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Joined: 4/26/2011
Posts: 9
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Here's a link to Poul Anderson's famous essay on bad action scene writing in Fantasy fiction.
http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/on-thud-and-blunder/
It's as timely today as it was back then, maybe more so with the invasion of Wire Fu in Hollywood. Not to mention 300.
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Joined: 11/17/2011
Posts: 21
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I believe it really helps if you have done some fighting. People who grow up on the slo-mo blood and guts you see in the movies, or the splatter-fests that seem to dominate television these days, may be tempted to overstate the reality of a fight. Like...the typical gunfight is fought at a distance of seven feet, with a dozen or more shots fired, and no hits on either side! Before you write about fighting, drop down to a local dojo to watch the martial arts and talk to the artists. Study up on your physiology. Talk to the guys at the gun shop, and the knife shop. The biggest thing I find hilarious is the hero who can be shot a dozen times and still be on his/her feet. Or take a solid punch to the solar plexus and not double over wretching. We humans are not as tough as we think. And yet, there are cases in which people have been shot multiple times and lived. Do the research...and there are some books available on this topic.
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Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 353
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Bumping this up. Good info!
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Joined: 6/14/2012
Posts: 194
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A good source for learning about trauma (of all kinds, including the kind that comes from blades and bullets and blunt objects) is a good textbook for EMTs. This usually has clear illustrations and readable text. I don't know if the title _Emergency Care in the Streets_ is still out there, but something will be--ask at a community college that has an EMT course. Being a rural paramedic has been a huge help to me in knowing which injuries are fatal, which knock someone down, which allow them to keep fighting for awhile, etc.
Second the idea of learning to fight. If your POV character is going to fight, you need to know from the inside what it feels like to hit and be hit, throw and be thrown. I had to fight off some attacks as a kid--that's been a help. The moment of fear when my 2nd grade self faced the 4th grade bully announcing he was going to beat me up--and the surge of amazed glee when my punch to his solar plexus worked and he was wheezing on his knees while I ran like a jackrabbit to get all the lead I could.
Also fencing--with historical-weight and size blades. Yes, we use blunted blades and some protection, but the bruises later make it clear what would've been pierced. And you learn what does and does not work in a swordfight (that theatrical whirl-around thing? Stupid. You just got it in the kidneys.) Also shooting, along with the one time they took our OCS class of women to the range and let us crawl along under live fire going overhead. (Adrenalin surge. Sound of bullets snicking the leaves overhead. YES! This was back in the days when we weren't ever going to be that close to action again.) Hunting's a possibility, though it approximates an assassination, not a fight. Though it's not available for many people, if you have a chance to participate in a farm butchering, it will, like hunting, give the writer exposure to the sights and smells of traumatic death. (Even if the sheep is calm and dropped with one shot, the rest of the work is messy.)
If the writer wants to use mounted warfare/fights, it's best to learn to ride well enough to stick with a horse doing some of the standard maneuvers once taught war horses: Then ride down a row of fenceposts with melons on them and practice whacking them (and not the horse) with your weapon (start with something that won't, if it hits the horse, do damage.) Notice what's easy (fenceposts are on the sword-hand side) and difficult (the other side.)
Definitely talk to those who have trained to a higher level in whatever kind of fighting you're going to write. Ask them to read the fight passage and comment. If you're lucky, you'll find people willing to help you with a tricky fight situation by acting it out in slow-motion (but you want the trained fighters for this, because nonfighters won't know when to say "This won't work, your guy just died.") .
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Elizabeth wrote her post 2 years ago, but I've just happened on it in September 2014. What she says is right on for the most part, and I'd like to thank her for that. I have a brown belt in karate (Goju Ryu style). Although a blown knee stopped my progress, I still think back to it when I envision a fight. I write historical Westerns, so any fights in my books will be fist fights or 19th Century gunfights.
Thank you, Elizabeth, if you read this. There is very good advice in this post.
Carol
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