Craft of Writing: Writing Combat

Booo I thought I got special badgering lol

To add to the topic. It’s also nice in fight scenes to see variations in scenes via fighting styles. In UnNatural the player can train near the beginning in either an offensive, defensive or skill focus. Then some fight scenes actively change to show that (even more variations thanks to the edits)

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I’ve never written a fight scene—they intimidate me.:rofl:

*sits back and continues judging everyone else without doing any work myself:grimacing:

@ParrotWatcher Heh, I did mention I went a little overboard cutting the pronouns, but, well, honestly I just wanted to see how far I could push it.:upside_down_face:

I do think, though, that it’s better to cut too much and get things down to the bare nitty gritty first, then if you look and say “hmmm yeah I really do need that pronoun there” it’s easier to add it back in, along with any other finishing touches.

(And as a side note, @Samuel_H_Young, I think the MC has 3 hands there :v::metal::facepunch:, which I totally didn’t notice at first.)

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Alright, here’s four of the twenty four(?) variations of the same scene… I should note that neither is human, that’s why they haven’t died just from this yet.

If natural weapon is bone nails + fights with agility.

I pounced on her. She dodged to the left and swiped at my legs with the left hand. The attack hit the back of my knees and took my legs from under me. I fell back on the stone floor. She raised her right hand to impale my abdomen and I rolled to the left before using my arms to spring up as her nails hit the floor and cracked it.

She looked up from the fractured stone and sprang on me without missing a beat, swiping from below with the left hand. I avoided the attack by pushing it to the right and tried to stab her stomach with my nails. She grabbed my hand and wrenched it aside before kneeing my midriff and throwing me over her back.

I twisted mid-air and skidded back a few meters on all fours after falling on the ground, digging my nails in the rock to slow down. When I came to a stop there was less than a meter between me and the wall.


If natural weapon is bone nails + fights with strength.

I ran forward and slashed at her. She dodged below the attack and tried to stab my abdomen. I jumped back barely in time to avoid getting gutted and threw a kick aimed at her chest. She blocked it by putting her arms up in a cross, which caused her to slide backwards a few meters.

She shook her arms and then came at me full speed. I prepared myself to parry her blow but she feinted and I fell for it. Instead of trying to slash from below she jumped and turned sideways, using the momentum from the run to grab me by the armpits and throw me over.

I skidded ungracefully on my back for a few meters before being able to twist so that I was on all fours and digging my nails in the rock to slow down. When I came to a stop there was less than a meter between me and the wall.


If natural weapon is bone claws + fights with agility.

I pounced on her. She jumped back and my claws hit the stone. She tried to swipe at my face from below with both hands and I avoided it by throwing myself on my back and pulling my legs close to my chest. While still lying on the ground I sprang my legs and kicked her chest with both feet, sending her skidding backwards.

Without missing a beat she came at me full speed, slashing with her nails from both sides. I stopped her hands by blocking her forearms with my own. She stopped pushing her arms inwards and slipped them under mine as they moved outwards, using the moment to knee my midriff and throw me over her back.

I twisted mid-air and skidded back a few meters on all fours after falling back on the ground, digging my claws in the rock to slow down. When I came to a stop there was less than a meter between me and the wall.


If natural weapon is bone claws + fights with strength.

I ran at her and stabbed with my claws. She dodged to the right and tried to gut me with her nails. I lowered my elbow and hit aside her hand with it. She tried again with the other hand and I evaded to her left before using my left leg to kick her legs from under her, making her fall on her back on the stone. I raised my arm to impale her abdomen and she rolled to her right, making my claws hit the floor and crack it instead.

I looked up from the fractured stone and pulled my claws from it. She stretched her neck and then came at me full speed. I prepared myself to parry her blow but instead of swiping from the right she darted to my left and grabbed my arm, using the momentum from her run to throw me around her.

