Writing Style for Action Scenes

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Since this isn't an actual story but more a question of mechanics, I felt Whatnots was the best forum for this, although I maybe wrong.

My question is this for you writers out there:

How exactly do you write an action scene?

I myself am finding it more and more difficult to do so. I don't want to go "blow for blow" as that uses up way too much space and tends to get redundant and somewhat simplistic in most cases. At the same time I feel, since this fight is a key part of this particular part of the story, it doesn't deserve to be glossed over.

I was particularly bored and decided to try my hand at an anime type Sci Fi/Fantasy piece (low brow literature, relatively near future, "low tech" setting with a couple of characters who operate like beings in a fantasy novel). My current situation has one of the main characters pitted against a genetically modified bounty hunter. Both heavily favor melee combat and move at very high rates of speed. In a similar situation how would you write this? Would you favor running dialogue/mental commentary to keep the audience aware of what is going on, but limited in detail or something along the lines of narrating a more third person approach of someone watching more from a distance. I honestly could do either seeing as the style is third person omniscient and I have access to the minds of the two combatants, as well as those observing the fight. Also seeing as their very fast, how would you handle describing their attacks and their dodging?

Thanks for any help, it seems as I don't have the same confidence I once had in writing action. Must have been all that time wasted on trying to write more serious stuff, must be out of practice.

 

The best thing you can do is learn from the master of the action scenes (and writing in general) Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan. An example:


"Conan bounded back from the waving bills and his leap carried him outside the ring of his foes, to where Arus stood fumbling at his crossbow. A savage kick in the belly dropped him, green-faced and gagging, and Conan's sandalled heel crunched square in the watchman's mouth. The wretch screamed through a ruin of splintered teeth, blowing bloody froth from his mangled lips."

edit
Oh, forgot about this, to me the the most important reason why some combat scenes fail: the dialogue between the participants. Avoid at all costs! That sort of things (IMO) belongs more in the ninja turtles cartoons or Salvatore's novels than in a good action scene.

 

Hmmh... well, I would not put too much detail into it, but not leave it completely out either. And as guildmaster said, dialogue during combat can be highly unrealistic. Shouts migh be feasible if the other is highly more experienced and easily dominates the fight, whereas he might start the "come on!"-type of things. But complete dialogue, that's a no. Grunts and other noices are common, though.
Also, you could refer to the fight as "flurry of strikes" and the like. Most of the time, I don't describe each single blow, myself, but try to give a good larger view of what's happening. This is especially true if the fight's fast-paced, since writing it in that fashion (less detail and the like) makes it feel like that. If the fight's slower, I usually describe it in more detail, as there's not going to be as much blows to describe.

Of course, I'm only an amateur writer, so feel free to ingnore anything and everything you don't like.

 

When writing fight scenes, I usually draft my husband into acting out the fight with me. I know *what* I want to happen, but I'm not sure on *how* to execute it in words. After having fought the battle, I know what at least one person is feeling - their reactions, what their senses tell them, adrenalin, etc..

Suggestions:

Make several drafts of the scene, each using a different way to describe the fight. #1 could be a running commentary, #2 could be a single sentence (After a rain of blows from both opponents, the winner stood swaying and savoring his/her victory.), #3 could be limiting yourself to the senses of one of the fighters. Give these drafts to good friends/family to read and ask what they thought of it.

 

R. A. Salvatore is pretty damn good at writing battle scenes in my opinion, look at some of his work for inspiration.

 

That's part of the problem, I don't read a lot of Fantasy stories. I have J.R.R. Tolkien (Hobbit and the trilogy), David Eddings (I think I have all his fantasy books, I was a big fan of him when I was younger), one Robert Jordan book, the first two of Martin's series, and two other fantasy books whose titles and authors I can't remember. I never liked how Tolkien wrote combat scenes, Jordan... not so big a fan of while Eddings and Martin always seemed to have more large scale combat. I don't really have an literary reference for one on one combat between elite warriors.

 

Verbs, verbs, verbs, and lots of sensory nouns. No dialogue, or very little, because that sounds too fake. The good old rule of picturing rather than telling especially applies here; try to find a verb that conveys the sense in one word rather than a phrase or modified verb: "smash" or "crush", for instance, rather than "hit very hard." The hoary old thesaurus, or the thesaurus or synonym function on your word processor, can help, but be cautious to stay within your normal range of diction and not stray into so many terms the whole scene sounds like a thesaurus.

I think Kuemper's suggestion of writing the scene several times in different ways is excellent.

As for learning from other writers, that can help, but this is your story and must be in your voice.

Finally, get it written - then work on it. You can dither forever wondering how to write it and it will never get written at all. Write something down, however inadequate, and then play around with it.

 

Read a Dan Brown novel.

They are written as a film manuscript, including action scenes.

Guess Arnold Schwarzenegger should have been Robert Langdon in the film. Would have loved to hear him introduce himself as "professor in symbology"

My point is, while Dan Brown can't write a thriller and wouldn't recognize facts even if it jumped him, he *can* write action scenes.

So perhaps you could get some inspiration there?

[ January 24, 2007, 13:58: Message edited by: Ironhawk Skylord ]

 

Ilmater, one more comment - notice that in the quote from Howard's Conan book that guildmaster offered, nearly all the adjectives are actually verbs (participles, past and present, if you want to be picky): green-faced, gagging, sandalled, splintered, mangled. That's a great way to add a sense of action to description.

 

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to tell it through the eyes of the bounty hunter because I think if I can get in her mind, I'll have an easier time getting across the abilities of the other character.

Thanks for the tips about verbs, I tend to find myself getting adjective and adverb heavy when I try to do action scenes these days, that's probably why my action scenes stall and feel unnatural.

I might put it the segment in Creative Surge when I get it done and then you guys can tell me if I succeeded at what I'm attempting to do. It should be a relatively short segment before the fight starts to expand as the bounty hunter's teammates get more involved.

 

If you want it to sound realistic - don't make it flashy. That's a problem that Salvatore has - everything is intricate spinning and twirling and neat little thrusts and jabs and parrys and feints. Yes, I'm sure people do such things, but they don't throw out ten fancy maneuvers per second. Short and brutal fights seem more realistic to me, rather than the prancing around that Drizzt does (of course - as I don't read Drizzt for the realism, it doesn't matter too much )

 

I'm sort of stuck in between. I definitely try to stay away from the fancy stuff and there isn't really anything pretty about combat in this story as it tends to be rather brutal, however the problem is the two characters going at it both rely on speed as the central facet of their fighting styles.

I don't really imagine the two doing anything fancy, but it isn't short, specifically since the character central to the story isn't the one on the offensive and is in possession of incredible reflexes. I envisioned as a strike-dodge sequence more similar to actions in a martial arts tournaments, though blocking has been dropped in favor of avoiding.

 

Go pick up Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. A fair amount of action, and it's superb. Not particularly detailed, but not vague, either.