Long ago, movie directors mastered the technique of creating a convincing fight scene. Bodies fall to the floor… chairs tip over… viewers enjoy close-ups of terrified or angry faces… and the blows thrown are enough to make us wince and close our eyes. (No more prissy punches that fooled no one in the early movies: sneaky camera angles to hide the fact that the fist didn’t really connect; thuds to suggest a knockout blow when anyone could see it wouldn’t knock out a mosquito from its flight path.)
Viewers enjoy multiple camera angles and sophisticated sound effects. We feel like we’re right in the middle of that fight.
Authors have it much more difficult. How can you throw the reader into the middle of the scene and feel every hit? How can you show the action without falling into the trap of sounding like a school kid enthusiastically detailing a fight, blow for blow; kick by kick?
There are only two things to keep in mind.
- Remember that you are a writer, not a choreographer.
- Pack your fights with EMOTIONAL punching.
That is all. So simple, yet so effective.
What does a choreographer do? He plans a series of moves, step by step. He teaches the people performing the moves how to perform each one and then how to combine them into a flowing routine.
Too many fight scenes in the books read like a choreographer’s notebook. You will see something like this:
Briggs planted a right hook to Smith’s chin. The other man staggered back, arms like a windmill. Briggs took advantage of him, breathing hard. In quick succession, he landed several more punches to Smith’s body.
Smith fell to the ground and rolled away. “Bastard!” he grunted and rolled again to avoid a well-aimed kick from Briggs. Like a cat, he leaped to his feet and circled Briggs, never taking his eyes off his nemesis.
“Let’s go!” Briggs sneered, lunging for another blow, then backing out of his reach. “It’s the best you can do?” He pretended and laughed.
Enraged, Smith attacked. Briggs danced back and around Smith, and in two deft moves had him on the ground, one arm behind his back.
“Have I had enough?” she gasped.
There are so many things wrong with the scene above that it’s hard to know where to start. Soon:
- We have no idea who the point of view character is. It seems that we are watching from a distance. That means there is very little emotional involvement from the reader. To really engage your reader, do your best to make sure he or she ‘becomes’ the point of view character. If he gets hurt, so does the reader. If he loses…so does the reader.
- The writer is “telling” more than showing. A did this, then B did that, so A did this in response and B went on with this…boring! (Can you see the choreographer at work?)
- The writer uses the names of the characters a lot: “Smith” and “Briggs”. This tends to add distance as well. The problem is that both characters are male, so the constant use of “he”, although not quite as much, can be confusing. It’s easier to avoid these problems if you’re deep in the point of view of one of the characters.
- The excerpt is full of tired old expressions like “in quick succession, he landed two more punches”; “a much loved kick”; “like a cat, he jumped on his feet”; “in two final movements”. Expressions like this save the writer from doing a lot of work: they roll off the tongue so easily because they’ve been around so long.
How do you avoid these pitfalls and write a fight scene that works?
You forget (for the most part) about the physical blows and add emotional blows. Delve into the point of view of one of the characters, preferably the main character; with which the reader really identifies. In this way, readers look through the eyes of that character. They desperately want me to win; They feel every hit. Therefore, there is much more emotional investment in the outcome of the fight.
Most writers seem to feel that fight scenes should be filled with quick movements, grunts and groans and shouted epithets to telegraph the action. They feel that if you stop to tell the reader what’s going through the main character’s head, it slows things down too much.
That certainly can be the case… but in the hands of a skilled writer, the tension actually rises when the action slows down. He must remember that time on the page is not the same as real time. Since you can’t really show the reader what’s going on in real time like you can in a movie, you have to compensate by spending some time inside the main character’s mind. Show us the character’s thoughts. Show us the emotions of the character. Help us “feel” our way into the fight.
The easiest way to show how this works is to use an example from a published book. Here’s a fight scene from ECHO BURNING by Lee Child (Bantam Press, 2001). The hero, Jack Reacher, tries to avoid the fight… and the tension builds beautifully until he is forced into a confrontation.
