[Sothe]

Okay, I want criticism for...everything, obviously. But most importantly; is it boring? Did I improve my fighting scenes at all since my question topic?

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Matthew drove his fist into his opponent’s face. His opponent spat blood; retaliated with a kick. Matthew continued the fight, using pure martial arts; he wouldn’t draw his sword yet.



His enemy punched him twice, screaming in effort. Matthew’s nose was bleeding. Matthew responded with a violent gut-punch, followed-up by a kick. His opponent screamed, responding with another punch.



Matthew cursed quietly, swinging both arms, swiftly delivering brutal punches. His enemy responded by doing the same; the two broke each other’s knuckles after a moment. They would not let up; they began to kick each other, each one blocking the other’s foot perfectly each time. Soon, their toes, too, were broken.



Matthew knew he had more important things to do. He was embarrassed. He looked stupid, struggling like this in front of Becky. He had to finish fast. He kicked the man in the gut, once, and punched him in the face and chest repeatedly. Finally, a hard left hook sent his opponent into cardiac arrest, killing him. He had no time to celebrate; more fights awaited him.

[Spiral]

Fight scenes were once all I could do (My english teachers were probably legally retarded, as I had to learn all of storywriting by myself), so they're sort of my speciality.

Okay, let's go. Your writing feels cold and emotionless. Hand to hand combat should not be like that. It needs to be desperate, brutal, fast. Feeling is the most important thing here. Show your protagonist's emotions and thoughts - have his viewpoint blurred by pain or adrenaline. Record his hatred or reluctance the whole way through.

Finally, I would be more descriptive. If it's a punch, what kind of punch - where is it heading, how fast is it? Describe the sounds of bones shattering or blood pounding in your protagonist's ears. In a short hand to hand fight you can often describe every movement, because they vary. Don't do this for repetitive cannon fire though.

[Sothe]

I appreciate the input a lot! You're definitely right. I had never even thought of how cold and plain my fighting was; of course, I knew it was boring, but I never thought of specific reasons. Thanks a bunch.

[Spiral]

In fight scenes, I find it's necessary to use the most basic human emotions - fear and anger - a lot. If someone is cold during the fight scene, I replace the emotion with a description of how cold and mechanical they are.

Confidence of a character is a big issue - a wet-behind-the-ears rookie will be scared, while a grizzled veteran might joke around.

[Sothe]

I might have to skip over this battle-scene at first... I'm still not totally sure how Matthew would react. Eventually he is quite sadistic, as well as masochistic (in battle), though I'm not sure when that would take effect...

[Spiral]

Yeah, traits like that should definitely shine through in fight scenes. You can develop character with a fight scene as much as anything, really.

[Sothe]

Alright, I'm pretty sure I got my decision with Matthew done, now.

I may wanna' resubmit it for second reviewing when it's done, but by then it'll probably be over 200 words... I wonder if I could post it in 2-3 separate parts...

[Artkame]

Hey, I'm not really sure if this will help or not, but I know that it works all the time for my fight scenes, and even some of my other scenes. I don't know if it will apply too much to your current scene or not, but it might help in the future, so I'll post it anyway.

Whenever I do a fight scene, I always start by writing down as many specifics as I can about what I want to happen. Who is involved, how they're fighting, what they're fighting with, and if they use magic or not, etc. With all these little details down, I go to the next step; envision the battle in my head. This requires a lot of peace and quiet, so I usually end up doing this at night, when I'm alone, in the dark, in my room. Kind of a - the darkness becomes a movie screen - deal, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, just mentally play the scene over like you're watching a movie in your head. Watch what your characters do, see what moves they unleash, figure out how each one is going to attack, defend, and counter. Envision every jump, every dodge, every spell they might cast, every . . .thing that they do in the battle. Then write that down on paper too, in as much of a sequential outline as you want. It might take a few tries, and you may end up changing a lot of what you 'see', but I find that once you have that information, and you know where the battle is going, you can get even more detailed. Like Vanguard of Truth said,

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Okay, let's go. Your writing feels cold and emotionless. Hand to hand combat should not be like that. It needs to be desperate, brutal, fast. Feeling is the most important thing here. Show your protagonist's emotions and thoughts - have his viewpoint blurred by pain or adrenaline. Record his hatred or reluctance the whole way through.

Finally, I would be more descriptive. If it's a punch, what kind of punch - where is it heading, how fast is it? Describe the sounds of bones shattering or blood pounding in your protagonist's ears. In a short hand to hand fight you can often describe every movement, because they vary. Don't do this for repetitive cannon fire though.

