I wanted to introduce a new thread here to specifically discuss fight scenes in our fics. This isn't about the fic itself but rather discussing what methods you use in your fight scenes to grab your readers attention. The main purpose of this thread is for authors and readers alike to share their ideas and help improve each others fight sequences by sharing techniques and giving advice. While this is not a thread for shameless self promotion feel free to drop a link of the fic your talking about as long as its for the purpose of giving a reference point to your discussion, or you are requesting help in improving your fight scenes. While criticism is encouraged in this discussion if your just plain rude and aren't being helpful than GET THE FUCK OUT! I want this to remain a friendly and welcoming thread about how to brutally beat the shit out of various characters or monsters in our stories.

Well, I tend to ensure that the readers clearly know what's going on through lots of (bordering on excessive) description, unless of course something suddenly escalates, but even then I put in as much description as is necessary to make it both fast-paced and easily-visualised, such as this scene from my story:

' "... What?" Pinkie hissed.

Twilight had to fight to stop herself from jumping around in delight at her progress. Completely ignorant of the malicious undertones in Pinkie's voice, she simply repeated herself happily.

Just about all the joy she felt about making progress left her just as quickly as the air from her lungs as she recieved a ridiculously powerful hoof to the stomach, causing her to collapse in a heap on the floor. She looked up at Pinkie through bleary eyes as tears blurred her vision. Before she could say anything, however, Pinkie was atop her, pressing her forehooves against her neck. '

(copy/pasted instead of linked because that chapter is over 10,000 words and nobody should have to scan through that if they're only looking for advice)

I think that has just about the right amount for a sudden escalation, but it may be too much for some, I'm not sure.

Fight scenes tend to use shorter, snappier sentences. En-dashes can help for putting lots of interruptions in sentences.

You want to describe what someone DOES, and then WHAT HAPPENS. And then the other guy does something, and something happens.

I think Chapter 6 (Death) of Schemering is one long fight scene, so check it out if you want.

910848
While writing a fight scene I find that its necessary to be very extensive in your description of whats happening and the movements being made, a fight scene is a very visual event and and sometimes even very slight movements can tell a lot about a character and what they are doing. However, in your case i would refrain from describing a movement through the use of words such as ridiculously it tends to lower the quality of writing. Try instead using meticulous description in your fight scenes to describe the force of the impact and its effects on the target:

Before Twilight could react Pinkie had thrown a low heavy uppercut that connected with her stomach, the force of the blow causing her to be lifted slightly into the air. She then immediately collapsed to the floor briefly unable to breathe and curled up in pain. Pinkie took advantage of the situation and was on top of her before she could even open her eyes with a hoof placed firmly on twilight's neck ready to crush the jugular at any given moment.

That's how i would write that scene

911068
when doing a fight scenes, the less talking the better. people simply dont talk when they are fighting the comic books are lying. While you have the base premise of what goes into a fight scene you must remember being descriptive is key. What a lot of people don't understand is that a fight scene can be crucial to your story and can be used to show character development and the inner most emotions of the combatants. Small adjustments in a description of even a single punch can imply any number of emotions. So while at a basic level a fight scene is just writing cause and effect, you should be meticulous in the way you describe the every movement to really get across the importance of what is happening and to not just paint a picture but create a hypothetical video in the mind of the reader.
Avoid using simplified or general descriptions in your fight scene

911136 :D awesome! Will try and follow this, thanks!

Oooh! Let's do analysis:

The gun was lost somewhere in the shadows. Garm's heavy pistol had gone too, kicked out of the krogan's hand and into the garbage piled on one side of the street. As the krogan blasted the wind out of his lungs with a biotically-enhanced punch and sent him flying ten feet backwards, Garrus considered the situation, and decided it wasn't in his favour.

He hit the ground rolling and bounced to his feet, his ribs protesting as he dropped back into his Redek-Astus stance. Garm bellowed something unintelligible but no less intimidating for it, lowered his blood-caked head, and charged.

He was faster than Garrus would have ever thought possible if he hadn't seen him do it to him twice already, and even so he barely got out of the way. As the krogan lumbered past and around, he delivered a kick that would have been fatal to most known life forms even without the enhancement of combat boots to Garm's side, grunting in satisfaction as something crunched – and then hissing in pain as the shockwave danced up his leg like a vertical tsunami, leaving him off-balance as Garm's massive fist came round again. It caught him in the shoulder and spun him like a top, leaving dead nerves behind it.

Garrus staggered back, blood in his mouth from a bitten tongue, and managed to retreat far enough to buy himself a little time to recover. Garm watched him warily from his good eye; one of Garrus's shots had ruined the other, though even now the flesh and viscera were starting to congeal and knit together again. Within a day, the eye would function again.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Garm demanded. "Do you even know who I am?"

"Wait, wait, don't tell me," Garrus said. "The Consort?"

Garm came at him again like a biological freight train. Garrus ducked under a heavy blow and landed three solid, knuckle-brusing punches into the krogan's midriff – but four bullets to the head hadn't even slowed Garm down, and this didn't do much more than somehow make him even angrier. The krogan was still slow, though, and when the next punch came his way, Garrus dodged it, grabbed the arm as it flew past his face, wrenched it out behind the krogan and unleashed the best kick he could muster.

