effects of characters’ injuries. For example, a character who has hurt their leg might avoid putting weight on it. Little details like this emphasize that the injured character’s safety is at stake while also letting the reader know that injuries have lasting, important consequences in your story. Don’t shy away from having other characters take advantage of these injuries. This is a great opportunity to show which characters are willing to fight dirty.
  • Give your characters different fighting styles. Not everyone fights the same way. Some people fight dirty while others don’t. Also, people’s fighting styles naturally differ because they have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, an agile character might quickly dart in to hit their opponent before swiftly retreating while a slower, more bulky character might want to stay close to their opponent for the duration of the fight and overwhelm them with their strength. Keep in mind that characters’ emotions can alter their fighting style. This is especially true when characters get really mad as that tends to make them more likely to fight aggressively and recklessly.
  • Keep characters’ goals in mind. Characters don’t always want the same outcome from a fight. One character might want to kill their opponent (and therefore fights viciously, without any mercy) whereas the other character might just want to incapacitate their opponent by knocking them out (and therefore holds back to a degree). Possible goals include killing their opponent, incapacitating them, talking them down, and creating an opportunity to flee. These are by no means the only goals your characters might have while they’re fighting, but I figured I’d give you some food for thought since each of these goals would feasibly lead a character to behave in very different ways. >

Now, back to my personal advice, I would advise sticking to your guns. If you're better at dialogue then include as much of it as you care to. If you don't want to do that, then I would advise doing a bit of research on fighting.
Revealing character through how they fight or act during a fight is pretty important, and some of the tips above will help with that. Reading books heavy on action may be helpful, too! (Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, or Crown's game by Evelyn Skye are some recommendations for that.)

For additional reading, here are a couple guides I found.
A guide to writing fight scenes
Writing Killer Fight Scenes
How to write a kick-ᵇᵘᵗᵗ fight scene
Here's how to write a ᵈᵃⁿᵍ good fight scene

I really hope this helps! :)

–L.C.