How to Write Compelling Combat
May 2, 2024 | Ian Everett
Fight scenes are sometimes thought of as a spice to throw on a story, something to dash on top like salt and pepper to make sure your dish has enough flavor. But in this thoroughly overcooked metaphor, this humble chef suggests that this is the wrong way to approach fight scenes in your stories.
Your fight scenes shouldn’t be treated like the final little garnish—they should support the dish, be baked into it as a well thought out part of the structure! Your fight scene should be the CHEESE.
A good fight scene is MORE than choreography, realism, gear, powers, and so on. These are the “aesthetics” of a fight—they aren’t what creates an interesting fight from a narrative perspective. These are also things a visual medium will always capture better than writing. So, let’s look at the CHEESE and see what actually goes into a good fight.
Characters
There is no fight without fighters. You probably have a protagonist in mind, so let’s start there. Ask yourself some questions about them:
What’s the skill level of your protagonist here? Are they trained or not? Do they have natural talent?
What tactics do they normally employ? Are they someone who fights very up close to dish out and take a lot of damage? Are they an elusive type of fighter who would rather avoid a blow? Are they someone who strikes first, or waits for their opponent to counter?
Think about their personality, too. Are they a smart fighter who takes every advantage? Arrogant about their own abilities? Meek and unsure, inexperienced in battle and thus on the back heel, fighting just to stay in the fight?
Again, the “aesthetics” of the fight don’t matter here–this line of questioning can be employed whether you’re thinking about wizards hurling beams of energy or a gun fight.
Apply these same thoughts to your antagonist for the fight. Then, ask yourself another question: What traits or skills in the antagonist are going to make this a thrilling fight for readers?
For example, if the protagonist is a young and inexperienced fighter, you could take a couple of angles for your antagonist that are exciting: the antagonist could also be just as inexperienced, and you could be making a point about the horrors of war, loss of innocence in violence; or they could be scary and confident, and it’s now a battle to survive. They could also be a mentor teaching the protagonist! Sparring is fighting!
Environment
Fights don’t happen in an empty void. Like the “talking heads in white room” problem with dialogue, some fights can lose the environment, only focusing on the main characters.
When writing a fight, think carefully about where it’s happening. Ask yourself:
What are the constraints? How much room do they have to move? Is it cluttered? Open space?
What are the hazards? Are they surrounded on a battlefield and have to worry about being crushed or mobbed by other soldiers? Is it raining and they have to worry about slipping?
What are some of the props they can use? We love seeing a fighter use the environment to their advantage, ducking from blows behind pillars or taking advantage of improvised weapons!
Is there an audience? What are they doing? Are they involved or spectating?
Emotions
Fighting for your life involves a lot of internal emotion and thought. While writing, ask yourself some questions about the emotions going into the scene:
Are there emotions tied to this fight scene such as terror, rage, desire, bravery?
Is your hero overcoming these or succumbing to them?
For example, does the fight occur in the protagonist’s bedroom, and are they on their heels because this space is supposed to be safe? Or is the battle in the throne room where the king was just murdered, and now emotions are running high?
Help your readers learn more about your point of view in this fight, such as what they should focus on and think about during the fight. You can mix this with environmental details; hit all five senses—is your protagonist terrified because their back is against a wall (literal or metaphorical) or enraged because the antagonist has someone they love at knifepoint? Do they get incensed over a well-timed blow or caught off guard by a clever feint? Do they use emotions against an opponent by making them angry or scared?
Stakes
Every fight needs stakes—what happens if one side wins? These are the material, external gain-or-loss conditions of the fight.
Ask yourself:
If my hero loses, do people die?
Do we lose access to something the good guys needed?
Is our hero themselves killed?
Write this into the climax of the fight. Think also about the tone of the outcome: Is it an underdog victory or resistance to inevitable defeat? If the foes are equally matched, should the audience feel swept up into the fight because if the protagonist doesn’t win, millions of people will die? (This is the crux of every Bond or Mission Impossible movie.) Determining the stakes will help you shape some of the craft we’ll talk about later
Economics
A fight needs to have economics, i.e., what does the hero gain and lose from this fight, regardless of outcome? How does it impact their character arc?
GAIN: What does the protagonist of the fight gain from this fight? Even if they lose, even if they die, there can still be something to gain (a fight to buy their allies time, perhaps).
They may learn a new skill, or even develop mental grit, but it might also be as simple as what they gain in victory (the stakes)
COST: What does the protagonist give up in this fight? Resources (such as in a magic system or through actual loss of gear?) Are they wounded? Does the situation change badly even if they win?
Remember, a fight should change the story permanently! We’re talking violence and survival. Even if the stakes are low and victory is certain, this should change the protagonist permanently or cost them something. See below an example from Dune, by Frank Herbert:
Hold!” Stilgar called out. “The lad doesn’t know our rule.” Then, to Paul: “There can be no yielding in the tahaddi-challenge. Death is the test of it.”
Jessica saw Paul swallow hard. And she thought: He’s never killed a man like this … in the hot blood of a knife fight. Can he do it?
On Craft
Now, you might be wondering how you write this on a sentence-by-sentence level? Fear not, dear writer. Fear not, unlike your protagonist who should be terrified for their life. We’ve got some good tips for writing the fight on the actual page:
First up is… sigh… show, don’t tell. Don’t let your POV become a reporter if they’re involved in the fight.
Don’t do this: “I watched X step forward. He sliced at me. Then, he danced backward. He fell into a guard, but when I didn’t follow up, he stepped forward again and slashed. He struck me in the shoulder… etc.”
Where is the reaction here? The back and forth? The emotion? This example is entirely mechanical and focused on (not very good) choreography. And while it’s best to keep fights snappy, the above example has too many beats stuffed into a single paragraph.
Keep the voice! Don’t lose your narrative tone just because people start swinging fists or shooting guns. How has your protag narrated previously? How do they think and act normally? These don’t go away in a fight.
Action and reaction: when one fighter acts, the other must do something. Think in terms of beats–a kind of rhythm, back and forth–to the fight.
“I’ll sheath my knife in your blood,” Jamis snarled. And in the middle of the last word, he pounced.
Jessica saw the motion, stifled an outcry.
Where the man struck there was only empty air and Paul stood now behind Jamis with a clear shot at the exposed back.
[…] Paul withdrew, crouching low. “First, you must find my blood,” he said.
Find the balance between too much and too little in one sentence. Better to keep sentences snappy, but balance is key. You don’t want to stuff a lot of action into one sentence, either.
Ditto on the paragraph level: generally, it is better not to linger too long on any one beat of the fight or put too many beats into one paragraph (like the bad example in tip #1 up there).
Like a good song, there should be movement. The battle should rise and fall, verse and chorus, aiming for that last deciding bout. If it’s a short song, well, that also can have an artistry to it.
And, dear writer, we’ve reached the aftermath of our battle. Or we’ve plated the cheese. I’ve lost the metaphor a bit, and now I’m going to punch you in the face because of that. But before all that, if you’re looking for help on unmixing your metaphors and writing your fight scenes, Tomeworks has editors ready to help you! Contact Tomeworks for a line edit today!