Alright, Here’s How to Write a Fight Scene
Step 1: Have a pretty girl to fight for. Seriously. See technique 2 for reference.
Her ability to shoot is optional, but preferred.
I hate to give away the writing secrets, but I am a magnanimous individual, and have therefore deigned to impart unto you a bit of a "secret weapon."
I'll start with an example from the world-renowned, highly popular and immensely entertaining Louis L'Amour, whose writing itself is the secret weapon to which I referred. If you haven't read his writing before you're in for a treat:
"Dorian!" I said [the main character, a girl named Echo Sackett]
"This is something I have to do, Echo," he said. "It won't take long."
Timothy Oats [the bad guy] took off his coat and laid it on a stump. He put his rifle across it.
"You," I told Hans, "stay out of it."
"Why not? Tim will make mincemeat of him."
I was afraid of that myself, but the way they were looking at each other, like two prize bulls in a pen, I knew nothing I could say would make any difference. Dorian had shucked his coat, too.
He was a shade lighter than Oats, but just as broad in the shoulder.
"You won't find him so pretty when I get through with him," Oats said.
"You take care of yourself, mister. Pretty is as pretty does."
Oats tried a left, drawing Dorian out, or trying to. Dorian ignored the left, moved to the left. He feinted a left, and when Oats moved to counter, hit him with a solid right that shook Oats to his heels. It surprised him, too. He had not expected that, and I could see his expression change. Now he knew he was in for a fight.
Oats was the wilier, ducking, slipping away from punches, hitting hard in return. Twice he landed hard to the body and I winced for Dorian, but he seemed to pay it no mind.
Then they were at it, hammer and tongs, both of them slugging, toe to toe and neither backing up a bit. Oats was hitting Dorian, but Dorian was taking them standing, and suddenly he feinted a left, and Oats, too eager, stepped in and took a right on the chin. It staggered him, and Dorian followed up, swinging both fists to the body.
Oats backed up, tried to get set, but Dorian gave him no chance. The less experienced of the two, he was younger, in better shape, and just a little quicker.
Oats rushed, tried to butt, and Dorian hit him with an uppercut, and when the head came down again, he grabbed Oats by the hair and jerked him forward, kicking his feet from under him. Oats came down hard, landing on his face.
First I'll get one thing out of the way: At the outset of the fight, we get the word "left" three times, and although it might sound immediately unappealing, I've decided it's completely necessary due to the point that the author wanted to make. Oats tries to feint with a left to trick Dorian into moving right, whereupon Oats would hit him with a right. Dorian, instead of moving right, calls the bluff and moves left, then feints a left, which Oats falls for and gets punished with a right-hand strike by Dorian. A moment later you see that Oats was not taking Dorian seriously enough, and thus his "expression changes," as Echo says, because he realizes this won't be a simple matter. The use of the word "left" and "right" multiple times is critical, because it's not just visual information, but logical information. You must know which direction because otherwise you wouldn't understand the strategy being employed.
This is just one example of Louis L'Amour's skill. And this leads nicely into the points I want to make, the first being, "Every action should be of consequence." The description of "left" and "right," as I mentioned, was not a visual or physical one, but a logistical one, which tells the reader of the fighters' strategy, and thus engages the reader. This is somewhat similar to how in Yugioh, Beyblades, or other such animes (sp?), the story will have the main characters (or the characters on the sideline, depending on what type of contest it is) describing their strategies as they go. If you didn't know the purpose of playing thus and such card, then you would have no emotional investment or intellectual curiosity about it.
So first technique: Employ strategy, ensuring that the reader understands the strategies being employed, and don't specify any action that is not of consequence. If your character does something cool, but it has no effect, then either don't specify it, or if you do, then ensure the fact that it has no effect is given primacy: Oh, no! My super cool move missed?!?! That's impossible!
Anime does this all the time, I'm just realizing. Apparently they had this whole thing figured out a long time ago.
Corollary: One simple way to do this is to give the characters very obvious advantages and disadvantages, and then have the characters continually attempt to minimize their weaknesses and vie for usage of their strengths. A person with a limp but strong upper body strength, for instance, will try to keep close and focus on hard, precise hits; meanwhile, his opponent will attempt to maneuver so that the one with the limp has to turn toward his limp, slowing him and putting him at a greater disadvantage.
The next thing you might notice is that the fight has a nice build-up. In fact, this build-up has been happening for the entire book, and this sequence occurs about 10 pages before the final sentence concludes the story. What Louis L'Amour has done is build up this fight, made us question whether Dorian can win, made us want Dorian to win, and then we get a bit of hype where they remove their coats, are described briefly, get a size-up, and then they're off.
Second technique: Build up your fights in some way, whether it be percolating throughout the story, or it's just a small matter of pride. In Holmes, a man spits on the back of Sherlock's head. You instantly want Sherlock to annihilate the other guy, and the director, Guy Ritchie, obliges us.
Next, take stock of how much "blow by blow" there is. Right at the beginning we get the information about feinting, but then we get this:
Oats was the wilier, ducking, slipping away from punches, hitting hard in return. Twice he landed hard to the body and I winced for Dorian, but he seemed to pay it no mind.
Then they were at it, hammer and tongs, both of them slugging, toe to toe and neither backing up a bit.
So this is called narrative summary. Naturally, it's used to summarize, and what it accomplishes in the fight is it tell us the tenor of the fight—how it's proceeding, for better or worse—without getting bogged down in the mire of inconsequential detail. It doesn't matter specifically how each punch was thrown, dodged or taken. It only matters that they are fighting, and hitting, hard, and they seem to be similarly matched.
What this does beyond dispensing with every minor, slow-moving blow-by-blow detail is it gives the reader a sense of movement, much like in Dragonball Z (or other ultra-fast fighting anime) when the characters fight so fast that you're basically seeing a blur. But what happens after? One of the characters manages to land a blow and things slow down. And so it is true here, as well:
Oats was hitting Dorian, but Dorian was taking them standing, and suddenly he feinted a left, and Oats, too eager, stepped in and took a right on the chin.
Now we get a specific series of motions, but then look what happens immediately afterward:
It staggered him, and Dorian followed up, swinging both fists to the body.
It launches back into narrative summary. It doesn't say exactly how he swung, how he specifically stepped in, it just says that he "followed up" and swung "both fists to the body." Your imagination is now picking up the slack, doing more work, but it's not difficult or arduous: Images come in a flurry. This goes on throughout the fight.
The specific blow-by-blow moments are never just physical spectacle like the final fight in a badly done superhero movie; rather, they are specific reports of technique, characterization, and attitudes of the fighters, investing you in the fight. Narrative summary, then, is the method by which we quickly show lots of action, express the general direction of the fight, the overall sense of how the fight is going, and it is also used to break up the slow monotony of blow-by-blow. Note that there are no moves specifically reported on, in a blow-by-blow sense, that have no effect, that are just visual description for the sake of it. If he describes a specific hit, you lean into the words because you know it's going to have significance.
Third technique: Use a combination of immediate scene (blow by blow) and narrative summary to increase speed, build a sense of movement, and change the pacing.
That's about all I have, and this took so much effort that I can't even keep up the act of pomposity that I began in the first paragraph of this essay. Thanks for reading and I hope you got something out of it.
Please feel free to discuss and add your own takes in the comments below. (O.K., I guess I can spare a little pomp.)