I turned mid-air and landed on my feet before digging my claws in the stone to slow down as I skidded backwards. When I came to a stop there was less than a meter between me and the wall.


To do list:

  1. Write magic + agility (attacking)
  2. Write magic + strength (attacking)
  3. Write nails + agility (defending)
  4. Write nails + strength (defending)
  5. Write claws + agility (defending)
  6. Write claws + strength (defending)
  7. Write magic + agility (defending)
  8. Write magic + strength (defending)
  9. Write same variations for: Chain-whip, Katana, Double daggers, Scythe.
  10. Write the rest of the fight.
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Yes I see what you mean…I have put more thought into this…When I rewrite my action scene tonight, I’ll try to be intentional about mixing up the sentences. I might even aim to split the sentences into 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3 of the following types…

  1. sentences that describe what the MC does (and not all of these have to start with “you”)

  2. sentences that describe what others (your opponent/teammates) do

  3. sentences that describe other actions, especially when I can write the gun/explosion/laser/smoke, etc., as the subject of the sentence (guns blazing, explosions ringing, lasers zapping, smoke rising)

Let’s how this goes!

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I think writing action scenes over and over and over (to account for various MC skills/weapons/abilities) is VERY draining, at least it is to me.

Sometimes I’ll write all the action scenes for a choice (let’s say there are just 5) and I just go on “auto pilot” to get through the task, and I think that’s where the craft of writing suffers for me.

I think I writer better long scenes that involve a lot of dialogue and plot development, especially scenes that I know EVERY reader will encounter.

But when I write these 100-word action scenes that stem from a choice, and when there are 4-6 of them to grind through, and when I know that only 20% of readers will even read the actual action scene I’m writing at the moment, it really saps my energy. It’s hard for me to put 100% of myself into each one of them.

And I keep focusing on the fact that this isn’t something most authors have to do. They get to pour 100% of their energy into each action scene and control every twist and turn. On the other hand, we have to account for different choices, player skills/weapons, and outcomes. So yes it’s a challenge, but definitely one I need to embrace.

I need to get better at this.

And I can’t imagine writing 24 (quality) variations of an action scene. I think that would drive me to :beer:

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I think :heart: (or :broken_heart:!) that would be a GREAT topic for next week. I’ll post that on Monday.

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Copy-paste is a siren luring writers to their death on the rocks of editing errors … :wink: Seriously, I suffer from fatigue here too, I find four different variations to be my sweet-spot.

Later, I’ll see if I can put a fight scene of mine for everyone - if I can find a short and sweet one for everyone to critique.

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Weirdly enough I find it… kinda relaxing, actually. This is seriously what I do when I need a break from writing other stuff… :neutral_face: Am I weird?

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See, I’m the person who’ll spend hours sitting there putting in all the conditions to change two words here and a few words there, and oh the punctuation needs to take into account the different variables, and hmm maybe I should account for the weather also and how that affects the glinting of the steel, and maybe the expression you’re making when you grunt should be saved as a variable so I can refer to it later on, and…yeah, I get nowhere with actually writing.

There’s definitely a fine line. But getting words on the page—any words—will always be the most important.

@Ylva, Ok first off I’m glad to hear those are not humans, because yikes!
OK, so a lot of your sentences start with “She” or “I,” so I think you can tighten up your writing by combining sentences and changing up sentence patterns.
A few random examples:

The attack hit the back of my knees and took my legs from under me. I fell back on the stone floor.

The attack hit the back of my knees and knocked me onto the stone floor.

She raised her right hand to impale my abdomen and I rolled to the left before using my arms to spring up as her nails hit the floor and cracked it.

Her right hand shot out at my abdomen but I instantly rolled left and sprang up, her nails bashing the empty floor instead.

She shook her arms and then came at me full speed. I prepared myself to parry her blow but she feinted and I fell for it. Instead of trying to slash from below she jumped and turned sideways, using the momentum from the run to grab me by the armpits and throw me over.

