The Do's and Don'ts of Writing a Story

HOW TO: Helpful things for action writers to remember

- sticking a landing will royally mess up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you're jumping/falling from. There's a very good reason free-runners dive and roll.

- hand to hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It's exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand to hand combat, you're gonna tire out really fast.

- arrows are very effective and you can't just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body you try pulling it out and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention.

- Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You're giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you're trying to put distance between you so you can shot them or something don't throw them.

- everyone has something called a 'flinch response' when they fight. This is pretty much the brain's way of telling you to 'get the fuck outta here or we're gonna die'. Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instincts kick inland they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is gonna respond a little differently. 

- ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. This is important. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it's actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighters efficiency - meaning it makes them soaked and inaccurate and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn't give you the skill to pullout a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponents face.

- swords will bend/break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to repair or replace it constantly. 

- fights get messy. there's blood and sweat everywhere and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone. A serious battle also smells horrible. There's lots of sweat but also the smell of urine and faeces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatising. Remember to think about all of the characters senses when they're in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way.

- if your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can't go through the cut you make. You'll just end up putting a tiny shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike and you could probably break your sword. 

- ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength especially when you're shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means 'the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it'. If an archer has to use a bow they're not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they've done a few practice shots with it and figured out the draw weight and stability.

- people bleed. If they get punched in the face, they'll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they'll bleed accordingly. And if they've been fighting for a while they've got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They're going to bleed a lot.