6 Tips for Writing Fight Scenes

[@PhoenixCrown]

5:30 Spot on with choreography! At one point, I was trying to describe a fight in great detail. I have martial arts training and I can still find ways to describe a real fight, but when I found myself getting confused about the positioning of someone's left arm vs. right arm etc. I realized it was too much. Now I'll just say "His arm dangled at his side," and allow the reader to imagine it, accepting that 2 readers will picture a different fight--and that's OK. In a novel, it's not about the details of left hook vs. right cross necessarily; it's about the goal, motivation, struggle, and outcome of the conflict. Thanks Brandon!

[@Terik17]

well said :) we must trust the readers are clever enough to fill in the details

[@micahblakeslee]

I struggle with a similar thing as someone with an MMA background. I like Brandon's advice here, because he doesn't say to NEVER be specific, but just to make it count when you do. Specific moves can tell you something about a character (like a decapitation makes a strong statement about brutality). If I do include specific techniques, it has to be both interesting and also tell you something else, like subtext in dialogue.

[@BodyTrust]

All the swordfighting in "The Duelists" were superb. The fight scenes I hate the most are when an unrealistic fight goes on and on and the fighters seems unfazed despite enormous blows - and they just keep going.

[@sooneradmirer4382]

Definitely, apparent in anime. People will get punched or kicked a 100 times. How am I to believe that this next punch will finish the fight? (I say this as an avid reader of One Piece and many other manga.)

[@sharkastic2633]

This having less than 1,000 views is criminal.

[@dottnick]

Just means there are only that many serious writers checking method on KZbin.. market not saturated?

[@who-ny5oe]

But luckily we found this channel.

[@ZachScottB]

This guy's teaching is pure gold. Love the content. Thank you!

[@GVerny]

@@dottnick lol, I'm a serious writer now! 😈

[@Brother_In_Christ]

Over 4k now. This guy's channel is gonna be big. I can bet on it.

[@DarinMcGrew]

I haven't reread The Princess Bride in a long time, but I recall the various fight scenes all feeling very different from each other. Of course, there's Inigo vs The Man in Black, Fezzik vs The Man in Black, and Inigo vs the Six-Fingered Man. But there were others as well: Buttercup vs her kidnappers, Westley vs the ROUS, Westley vs Humperdinck, etc.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

What's your favorite fight scene from a novel? Let me know!

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Mine comes from the end of Joe Abercrombie's Last Argument of Kings

[@devinbeggs4104]

The knife fight at the climax of Cities of the Plain

[@TigerPurt21]

The battle of the seven Potters

[@ForestWarrior07]

The Quest by Wilbur Smith had a scene where their group came under attack. It was intense.

[@RobertDownySenior]

Will smith and the Oscar of rocks

[@bristlecone77]

Starting out writer here. Thank you for your coaching.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks! And best of luck!

[@DarinMcGrew]

Your point about research reminds me of the 2015 movie Forsaken. Before the final gunfight, the protagonist goes to the storekeeper and buys a LeMat revolver. They get some of the details right (it's a very heavy revolver, it has 9 rounds in the cylinder plus a 10th grapeshot round). But they get other details wrong. The LeMat is a cap-and-ball revolver, and doesn't use cartridges. And the grapeshot barrel is 20 gauge, not 10 gauge.

[@PhoenixCrown]

My favorite fight scenes are in The LighBringer series. Brent Weeks writes gritty, brutal combat with the right level of description for my taste. The MC's first real fight, he gets seriously injured, something that lasts multiple books. Future fights, there are serious consequences for characters' actions. He uses all senses, and the magical visuals are still awesome.

[@RichardCarter-em3rn]

OH! I totally forgot The LighBringer series, nice example PhoenixCrown!!!

[@Terik17]

it must be challenging to write about an injury that spans multiple books, respect!

[@Kurotekken]

The action scenes in Sam Sykes' Grave of Empires series are excellent. They're anime af but also gritty and drive home the consequences really hard. People die. The main character basically spends the whole story getting beaten up, recovering (insufficiently), and getting back into it. Can't think of a specific 'best' scene off the top of my head, but they're consistently good.