She shook her arms then charged at full speed, but as I prepared for impact she feinted, jumping up to grab me and using her momentum to throw me over.

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Alright- here is a writing sample of a simple fight scene of mine: This happens after a hostage negotiation scene fails:

[quote] *label fight1_negotiation_part_three_denied_aa

Stumbling out the gates and rapidly peddling your legs so you don’t fall on your face, you hear three things simultaneously: the gate doors shutting tight behind you, a sharp crack of a hunting rifle firing from the bell tower inside the village and a deeper thrap of a specially chambered M-14 rifle being fired from behind the Cadillac out in the parking lot. Making it behind the Cadillac, you position yourself behind the front axle and engine block. Looking to your right, you see Gretel wrapping gauze around the lower leg of Hansel and twisting the attached torque handle to tighten the bandages and prevent the leg from bleeding out.

"What now boss ${mc_manwoman}? Gretel barks out. You can tell she is angry. Angry at you, the “vampires” or at Hansel getting shot you’re not sure.

A crescendo of shots rise above from within the village, as if they came from inside one of the shops, or perhaps the cellar … would these people kill their hostages because of what you did?

*page_break[/quote]

As you might be able to tell from the *label, this is just part of a whole but it shows the style I like to write my prose in.

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Since I’m on a pronoun killing spree…

peddling your legs to not fall on your face

you hear three things simultaneously

three noises erupt simultaneously

shutting tight behind you

shutting tight from behind

you position yourself

you get in position

Looking to your right

Looking right

You can tell she is angry.

She’s clearly angry.

Pew pew pew, six more pronouns down for the count!


I just want to add, in case it wasn’t clear already, that all y’all are great writers and I’m having too much fun reading what you’ve written.

And killing pronouns.

(I should also add that my brain is 4-month-old-baby level frazzled, so unfortunately I’m not very capable of giving better feedback at the moment, and I do hope others will step in to provide more constructive critiques :heart: )

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Your feedback is great - thank you.

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Your advice to kill pronouns is actually something I haven’t quite considered! Really great suggestions, I find myself peppering way too much pronouns into my fight scenes and cutting pronouns definitely tightens the scene and makes it easier to convey the tension and aggression!

I can definitely relate to this! On one hand there’s the need to make the choices matter and make the scene relevant to the equipment the character is using. And yet, too many variations of the same scene kills my motivation as well.

Most of the time I hit a wall during these fight scenes, and choreographing them is incredibly difficult. One thing that I find myself doing quite a bit is to observe similar fights (youtube is my best friend), be it in the movies, real life, or re-enactments. This way I can kind of get a feel of the organic movement and the imagery that I am trying to portray in the scene.

Loving this thread, the suggestions here are really insightful and incredible!

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Yes, the MC was choking with one hand, punching with the second, and texting with the third.

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I don’t think dialog choices need to be realistic. Dialog as it’s portrayed in prose isn’t realistic. If it were it would be a pain to read.

Dialog in the middle of combat is driven in large part by genre. If you’re writing a comic book then a lot of the dialog will happen during combat. Combat is just another kind of dialog in that genre.

I think false choices are good so long as they’re used in moderation. They lose their power when they become obvious. I think people who have played a lot of these games have learned to spot them sometimes, especially on repeat plays. I know I have.

A few tips on fighting from my experience.

A prolonged fight makes you feel drunk. Things get fuzzy. People don’t have abstract thoughts in those kind of situations. Everything is immediate. Avoid stray thoughts. People don’t have stray thoughts in a fight. Also pain isn’t always immediate. You feel the shock of impact but the real pain doesn’t sink in until later.

You’re right to stay away from adverbs. If you feel the need for an adverb there might be a problem with your verb choice.

Don’t be afraid of a bit of dialog. If you don’t want them to talk whilst swinging you can always put a pause in the fighting. A lot of fights have pauses.

Happy writing. I hope that helps.

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