Mary-Sue: Who is She?

In a Fight

See what I mean?  While it’s not super bad, it just doesn’t sound right if you read it out loud.  Now replace that last sentence with “James hit Genna with the broom handle.”  That doesn’t break the flow, it’s straight forward, and it just sounds better to read.

The only time a passive tone should be used is if there is a break from a fight scene; when the characters start having a discussion, or is taunting each other with words.  That’s when it’s OK for the pace to slow down, if the pace does slow down, but when someone finally continues to fight, the active sentences have to start up again.

The second rule is to keep sentences short because short sentences contribute to a fast reading pace.  Even though I say to keep the sentences short, there should be some differences in length from sentence to sentence, or else it will seem choppy.  Here’s what not to do:

Too dark to see.  I punched blindly.  I hit his nose.  I hit him again.  He covered his face.  I kicked him.

If you kept up with this pace, the voice eventually turns monotone in your head because it feels like the same sentence one after another.  In order to vary the sentence, you can stick with the periods and adjust the sentence lengths:

I listened.  Peered into the eerie dark.  A shuffle of feet to the right.  Shoes squeak closer.  I punched.  The bridge of his nose crumbled.  He cried into his hands.  I kicked him in the gut.

You can also combine the phrases, separating them with a comma.  With commas, the flow is still set as if short phrases are continued to being used, but with commas, the pauses are shorter than with periods:

I listened, peering into the eerie dark.  A shuffle of feet to the right, his shoes squeaked closer.  I punched.  The bridge of his nose crumbled, and he cried into his hands.  I kicked him in the gut.

Another note to remember is that after a while, punches, kicks and slashes will start look the same, especially if you keep using the same words over and over (kind of like the “said“ rule in dialogue).  Use different verbs.  If the character has a sword or something, you can use lash, or cut; if it’s a club, there’s crush, crash, dent; there are thousands of words you can use.  Sound affects can be a great tool so your audience can hear what’s going on as each blow is dealt, and some sound affects can be used as verbs.  Basically, because these scenes are pure action, it’s great if you incorporated all five senses into the actions.  Does someone have the taste of blood in their mouth?  Is someone in pain?  How bad is it and where?  Is there a smell of sweat?  All of these can be added nicely into the scene.

Now because action scenes are filled with short sentences, taking turns with the characters, it seems as if each phrase or two should have its own paragraph, but let’s face it.  That’s tedious, and having to break them up after every sentence just breaks the precious flow.  In addition, most fight scenes don’t have dialogue, unless someone is crying out or grunting, but those don‘t usually have quotation marks around them.  While the scene should definitely not be one huge paragraph of text, you basically have free reign as to how to format it.  You can have one or a few sets of action to reaction have its own paragraph, or you could separate the scene by switching who’s on the offensive or defensive.  You can do anything.

Since the English lesson is over, let’s get to the fun part: the research!  Don’t aw man at me!  Research is a word I use when I’m searching for something I’m interested in.  If I’m not interested in it, I just call it studying.  If you are writing a fight scene, you should at least be a little bit interested in it, right?  I’m not going to do the research for you, but I do have some tips.

The first, and practically only, tip I can provide is to switch right to left and vice versa, but the flow of the movement will stay the same.

I cracked his jaw with a closed right fist, and turned on my right heal to kick him with my left.