And by playing it over and over, you can get into the head of each character, and try to envision thier thoughts and feelings. Vanguard is right about being more descriptive, but do be careful not to get too detailed: my first battle scene I used parentheses and 'up', 'down', 'left', and 'right' to describe the direction of sword strikes my peope used. After I tossed that, I still tried to do a blow-by-blow of the whole battle. As you can imagine, that got pretty lame quick, but as I wrote more I found it acceptable to swap out a blow-by-blow account for something like

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Cylerce locked blade and staff with his foes, matching their every attack with a counter twice as powerful. Around and around they danced the elegant dance of swordplay, neither side drawing blood or retreating. Cylerce’s hands weaved a deadly pattern around the others’ blades, combining both Nova and Galathea in a perfectly executed offensive. Each of his opponent’s blades came within an inch of his skin at the most, yet never touched him.

Which suggests a good melee battle, but tries to make the reader envision what is happening between the lines, and gives them a lot more room for creative thought.

Anyway, I hope this helps, and that you can even understand this: I tried explaining my process to my parents and they looked at me like I was nuts. Who knows, maybe I am. . .

[Sothe]

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Whenever I do a fight scene, I always start by writing down as many specifics as I can about what I want to happen. Who is involved, how they're fighting, what they're fighting with, and if they use magic or not, etc.

Well, for most of my battle-scenes, I know a good deal of that already. What they're fighting with, and if they use magic are things that depend on their mood, current situation, or the strength of their current opponent, so it would indeed by good to know that part, though.

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With all these little details down, I go to the next step; envision the battle in my head. This requires a lot of peace and quiet, so I usually end up doing this at night, when I'm alone, in the dark, in my room. Kind of a - the darkness becomes a movie screen - deal, if you know what I mean.

I've done that a few times before, and it usually worked pretty well; thanks for the advice on that, I'll probably make some good use of it!

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Then write that down on paper too, in as much of a sequential outline as you want. It might take a few tries, and you may end up changing a lot of what you 'see', but I find that once you have that information, and you know where the battle is going, you can get even more detailed.

Yeah, that's also a good idea. I used to use a lot of out-lines, but I recently took a 7 or so month long break from writing to develop my story building skills, character-making, etc, and over the course of those months I somehow stopped using out-lines.

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After I tossed that, I still tried to do a blow-by-blow of the whole battle. As you can imagine, that got pretty lame quick

Well, yeah. In anything fantasy or supernatural, I can attest to, from personal experience, that it is far, far too hard to do that.

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Anyway, I hope this helps, and that you can even understand this: I tried explaining my process to my parents and they looked at me like I was nuts. Who knows, maybe I am. . .

Yeah, I was definitely able to understand it. I think it'll help, too. Thanks!

[Spiral]

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After I tossed that, I still tried to do a blow-by-blow of the whole battle. As you can imagine, that got pretty lame quick, but as I wrote more I found it acceptable to swap out a blow-by-blow account

Depends on how long the fight takes. I tend to do a hybrid version - detail the first and last blows, generalise the rest.

[Bird]

First of all: you've been given some decent advice. Imagery, use of all five senses - all are crucial for battle scenes. Another suggestion would be to take some of your favorite authors, who write battle scenes, and read them. See how they described battles. Compare various authors and take note of what seems to work for these published authors. What do they stress more? What is stressed less? What imagery do they use? Are all five senses used in that battle scene? Why or why not? Then write down all these ideas and compare with your own. How can you improve to make your battles more realistic, captivating, and so forth? These are just suggestions to help you expand your understanding of battle scenes.

Second: You've got a great start here!

Now for the crit itself:

Sothe, on Feb 6 2010, 10:06 PM, said:

Okay, I want criticism for...everything, obviously. But most importantly; is it boring? Did I improve my fighting scenes at all since my question topic?

Matthew drove his fist into his opponent’s face. His opponent spat blood; [A semi-colon is not used here. Semi-colons are only used to connect two related sentences. The phrase following the semi-colon has no subject and so is not a complete sentence. So use a comma here.]retaliated with a kick. Matthew continued the fight, using pure martial arts; he wouldn’t draw his sword yet. [Here the use of semi-colon is correct. Also, this is incredibly vague. Instead, try describing the sword at his hip, untouched as Matthew blocked at attack with his arm or dodged the attack or something. It sounds like you're beginning the fight. Give us a bit more information here, descriptive details to help the reader envision this fight.]