[@Henbot]

Great video. Fights scenes I enjoyed in the book medium has been Raymond Chandler and The Iliad as well as stuff from Tolkien

[@dgrhm08]

R. A. Salvatore was really good at writing fight scenes. They were quick, had punch, and were cinematic.

[@DanB.0]

I'll listen to this one again, terrific content

[@timothygilmore3053]

One of my most favorite fight scenes was from The Indian in the Cupboard. In the book the author was very good with the fist fight that happened between the Indian and the cowboy.

[@ZachScottB]

I love the topics you cover. They are brilliant 👏 👏 👏

[@nickfarace6631]

Outstanding video sir. Thank you.

[@deckardcanine]

Ursula K. Le Guin said that fight scenes, ironically, tend to slow the story. Me, I'm fine with including fights as long as they either are brief or maintain a sense of some kind of progress or revelation. Failing that, I'll accept ongoing innovation.

[@agentbullwinkle991]

8:36 If you can't hurt your characters physically for some reason, hurt them emotionally 🤣

[@braydenb1581]

If you are worried a out damage affecting plot id have the person icing their back often or flexing their hand in later scenes to show damage done

[@johncenter4858]

Pretty good stuff thank you very much

[@Jameswebbtelescope7484]

Overwriting fights is my big issue 😂😂 I can’t help it lol Warrior cats does a great job with visualizing fights

[@RichardCarter-em3rn]

Howdy, good stuff in this video as always. I can't single out just one example but I can point to two styles I like, they're both a bit ...well...'pulpy' First if I'm doing a fantasy kind of thing I usually look to the swordplay from E.R. Burroughs, particularly the 5 novels in the "Mars" series; the first three in particular have a nice variety of swordplay scenes. Secondly I often reference Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir's "Destroyer" series. The empty hand techniques used in the series(the first 100 anyway) are well constructed and I believe can appeal to younger and more active audiences (I was hooked @age12) I'd be curious if you had any input on these guys. Thanks for this video, it's nice. Couple more days and I'll get my copy of EW and I'm looking forward to see how you do it.. Cheers

[@elliotfong5061]

What a fight against the protagonists darker side like an internal conflict

[@aelowan]

Tip #7 - Language: For the majority of fight scenes, you want to focus on language that is short, sharp, and punchy (so to speak ;) ). Long, flowy words and sentences only serve to slow down your action and give the reader distance. You don't want that. You want to be in the reader's face, all five senses, blow for blow, to make the reader's breath come faster and make them turn those pages at 3am.

[@tired_crusader901]

Everything here is really good, although I think fights need to be messy. Its sporadic, its a fight for survival or whatever.

[@cheradine]

Is Benjamin Sobieck’s book is also about medieval weapons or only modern ones?

[@DarinMcGrew]

Another fight story that I read in high school (twice actually, once on its own as a short story, and again as the first chapter of the novel Invisible Man) is "Battle Royal". I just reread it now, but I remembered the narrator's description of the chaos of the scene, and of his own conflicting emotions as he and the other black youth were manipulated and tortured for the entertainment of "the town's leading white citizens".

[@trayvon9003]

For some reason the email your have gave me did not go through 🤷 🤷 So can you see what the problem is? 🤔 🤔

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Hmm. Are you on Twitter or Facebook? You can try messaging me: TWITTER - twitter.com/McNultyFiction FACEBOOK - facebook.com/McNultyFiction/

[@beautifulmath5361]

I like your channel, but this video isn't as strong as your others because it's all theoretical principles without examples and counterexamples from actual novels that do fight scenes well or poorly. Your other videos are so great because you show real examples of say, bad dialog (Attack of the Clones) vs. good dialog (Back to the Future.) Do that here, too.

[@trayvon9003]

say what your email Gmail? So I can ask you a question

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Shoot me an email through my website brandonmcnulty.com