Writing a Fight or Battle Scene... How to Start

@BelCastro - no worries. Glad you found it useful =]

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@TheOrangutan Thank you so much. This is my first time ever writing an action story and you've given me a great foundation. Thanks again. :)

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@ElaineBrown - glad it was of use to you and thanks for the cool comment =]

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Thanks for posting this! It helped me a lot! <3

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@Sprocket12 - my pleasure, glad it proved useful =] Cheers, Gav

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@TheOrangutan Oh, this shall be very useful for future fight and/or battle scenes... will have to bookmark it. Thank you. :)

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@Cataclysm - no problem =] Thank you for the kind words. Cheers, Gav

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Wow, this is entirely the best advice on battle scenes. Some of the stuff you mentioned sadly never crossed my mind. This'll definitely make things easy!.

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@Irismist0o0 - thanks for the lovely comment and I'm glad you found it useful. =] Cheers, Gav

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@TheOrangutan This was soo much help, thank you for posting this. I feel confident and excited to write my little fight scene. ELFS RULE! WHOO!

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@RedDelicious - glad you found it useful. I take it you're going High Fantasy route if you're including elves?

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@TheOrangutan This far it has been more centered on Romance, but my MC has just traveled to the elven city. I guess it would be consitered High Fantasy but in no way does it even come close to some of the classic (WOT, LOTR) stories.

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@RedDelicious - not many things come close to the classics, but you can always make your own. Even the classics have the odd scrap in =]

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good guide gav! (it's an alliteration)

One of my favorite authors, David Eddings, often has strategy pre-battle. When the kings find out when, where, how many troops are moving, they plan ahead. Because of this, little needs to be written of the battle itself.

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@Kaelistari - I'm always happy to be alliterised =] I haven't read any Eddings for years, I went off him a little after The Redemption of Althalus which was just dire. He did do a fair amount of planning in the Belgariad and the Mallorean didn't he. I must admit I prefer the battles done by other fantasy authors like Gemmell and Brooks, or even non-fantasy writers like Cornwell or Scarrow, but Eddings was always pretty decent. I did like his earlier characters and Sparhawk was just great.

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Thanks lots!!!!!!!!!!!!! ^.^ @TheOrangutan

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@TheOrangutan Hello! First let me say I really enjoyed your tips. You read Brooks? His battle scenes always seem so epic to me, so well thought out. Favorites were Sword of Shannara and Elfstones of Shannara.

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@FrancescaG - thank you kind lady, I'm glad you found them useful. I have read a great deal of Brooks, the man writes a good battle scene. I remember reading The Sword when i was about 17, that one blew me away. The other fantasy guy who writes superb battle scenes is David Gemmell. Really very good indeed.

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that was a every long and detailed comment im a reader but sometimes i like to write my own stories your advice is very helpful and i have become even more interested in action novels and i am wondering if you can tell me about some books you might find interesting

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@mangahostess - what sort of genre do you prefer?

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I'd say your advice works for most action scenes, @TheOrangutan. I've used a similar approach for shipwrecks where the "battle" was between a ship, waves and reef, or those aboard and the water.

I find that if you're writing in first person, though, however choreographed the scene is in the author's head, most people just react in a blur and don't know the sequence of events their brain planned out until afterwards. Like first aid - most people who practice it are trained to do so, but in a situation where they successfully help someone, they react automatically and can only recall their thought process some time later, during a debriefing.

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@DemelzaCarlton - it's fairly generic, and there are always times that you can break the rules, not that these are rules per se.

I tend to write in 3rd person when doing action stuff, i find it a far freer style that way, but I know others prefer 1st person. I'm a first aider myself and have found that I react very quickly to a situation to the exclusion of all else, but I do have a very clear recollection of events afterwards. As you say, at the time, it's all reaction...

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Great post! Very useful. Thank you so much. You really gave me some good ideas on a story I'm writing :D The advice with the use of a Thesaurus is very useful to me. I never thought of that and as English isn't me first language I sometimes find it a bit hard to use different words with the same meaning.

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@Obscurity_ - my pleasure, glad you found it useful. You can get pretty good Thesaurus online. Just don't feed 'em too much fish... =]

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@TheOrangutan Yes, I know one (which I'll probably use more now) and I'll try not to :D

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