The guy was wearing a white tank top and was eating chicken wings. His wings were greasy and the boy was lazy. He was dripping chicken fat from his chin and fingers onto his shirt. There was a dark teardrop shape just between his pecs. It grew and spread until it became an impressive blur. But best bar etiquette doesn’t allow you to dwell on that show, and the guy caught Reacher looking at him.
“Who are you looking at?” he said.
He said it in a low, aggressive voice, but Reacher ignored him.
“Who are you looking at?” the guy said again.
The Reacher experience was, as they once said, maybe nothing will happen. But they say it twice, so there’s trouble on the way. The fundamental problem is that they take a lack of response as evidence that you are concerned. What are they winning? But then, they won’t let you answer, anyway.
“Are you looking at me?” said the boy.
“No,” Reacher replied.
“Don’t look at me, boy,” the guy said.
The way he said boy made Reacher think maybe he was a foreman at a sawmill or cotton operation. Any muscle work done in Lubbock. A kind of traditional trade passed down from generation to generation. Certainly the word police never came to mind. But then again, he was relatively new to Texas.
“Don’t look at me,” the guy said.
Reacher turned his head and looked at him. Not really to antagonize the boy. Just to measure it. Life is infinitely capable of surprises, so he knew that one day he would come face to face with his physical equal. With someone who might worry him. But he looked and saw that this was not the day. So he just smiled and looked away again.
Then the guy poked him with his finger.
“I told you not to look at me,” he said, and punched.
It was a meaty index finger and it was covered in grease. He left a definite mark on Reacher’s shirt.
“Don’t do that,” Reacher said.
The guy clicked again.
“Or what?” he said. “Do you want to do something with it?”
Reach looked down. Now there were two brands. The purchase flattened again. Three hits, three marks. Reacher gritted his teeth. What were three grease marks on a shirt? He began to count slowly to ten. Then the guy hit again, before he even got to eight.
“You’re deaf?” Reach said. “I told you not to do that.”
“Do you want to do something about it?”
“No,” Reacher said. “Not really. I just want you to stop doing it, that’s all.”
The boy smiled. “Then you’re a yellow-bellied piece of shit.”
“Whatever,” Reacher said. “Just keep your hands off me.”
“Or what? What are you going to do?”
Reacher reset his count. Eight nine.
“Do you want to take this outside?” the boy asked.
Ten.
“Touch me again and you’ll find out,” Reacher said. “I warned you four times.”
The boy stopped for a second. Then, of course, he tried again. Reacher caught the finger on the way in and snapped it on the first knuckle. He just folded it up like he was turning a doorknob. Then, because he was irritated, he leaned forward and headbutted the guy in the face. It was a smooth move, well executed, but he backed off perhaps halfway to where it might have been. No need to put the guy in a coma for four grease marks on a shirt. He took a step to give the man room to fall, and stepped back toward the woman to his right.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said.
The woman nodded vaguely, disoriented by the noise, concentrating on her drink, unaware of what was happening. The big man hit the floorboards silently and Reacher used the sole of his shoe to turn him half face down. Then he nudged under her chin with his toe to pull her head back and straighten her airway. Her recovery position, the paramedics call it. Prevent you from drowning while you are away.
He then paid for his drinks and walked back to his motel…
Of course, this scene just shows a fight quietly escalating and shows a hero who has the ability to bring a fight to a quick conclusion. You are going to have to use a slightly different approach if you have multiple people involved and if you have a fast and furious fight with two more evenly matched aggressors. But the principle is the same.
Don’t let the reader view the fight from a distance. Put them in the shoes of the main character, aware of his thoughts and emotions. Let the readers feel the impact of fists and feet; let them experience the adrenaline (or irritation, depending on the level of provocation). Then your fight scenes will have the kind of impact you want.
(c) copyright Marg McAlister