I don’t know much about writing but I’ve read some stellar action scenes in novels, I’d like to recommend for inspiration
Most of them are sword fights and some (only some) are hand to hand combat so it’s useful for those who are writing medieval/fantasy not so much for CCH 
I don’t know @Fiogan , depending on the tone of the writing I think it might be easier or even preferable to not be strictly realistic. I mean, a real fight could potentially go: Person A hits Person B, B stumbles back, trips, whacks their head on the floor and dies from brain damage 
Unless the intent is for super-realistic grittiness that’s going to be too short and far too depressing for a fictional fight.
Compare Fast and Furious 7 which I recently watched - the fights and crashes in that film are ridiculous in terms of the characters’ physical resilience 
there’s cartoon characters who couldn’t shrug off that kind of damage. But since the tone of the whole movie is ludicrously over-the-top action, you couldn’t say it jars with the tone.
I suppose I should edit that to ‘realistic within the confines of the particular fictional universe’. If the rest of the story isn’t ludicrously over-the-top, even if it is fantasy or sci fi, the fight scenes possibly shouldn’t be either. It depends on the tone, I think—consistency is key, all that. (I assume those same characters would have really epic accidents chopping carrots, for instance? ;p )
Edit: Also, I think writing gives special opportunities for breaking the suspension of disbelief that films don’t. If someone writes that a character is holding and actively fighting with a spear, a shield, a battle axe, and a spiked club simultaneously, I’m going to want to know how many arms they have. This is surprisingly easy to do in a complex fight scene, and particularly in IF where there’s code to contend with as well.
I can’t be realistic when I have a lute that transform into a magical crossbow. You have to be Accurate and correct with your setting not realistic.
Edit:Actually it could be fun try to explain realistically with real.science a crosslute and a swand (sword +wand)
They’d probably explode the kitchen. Somehow.
My bad, I think realistic is not quite accurate. I mean for example, your world has magic but it still has crossbow. As a reader I would expect the crossbows in your world to adhere to certain crossbow rules. For example, a person using a crossbow wouldn’t running up to someone and whacking them with their crossbow in normal circumstances and that they would need to reload their crossbow slowly after each shot. You can make your crossbows reload faster by magic or something, but then perceptive (or nitpicky) readers would start questioning why anyone would use a bow and arrow if there is a crossbow that can be reload relatively fast. That kinda thing, you don’t have to be realistic as long as you can justify your world i think. Again not a writer so all this is just from my perspective as a reader.
So basically never write a scenario that makes the reader question if the actions the characters are unnecessary when there’s a better way?
Here’s my latest fighting scene from my WIP, The Magician’s Task. It has detailed narrative and long sentences, but I think it suits the battle well. Any opinions on this, since most readers seem to prefer shorter, choppy sentences in battles?
“Finally, you shall taste true power!” the demon shrieks, his cruel voice high in excitement.
For a moment, the world seems to fall away. You feel like your body is made of lead, falling down an endless abyss as your vision narrows and a blood red creeps around your peripherals. Then, with a sudden jolt, you are back, an incredible power pulsing through your fingertips. You feel so positively full of energy that you’re afraid you’re going to explode, and as you clench your fist in anger, you feel as though you could crush Killian’s bones beneath your grip.
“What the hell?” he shouts in confusion, laughing nervously as he looks down at you. “Are you having a seizure on me, freak?”
He doesn’t wait for a response, and instead, cocks his fist back and sends it flying through the air towards your face. “Kill him, kill him!” Zaleth roars.
*page_break
With a smirk, you catch Killian’s fist in your hand, gripping it so hard that your fingernails make him bleed. He yelps in surprise but before he can react, you yank him towards you with impossible speed, slamming your fist into his jaw. He grunts and jerks backward, spit and blood flying from his mouth, and you grab his wrist with both of your arms, pulling it with all your might. His shoulder dislocates from his socket with a tremendous pop, and he howls in pain as he staggers back, clutching at his shoulder in horror.
You laugh with glee and lunge towards him, slamming your boot into his stomach. He bends over with a grunt, almost looking like he’s going to vomit, and you slam your elbow into his throat, knocking him to the dirt. He gives a strangled, high pitched shriek and writhes on the ground, clutching at his shoulder and throat as he splutters for air, his eyes bulging from their sockets and veins appearing all across his forehead.
