5 Steps for Writing Fight Scenes Tips from a Black Belt

You’re at that part in your writing project where there’s a battle or even just a minor dispute. Your character puts up his dukes. He throws a punch. And that’s when you realize you as the writer have never been in a fight before and you have no idea what to expect or what your character should expect. Don’t worry.

I got you. I’m going to show you how to write fight scenes. Hey there. So if you’re new here, the name is Sara Francis and I’m an author, media communicator and speaker, my channel is dedicated to taking you through not just my writing journey, but to guide you through your own. OK, first you’re probably wondering who I am to talk about fight scenes?

Well, not only is my indie published YA dystopian trilogy full of fights and battles. I am a third-degree black belt with over 12 years of experience and gold medals in Tae Kwon Do and other skills of martial arts. These medals and things aren’t meant to intimidate you. It’s just to show you that I’m not another noob making a video on fight scenes.  And I actually have a passion and understanding of what I’m talking about. Let’s get out of this uniform because it’s getting hot in here. OK, so now that I’m not dying in my uniform anymore, let’s hope to it. There are five things you need to remember as you write your fight scenes. Number one, assess the situation before your characters can fight.

They need to assess the situation and identify a lot of what’s going on around them. So point 1.A. They have to identify their surroundings. Are your fighters in a building? Are they out in field? Are they amidst a battle or is it just two of them? All of these things are key factors in a fight because the surroundings and what’s going on can highly impact your fighters’ performance. Part 1.B Of assessing the situation is to recognize what they are fighting for. The cause of the fight can change the mood of the fight drastically, the mentality of the fighters and the whole fight’s purpose. With that being said, will these fighters have internal monologue as the fight ensues? Consider having that monologue or even brief dialogue between the fighters to help break up the fight a little bit and to bring out more of the mood and what they’re fighting for.

Finally, part 1.c, you have to assess how the characters will be fighting. Is it war? Is it hand-to-hand combat? Is it magic? This will totally change the fight. Identify that before your fight even starts.

So, in conclusion, assessing and identifying the situation will improve the realism of the fight within your universe and give you a framework for how the fight should go. Number two, know the character’s strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. So basically, you need to know who your characters are and what they’re capable of. No one is perfect and no one is invincible. Not even Superman. Superman’s weakness is a glowing rock.

So don’t have a 10-year-old fighter throwing a six-hundred-pound sumo wrestler unless he is the reincarnated Superman, which would be pretty cool.

Somebody writes a book on that.

Number three, describe sounds along with the movements. Sounds in a fight are super important. They describe the speed, the power, the control of the fight. Let the reader hear the crack of a whip. Let them hear the thwack of a staff. Let them hear the squelch of a blade as it drives through the enemy. If I got too dark on you guys, I’m sorry. That’s kind of where I am in my book right now.

Don’t forget to click like and subscribe to know when I post another video. Or if you’re on instant and Facebook, give me a follow. It does a ton for me and my channel and makes me feel better that you’re enjoying the content and I know more of what you produce for you guys. Number four, describe the smells of a fight. Some readers don’t realize that fights have a smell. Your characters are exhausting so much energy that they are bound to sweat. Not only will they stink, but if blood is shed, blood has a particular metallic smell as well. If your character gets a nosebleed, can he smell his own blood? Does he taste it? Use your senses.

Finally, with smells, the terrain and the setting can change that as a result of their fight. Does one of the characters strike a gas tank and the air gets polluted? Do one of them go into a bog or some sort of nasty place where they could barely breathe because of how bad the smell is and how bad the air is just reeking of stench. Using the sense of smell in a fight creates an even deeper immersion than most other scenes. Number five, and probably the most important, know before you write how descriptive you’re going to be.

So, after knowing all four points, number five is something you really, really have to think about. Are you going to write super in-depth scenes or just the basics? To be honest, you DO need to know all of that previous information on an order to write either intense scenes or just basics. You can make an immersive fight scene that’s only a paragraph. Or if your book is fighting scene focused and you use fight scenes to progress story or even the character development. It can be longer, but you have to be careful because long fight scenes may disinterest the reader. One example of fight scenes that totally lost my interest is Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse. They had a lot and a lot of hand-to-hand fight scenes. They were very well written, but the pages were so long, the fighters were just going in circles.

This guy went this way. This guy went that way. Somebody picked up the needle and there was just no plot development, no internal monologue and just constant punching and kicking. kicking. So, you need to identify how long you want your fight scenes to be. Are you able to keep that reader engaged just as well as if you wrote it in a short paragraph? But that’s powerful and packed to the punch, pun intended. And those are the five basics. This is just enough for you to get an understanding of how to approach writing fight scenes. And don’t forget to check out the links in the description for the free digital version of “Write Fights Right” series.

It gives you all the information you talk about in my videos, plus a checklist, questionnaire, and resource links. I hope you enjoyed this video. Please like, follow, subscribe, all that jazz. And check on my Web site for my books, free resources, and my services. Thanks so much for watching and happy writing!

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