by Rayne Hall
BLENDING ENTERTAINMENT AND GRIT
Many entertaining fight scenes contain a touch of gritty realism, and many gritty fight scenes contain heroic elements. You may model your fight scene on one of the two types, and temper it with elements from the other. For example, if you write romance, you may choose to make your fight scenes entertaining, with a healthy dose of realistic grit added. If you write a thriller, you may want to make your fight scenes gritty, but prolong them and give your hero the chance to show off his skill.
Watch an example
This scene from Kill Bill 1 is essentially an entertaining fight scene (one against many, prolonged Action, skills display, acrobatic feats, creative use of the location, unrealistic outcome), while also containing strong gritty elements (brutality and a lot of spurting blood). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3aFv8IQb4s
WHICH STYLE IS BETTER?
This depends on your personal taste. Think about the fight scenes you’ve read or watched, whether they were gritty or entertaining, and whether you enjoyed them. If the thought of brutal violence makes you sick, and if you can’t stand the sight of blood, don’t attempt to write a gritty scene.
It also depends on the genre. Some genres (e.g. horror, thriller) call for gritty fight scenes with or without entertaining elements. Others (e.g. children’s novels) require entertaining fight scenes with or without grit. Fight scenes in romance novels are always more entertaining than gritty. Some sub-genres (e.g. paranormal romance) contain more gritty elements than others (e.g. Regency romance).
Read how other writers in your chosen genre and sub-genre have handled their fight scenes. If you’re writing for a specific publisher or imprint, check how entertaining or gritty those fight scenes usually are, and model yours on them.
HOW MUCH VIOLENCE DOES YOUR FIGHT SCENE NEED?
If you’re writing ‘gritty’: a lot. If you’re writing ‘entertaining’: very little.
Do you want to create realism without violence? Insert a sentence about how the ground feels underfoot. This always adds a touch of realism to a fight scene.
Do you want to use realistic violence without grossing the reader out? Make the violence graphic, but keep it short. Most readers can stomach one or two sentences of graphic descriptions. The famous Greek epics The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer used this technique 3,000 years ago, and it still works for modern authors.
Do you want to shock the readers without disgusting them? Describe a couple of gory details – the sound of blood dripping from the ceiling, the eyeball hanging down someone’s cheek – but not more. Leave the rest implied.
BLUNDERS TO AVOID
* Implausible acrobatic feats in an otherwise realistic novel
* Loads of disgusting gore in a genre whose readers want gentle escapism
CHAPTER 2: LOCATION
Make your fight scene interesting by placing it in an unusual venue.
What’s the weirdest place where your fight scene can happen? How about a sauna, a laundrette, a playground, a potter’s workshop, a lady’s boudoir, a cow shed, a minaret, a sculpture gallery, a stalactite cave, a theatre’s prop storeroom, a sewage tunnel, a wine cellar or a morgue?
The location makes your fight scene memorable: an unusual setting lifts your fight scene above the common dark alleyways and barroom brawls. Select the quirkiest place that’s still plausible.
ADD ENTERTAINMENT
The location can make your fight scene entertaining: What features are there that the fighters can jump on, leap across, climb up, swing from, duck under? What items can they topple or toss? The more creatively you use the space, the more entertaining the scene becomes.
In a long fight scene, the fight can move right across the terrain. This adds variety. Try to arrange it so the Climax of the fight happens in the most dangerous place – at the edge of the cliff, at the top of the tower, on the narrow crumbling wall.
The most popular location for entertaining fight scenes are stairs. The fighters can stand on the steps, they can run or leap, they can stumble, fall or tumble, and maybe slide down the banister. They can also use the stairs to move from one location to another, which is useful in prolonged entertaining scenes. To make your fight scene stand out, make the stairs unusual in some way. Perhaps they’ve been freshly washed and are still slippery, or maybe they are so dilapidated that some boards are missing.
ADD REALISM
Location can also make your fight scene realistic. As soon as you mention what kind of ground the combatants are fighting on, the scene gains realistic flavour. what’s the ground like: Persian rugs? Concrete? Lawn? Uneven planks of splintered wood? Hard, firm, soft, squishy, muddy, wet, slippery, wobbling, cluttered, sloping? I suggest mentioning the ground twice: once to show how it feels underfoot, and once to show how it affects the fight. Perhaps your heroine slips on the wet asphalt, or stumbles across the edge of a rug.
To keep your fight scene plausible, consider how large the space is. How much room do the combatants have to fight? How high is the ceiling? What obstacles restrict the space? For example: the hero is a warrior, used to swinging his sword in a high arc. Now he must fight indoors, where the ceiling is too low to raise the sword overhead. How will he cope? Spatial restrictions make the fight scene authentic, plausible and interesting.
Most staircases are too narrow for big sword swings, which can add interesting difficulties. In medieval castles, spiral staircases were almost always built so they favoured right-handed defenders. The person coming down had room to swing the sword-arm, while the person coming up had not. This makes an interesting challenge for the hero fighting his way up, or for a left-handed defender.
ADD SUSPENSE
How does a fighter become aware of the enemy’s approach? You can use the setting to make this suspenseful.
Examples
* Although the point-of-view character sees nothing in the night-dark forest, he hears the cracking of breaking twigs.
* Fog shrouds the landscape, veiling the approach of the enemy army.
* While bathing at the edge of a clear lake, the heroine sees a second figure reflected in the water’s surface.
* The hero is having a drink in a pub and spots the villain’s arrival in the mirror above the bar.
* The evening sun is in the hero’s back and throws long shadows. He sees his attacker’s shadow just in time to spin around and deflect the knife attack.
To create additional Suspense immediately before the fight, describe some of the noises of the location: the croaking of a bird, the slamming of a door, the roar of a lorry on the nearby road.
SHOW THE LOCATION BEFORE THE FIGHT
During the fast action of the fight, there’s no room for describing the setting. This can be confusing for the reader. To help the reader understand the location, show it in advance.
You can do this in the paragraphs preceding the fight, from the PoV’s perspective. It’s natural that someone who expects a fight checks out the location. The setting description before the fight can serve to create Suspense.
You can also do it in a previous scene. Perhaps the protagonist visits the place for a different purpose. This can create a delicious contrast.
Examples
* In one scene, the heroine descends the grand staircase in her ball gown, oozing feminine charm. In another scene, she leaps down the same stairs, dagger in hand.
* In one scene, the downtrodden maid scrubs the stairs and polishes the marble banister. In another, she slides down that banister, holding the mop handle as a pike before her.
* In one scene, the hero repairs a roof gutter and drainpipe. In another, he climbs up that drainpipe and swings from the roof gutter.
* In one scene, the botanist measures and studies the lianas in the jungle. In another, he uses them to swing across the river.
If the plot doesn’t permit showing the exact location before the fight begins, try to show a similar place. For example, if the fight scene takes place in a previously undiscovered
ancient catacomb, show the protagonist in another catacomb earlier in the book.
Watch examples
Observe how the location and its features are used in these famous fight scenes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0JYNznbL0Q (First Strike)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-66KBi_NM0 (The Princess Bride)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxWA4GPtM6Q (Robin of Sherwood)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3aFv8IQb4s (Kill Bill 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGzdusxI5XA (Snatch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfVYaK7VFOY (Dynasty)
BLUNDERS TO AVOID
* Generic setting... as if the fight took place in ‘white space’
* Actions for which there isn’t enough room, e.g. swinging swords overhead in indoors scenes