His enemy punched him twice, screaming in effort. Matthew’s nose was bleeding. Matthew responded with a violent gut-punch, followed-up by a kick. His opponent screamed [already used once in this paragraph. Try a different word to avoid a sense of redundancy], responding with another punch [Unclear here. First the opponent screamed, but why does he scream? Think of how someone reacts to such a hit. When a fist or foot hits the gut, it knocks the air out of the person. They cannot scream without air. Instead, the double over a little, stagger, and gasp for breath. The most sound they'd make is a sharp gasp. It is important that the reactions of each fighter is realistic and consistent with common knowledge of how injuries to various parts of the body effect the person. If you stay true to this, then you're battle scenes will be significantly strengthened. Also, the "responding with another punch" sounds odd, especially since you've also already used the word "respond" in the sentence directly before this one. Try not to repeat words that are within the same paragraph.] .


Matthew cursed quietly, swinging both arms, swiftly delivering brutal punches. His enemy responded by doing the same; the two broke each other’s knuckles after a moment. [Again the word respond. Think of a new way to describe the enemy punching Matthew. Use imagery here to avoid a redundant feel to your story. Too much redundancy of a verb or descriptive word tends to take away much of the impact of the scene. Once you vary the verb "respond" with some other descriptive verbs and adjectives, then using that word won't be as jarring to the reader. Also, calling Matthew's opponent "his enemy" or "his opponent" gives the enemy little character and a very generic feel. It honestly made me think of say a stormtrooper in Star Wars that has no face or personality and is there only to provide more fights for the hero. Who is this enemy? Feel free to describe him as well as Matthew. We may not be able to know the enemy's feelings exactly, but based on how the enemy reactions and what actions the enemy takes, we can infer feelings and thoughts. Take for example, the gut-punch. If the enemy grunts and staggers, the reader knows that Matthew's punch really did connect and did some damage. Without that detail, the reader has no idea if Matthew is even connecting with this guy.] They would not let up; they began to kick each other, each one blocking the other’s foot perfectly each time. Soon, their toes, too, were broken. [Sounds awkward, like you threw it in there. Let us feel the pain of broken toes along with these fighters. When a blow hits those toes, let us experience that pain with Matthew. Right now you're just stating action. You're not showing it to us. This fight doesn't have to be a play by play, but highlighting details here and there will really help breathe life into this fight.]



Matthew knew he had more important things to do. He was embarrassed. He looked stupid, struggling like this in front of Becky. He had to finish fast. He kicked the man in the gut, once, and punched him in the face and chest repeatedly. Finally, a hard left hook sent his opponent into cardiac arrest, killing him. [Once again, here you can give us a bit more detail as well as making sure you stay true to the facts of how an opponent can be killed with a punch. Sending someone into cardiac arrest is a trifle hard to do with just a punch. Thus, this death seems very unbelievable, which hurts the credibility of this fight. Perhaps explore ways people can die in a fist fight, and be sure to give a bit more imagery here, so the reader can experience what Matthew sees, smells, hears, and touches in regards to killing his opponent and watching the guy die.] He had no time to celebrate; more fights awaited him.

Hope this helps. The important thing to remember is that certain parts of this scene needs more "showing" and less "telling." What I mean by this is that "showing" involves a bit of description with the five senses that allows the reader to experience what the character is experience. "Telling" is how this scene is currently written. Now the important part here is to choose which details to include to experience more of this scene. A few well placed details and imagery can strengthen the scene considerably but won't require a play by play rendition of this fight. Another important point to remember is believability. I highlighted a few parts of this snippet that lacked believability. If the scene isn't believable, then the reader will lose interest as well as distrusting your credibility. Researching some biological aspects will help you immensely when writing battles of any sort. What are the ways a human being can die? What are the crucial points on a body that can cause instant death if hit with the right amount of force? Once you know this information, it becomes much easier to craft a fight, where someone dies and make it believable for the reader.

You've got great potential here! Keep writing!

[Sothe]

Bird, thanks a lot for your advice! I think that you're definitely right. I was just thinking a while ago that I could use more description in all aspects of my writing, but particularly, in battle. I definitely appreciate your review.

Also, I edited the death scene to be done with the sword instead. Although, I'm pretty sure Matthew could kill someone with the previous way--he has a bad habit of making doors explode or implode with a nice kick. Still, for now, I think you were right, and I should probably use more realistic deaths. At least until Matthew--and other character--'s superhuman strength is clear.

[luckyduck411]

Not bad for first! Your use of words and grammar could be a bit better. I feel like there are points where you are going into too much detail, and there are parts where you aren't going into enough detail. You should probably work on balancing it out. It helps if you rewrite the parts that you know need work, then come back in a couple weeks and see what else you can improve. Try to keep doing this until you feel that it is the best it can be.