Writing fight scenes is something I definitely have a hard time doing right. So in order to better myself, I’ve been reading and listening to tips from a lot of other authors, and taking notes whenever I come across a fight scene in the books I read (currently reading the awesome Murderbot series). Let’s discuss what I’ve learned!

Punch Fast, Punch Hard

One aspect I’ve known for a while is keep the sentences quick and punchy. You don’t want long sentences that lower the tension to portray your action – you want quick sentences, fast ones, that hold a certain bite to them. For this, let’s use a WIP scene from book 3 of the Viridis Series:

She reached into her sweatshirt pocket and pulled out her H-blade. Heavy footfall tore through the brush behind her. She spun on her heel, unsheathed her blade, and slashed. 

Teeth clamped down around her face, fangs digging into her left and right temporals. Hot, acrid breath burned her eyes as she stared at the beast’s tongue, its gums. A crunch rang through her ears. It shoved her back onto the ground. A rock jammed into her spine. Saliva spilled onto her cheeks. 

I’m going to die. 

A claw raked down her chest. Fabric snapped. 

It’s gutting me. 

Another drag of talons against her stomach. Rye-mail pinched her skin. A tell-tale pop sent a few scales flying. 

Excerpt from WIP

(Look familiar? I used a small WIP snippet of this scene in this post!)

In this, our character is being attacked by an animal. Note how I did my best to keep a lot of the sentences short to keep the writing feeling fast-paced and intense. Of course, I did not keep every sentence as short as possible, otherwise your writing can come off as stale or lacking momentum. We tend to notice acceleration, not speed, so it’s important to still vary your writing a little, or give moments of calm so that the intense moments, the moments you truly want to highlight, come off as punchy as you want them to. 

Let The Reader Choreograph 

In my earlier writing pieces (and visible in Viridis, in fact), I made the mistake of over choreographing some of my fight scenes. It’s important not to dictate every movement a character makes within a fight – allow there to be some flexibility! Your reader will choreograph it for you, and taking time to talk how the character pivoted their foot, through a right hook, then evaded to the right, etc. tends to come off as slowing the pace, boring, and less engaging. Try, instead, something a little like this: 

[S] jerked her blade down, the attack oddly clumsy and telegraphed for a general. [Z] narrowly evaded, grabbed the blade, and pulled. The Blue stumbled closer with wide, terrified eyes.

[…]

[Z] smashed her elbow into the woman’s nose and it gushed blood. The crack of cartilage echoed through the [Z]’s bones. With a yelp, [S] jerked back and swiped her blade blindly upwards, cutting a sizzling burn across [Z]’s armor.

Excerpt from Caerule

While the scene still describes what’s happening, it does not go into intense detail about how the two characters are fighting. This keeps the scene moving, and the momentum high! Granted, it may not be nearly as impactful out of context with the names censored, but! Hopefully it gives you a rough idea of what I mean.

Focus 

When writing fight scenes, you’ll want to tailor your descriptions towards highlighting the impact, the injuries, the body. When I was part of kickboxing, mma, and jiu-jitsu, our sensei taught us that despite being in the middle of a fighting scenario, your mind should not be panicked. This is great advice for warriors who are well-trained. But for people who are in a life or death scenario, there is likely to be great panic, and it is likely your mind will be reeling. You won’t perhaps be having long conversations with yourself in your head, but you may have quick thoughts such as: “leg hurt” or “fuck” or “weak arm” etc. 

For instance, when I was injured during a kickboxing training by one of our professional fighters, two things happened. First, our fighter got into this mindset, where he forget everything around him, he forgot he wasn’t in a situation where he had to “win,” and forgot he was fighting someone half his size and someone who was still training. He swept my arm and slammed his knee into my sternum. Here’s how I’d describe that scene, with emphasis on focused descriptions: 

    His knee cracked against my sternum. Pops ran up the cartilage, shifted and scraped. Something is broken. Something is wrong.

    I broke his hold, stepped back, and put my arms up defensively once more. Agony coursed through my veins. My lungs constricted. I could hear the broken pieces raking against one another. 

    Fuck. 

Here, I tried to show the quick thoughts that went through my head – brief and concise. I remember realizing immediately something was horribly wrong, and when I drove home, the adrenaline that was keeping most of the pain at bay began to fade. I drove a stick shift back then, and the thirty minute drive home was horrendous. But during the moment, all I could think was to evade. I was hurt, and hurt bad. I could hardly keep my hands up by my face, and whenever our fighter stepped forward, I’d evade. If there was one thing I was good at in kickboxing, it was evading. I kept myself out of harm’s way until time was up, and couldn’t fight for the rest of the night. To this day, my sternum never healed right, and still clicks and pops. It aches before a rain storm like an old man’s knee. 

By focusing descriptions and keeping your characters’ thoughts concise, you help the reader understand the impact of the injuries your characters are enduring, and make the fight more dire and full of more tension.

Honestly, I’m glad our fighter never got another hit off on me, because my sternum may have been hurt much worse. 

(Ironically, for a section called “focus,” I truly started rambling about kickboxing here, didn’t I?)

Make It Hurt

All right. No one comes out of a fight better than they got into it. It’s one thing to show a time or two that your character is badass and overpowered, but doing this consistently will cause the reader to feel like your character can never be hurt, and is never truly in any danger. For instance, Jade Cavvar is set up in my series to be a good fighter, and is rewarded for her role in recent battles within the war. However, I made sure she had limits. When facing A’doxia, she is at a severe disadvantage. And even when she’s got the advantage, she is still more than capable of being hurt. Let’s take this scene as an example: 

Jade turned and dashed around the furniture, leaping over the couch and into the kitchen. She pulled open a drawer, hoping to find knives. A blade cut into her left arm, tearing at the flesh and splatting blood onto the floor. She cursed and staggered back, pressing her right hand against the wound. A’doxia grinned, standing only a few paces away. She was fast.

“Sorry, sweetie. Did that hurt?” A’doxia jerked forward, slashing with her knife. Jade sidestepped, swinging with her right arm at A’doxia’s head. Her knuckles smashed against A’doxia’s skull, only for the Thrax woman to swipe blindly with her knife, cutting a jagged line in Jade’s right arm.

Excerpt from Viridis

From this scene, you can see that even though Jade is doing all she can, she’s outmatched, and she’s still getting hurt. Her arms are both cut at this moment in the scene, and she is still unarmed when facing A’doxia.

It’s important to make these scenes powerful and painful. Let your characters get hurt in fights, and let them bleed. It makes them feel more vulnerable, and increases tension in the scenes!

And that’s what I’ve learned so far! I’m constantly trying to push my abilities further and expanding my range of knowledge. So let me know if I missed something, or if you think something I said needs to be changed or tweaked. Otherwise, I hope this helped someone!

Stay safe everyone <3