By 
Long ago, movie directors mastered the technique of creating a convincing fight scene. Bodies fall to the ground… 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 prim punches that fooled no one in the early movies: sneaky camera angles to hide the fact that the fist didn’t really connect; heavy punches 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 harder. How can you throw the reader in the middle of the scene and feel every hit? How can you show the action without falling into the trap of sounding like a schoolboy 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 punch.
That is all. So simple, yet so effective.
What does a choreographer do? He plans a series of moves, step by step. He teaches 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 look 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, his arms like a windmill. Briggs took advantage of him, breathing heavily. In quick succession, he landed several more blows 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 jumped to his feet and circled Briggs, never taking his eyes off his nemesis.
“Let’s go!” Briggs taunted, lunging for another blow and 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 sprawled to the ground, one arm behind his back.
“Did I have 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 on the part of the reader. To really engage your reader, do everything you can 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 followed through 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 that much, can be confusing. It’s easier to avoid these problems if you’re deeply into 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 a lot of work: they roll off the tongue so easily because they’ve been around for so long.
How do you avoid these pitfalls and write a fight scene that works?
You forget (for the most part) about the physical hits and add emotional hits. 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 him to win; They feel every blow. Therefore, there is much more emotional investment in the outcome of the fight.
Most writers seem to feel that the fight scenes should be full of flicks, growls and groans, and shouted epithets to telegraph the action. They feel that if you stop to tell the reader what’s going on in the main character’s head, it slows things down too much.
That can certainly be the case… but in the hands of a skilled writer, the tension actually builds when the action slows down. He must remember that page time is not the same as real time. Since you can’t really show the reader what’s happening in real time like you can in a movie, you have to compensate by spending some time in the mind of the main character. Show us the thoughts of the character. 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 Lee Child’s ECHO BURNING (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 dripped chicken fat from her chin and fingers onto his shirt. There was a dark teardrop shape right between his pecs. It grew and spread until it became an impressive stain. But the best bar etiquette doesn’t let you stop at that show, and the guy caught Reacher looking at it.
“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.
Reacher’s experience was, as they once say, maybe nothing will happen. But they say it twice, then trouble is on the way. The fundamental problem is that they take the lack of response as evidence that you are worried. 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,” said the guy.
The way he said boy made Reacher think maybe he was a foreman at a sawmill or cotton operation. Any muscular work that has been done in Lubbock. A kind of traditional craft handed 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,” said the guy.
Reacher turned his head and looked at him. Not really to antagonize the guy. 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 you. 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 hit.
It was a fleshy index finger and it was covered in fat. 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 that?”
Reach looked down. Now there were two marks. The purchase clicked again. Three hits, three marks. Reacher gritted his teeth. What were three grease marks on a shirt? He began to slowly count to ten. Then the guy hit again, even before he 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. “So 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 restarted his count. Eight nine.
“Do you want to take this outside?” the guy asked.
Ten.
“Touch me again and you’ll find out,” Reacher said. “I warned you four times.”
The boy paused for a second. Then, of course, he tried again. Reacher caught his finger as he entered and snapped it on the first knuckle. He simply bent it up as if he were turning a door handle. 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 up perhaps half as far as 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 backed up to the woman to his right.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said.
The woman nodded vaguely, disoriented by the noise, concentrating on her drink, not realizing what was happening. The big man tapped silently on the floorboards and Reacher used the sole of his shoe to turn him half face down. He then pushed it under the chin with his toe to pull the head back and straighten the airway. Her recovery position, the paramedics call it. Prevent you from drowning while you are away.
Then he 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’re 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 assailants. But the principle is the same.
Don’t let the reader watch the fight from a distance. Put them in the skin of the main character, aware of his thoughts and emotions. Let readers feel the impact of fists and feet; let them experience the adrenaline rush (or the irritation, depending on the level of provocation). Then your fight scenes will have the kind of impact you want.
(c) copyright Marg McAlister