Before he can even attempt to get up, you leap onto his chest, latching onto his throat with lightning speed. You squeeze as hard as you can, and Killian’s face starts to turn a violent shade of blue as he grunts and shrieks unnatural noises. You raise your other fist and bring it down repeatedly onto his face, first splitting his lip, then breaking his nose, and finally blackening his eye, until he is just a quivering mess of blood beneath you.
Reading this was oddly satisfying
So they say. 
[Twenty goddamn characters.]
I have the hardcover version of this somewhere in my collection, it’s great:
I have one of those lying around. I should dig it up again. I got way too many writing craft books.
Speaking of which, here’s one that I read a few years ago on writing fight scenes. It discusses how to write both theatrical and realistic combat sequences:
Wahoo! Sounds great. (And can next week’s topic be romance scenes, please? 
)
So I’m as far from an expert about fighting as can be, so I just want to focus on the prose writing aspect of things.
This isn’t to pick on you, @Samuel_H_Young, as your writing is great and probably much more interesting than anything I can do, but you did boldly offer up your writing for critique so I’ll just use it as an example. 
To start, in that paragraph alone you use you/your/he/him/his 15 times.
Removing as many as possible, it might look something like this:
There’s not even time to attempt moving before your hands are around his throat, squeezing the life from his blue face amidst unnatural grunts and shrieks of protest. Then your other fist is punching—once, a split lip; twice, a broken nose; three times, a black eye—leaving only a quivering mess of blood behind.
4 pronouns, and a huge reduction in wordiness. Now I’m not saying that my edit is awesome, nor that it’s necessarily best to go quite that extreme, but I think it’s something all authors should be paying attention to, most especially in action scenes where a sense of urgency is utmost. And by reducing wordiness as much as possible to begin with, it’s easier to then add back in any extra flourishes and embellishments that actually enhance the prose.
2.Pacing of long fights—have a breather.
Ok hear me out. If your fight is short, keep it short. Stick with the action and go fast.
But if your fight is a bit longer, find a way to get in a little breather just to break things up a bit. So instead of fast-fast-fast-fast-fast, have fast-fast-fast-pause-fast-fast.
Did your character just get thrown through a wall? Take just a moment to pause the fight before the adversary attacks again:
BAM—the collision’s force sends you through the wall onto a bed of broken concrete. For a moment you just lay there, body broken, head spinning, and surrounded by silence. Light streams in through the windows above, dancing playfully and making the dusty air sparkle. In the hollowness of the empty building you feel alone, almost comfortable in your brief respite. Then the walls echo: “Not finished, are you? are you? are you?” and he’s at you again…
I’m personally fond of contrast in fight scenes—tiny things of peace/beauty amidst the violence and bloodshed. Just a personal thing, but I feel like it’s so important to break things up and add dimension.
Thanks, those are some good suggestions!
@Samuel_H_Young D’oh! 
The second part of my post was totally meant in the general sense and not targeted at you. Now I really hope it didn’t seem like I was picking on you! Keep up the good writing, and thanks for sharing!
Haha, no problem. Thanks again.
Your suggestions are neat!
I always wondered, why I feel there’s always something wrong with my scene, but I can’t found any.
But after reading your reply, I agree that too many pronouns can “lag” a supposed-to-be-flashy combat scene.
Thank you for enlightening me, @Nonvita 
I like the idea of reducing pronouns too, simply because they are essentially filler most (not all) of the time.
Tonight I will offer up an action paragraph from CCH2 and then the rewrite and folks are welcome to critique both.
And thanks to @Samuel_H_Young for offering up his passage. I encourage others to do the same!
I don’t think the problem with pronouns is because they are filler 
It’s more like the case of “You blabla. You blabla. You blabla” where every single line is started with You.
I think you’d need an extra pronoun in here: “There’s not even time to attempt moving” would imply that neither the MC nor the opponent had time to move, but obviously the MC did, since they have time to begin choking him. I feel “There’s not even time for him to attempt moving” would work better, and wouldn’t really slow the pace down much.