Bones snapped under the punishing blow, and Garm roared in pain and rage. Exhilarated bloodlust was flowing through Garrus like a fast, cold river, filling him with a bright, sharp-edged clarity that swept away the muddy remnants of Hyperion beer – there's just something about the wonderful sound a breaking bone makes, isn't there? - but Garm caught him with a blind, flailing backhand that snapped his head around and scattered white-hot stars in front of his eyes, leaving the two of them stumbling apart.

"Archangel," Garm growled. "You're the fucking Archangel, aren't you?"

Garrus grinned through blue-stained teeth and spat blood on the ground. "Hey, now. I'm just a concerned citizen."

Garm made some incomprehensible sound in the back of his throat. Then, before Garrus could react to take advantage, he grabbed his broken arm with his good one and, with a rough, grinding crunch, yanked it more or less back into shape. The sound grew louder throughout, climaxing in a guttural, station-shaking roar. Somewhere deep inside the animal instincts of Garrus's brain, hundreds of ancient neurons lit up with primal fear.

"I heal, Archangel," he said at last, baring his own teeth. There was no blood on them; it had congealed almost immediately into great orange scabs that covered his crest like moss on a rock. "Do you?"

Garrus grinned and loosely balled his fists. "Not like you. But then again, I can have children."

"Not when I'm done with you," Garm rumbled, and electric blue biotic energy curled out of his fist. Garrus felt the familiar buzz in the air and threw himself clear microseconds before the krogan's biotic shockwave hit; it caught his feet and spun him in the air, blasting him against a wall. Breath left him in a painful rush, but he had no time to recover; Garm was coming at him again, and Garrus was barely able to clamber to his feet before the next blow came. Somehow, Garm had already recovered enough to use the arm Garrus had broken not a minute earlier – impossible, he remembered thinking, not even a krogan can regenerate that damn fast – and Garrus could barely parry the blow on crossed forearms, grunting from the massive impact as his back hit the wall again.

Another punch from the other fist pulverised cheap duracrete where his head had been an instant before. Garrus darted behind Garm as he started to turn and launched himself at the krogan's neck, half-climbing up his back until he could slam his fist down onto that rock-hard, blood-crusted crest, over and over again until Garm managed to rip him away. Garrus skipped past the clumsy counterattack and went for the krogan again, this time with a high kick that caught Garm solidly in the throat, bringing forth coughs and curses – but his assumptions about how much time that would buy were dead wrong, and only a swift parrying action saved his ribs from complete pulverisation.

They came apart again, both panting and wheezing from the fifteen-minute battle. There was pain - narrow, stabbing lances of it whenever Garrus breathed in, a heavy, soft wave of it washing constantly inside his head, a numb, blocky quasi-paralysis in his battered arms – but he pushed it aside, let it fester away in a recess of his mind.

-- Mass Effect: Interregnum

Is this effective? Why?

911255
As a fight scene i'd say that was superb. The descriptions really showed me exactly what was happening and what was being felt and heard. describing the magnitude of the heavy strikes by what was being felt as they made contact with the target as in bones giving way and the snap being heard. Also I could gather a pretty thorough character description from his movements alone. (Garrus)While acting cool and uncaring on the outside, if you pay attention to his movements you can see that he is cold and calculative in his decision making process always choosing going for highest probability of success rather than most damage while at the same time he is quick to anger and give way to frustration when unexpected circumstances arrise that may put him on a disadvantage. Both of these things tell a shit ton about his character outside of battle as well when you apply this knowledge into Garrus's dialogue where similarities should emerge

911255
So in short... IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!

911298

Hmm...

So it's the EFFECTS of the attacks; both on the ENVIRONMENT and on the CHARACTERS.

Also, can be used to characterise; show a character's personality in their style of fighting.

I need to learn to write like this...

911365
I need to get better at it
Also I read that chapter you recommended, now it wasn't so much as a fight scene as it was an epic style (as in genre) battle. Now don't get me wrong theres not a thing i would change in that chapter you portrayed the environment beautifully and gave adequate description of what was happening and hardships the character was going through. However, it is a completely different method of writing and cannot be quite described as a fight scene. The method you used paints a multitude of beautiful elaborate paintings that depicting a battle (when i say battle it can be of any size yours was a 1 on 1 battle) and a hero's struggle rather than creating an elaborate action packed video of sorts in the mind. The main difference being is your style focuses on pulling emotion from the reader through setting elaborate tones through backdrops and heavy descriptions of the characters and what they are facing (Literally the same as what an art piece strives to do) while a fight scene focuses on being more personal with the character's in question sacrificing elaborate backdrop for a deeper psychological connection with the reader so that they don't just see the action but can feel it too by going more in depth with movements and how they portray the character.
Agh! its hard to think right now my brain is betraying me sry if some of that didn't make much sense

911426

True...

Still, I need to get better with fight scenes. Thanks for the help!

I find that the most captivating fighting scenes are the ones that dive into the emotions and reactions that the combatant is facing just before and during the fight. If done right it will make the reader feel like he or she is about to face the conflict instead of just the character in the story.