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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Rabidpancakes on July 15, 2007, 04:47:49 PM
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Writing my book and doing ok. Getting help from Wolfhowls and others out here. Problem is trying to get my melee combat down to where everyone can appreciate it. Sounds great in my head, but could use some advice. Any authors or books you can recommend to me, I tend to get very technical when I get passionate. Wolfhowls recommended Troy Denning. Any other advice?
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what is your point of view? If you have it charted/choreographed in your head and it looks and feels great then it might be that when you switch to another viewpoint to write it the confusion/dis-satisfaction comes in?
I find that clients reporting accidents have the same problem. It happens in 3D but they can't properly explain it until they are thinking in 2D... Try it sometime, look at an intersection and have a "mental accident" then try to explain it to someone---you think it's simple but it's not. By going to 2D on a piece of paper you can easily communicate it properly. You can go back in later to add "flavor" and "texture", but if your mechanics are off---the work will be off.
Can't beat Butcher's battle between spring and summer. I find them difficult to write unless I take the time to do my homework with the little lead or pewter fighters--which is the only way I can keep the combatants in order and in the right place at the right time. If it's smaller number of combatants you might pull up some of the 60's70's stuff like Ludum (Bourne books), Deighton (Any of them), Fleming (James Bond books) for ideas. Ken Follett is a master, I think.
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Good call! I should have though about that from my traffic accident investigation days.
See, I can choreograph it just fine. Problem is I will tend to use very technical names from martial arts that only a practitioner of that art would be aware of. I think I need to get less technical. Maybe I'm wrong. Ludlum is a good Author though, Should have thought about him. Thanks. Anymore help I definetely welcome.
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And I wish I had your technical names! If you develope a grid work..
Like Term in Martial Arts and Common/non-tech name (and list them below).
There is a person on these boards who dispices (sp) charts and glossary use, but if it's really slowing you down in moving forward...make one! Besides the individual will be on later to rant! I'm in a teasing mood anyway! (dig,dig)
I've thought I should take a martial arts class, as have always admired staff clubbing (how's that for non-technical) since my days watching Robin Hood (live action Sat AM). I'm only kidding. I'm sure there is a lovely term for staff choreography!
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E E knight and Illona Andrews both do wonderful jobs of combat scenes, and so does Simon R Green, especially in the Deathstalker series.
Also, what setting are you in? magic or tech, swords, guns, fireballs, giant robots. Versus man, beast, demon, etc.
I like to think I'm pretty good at combat scenes, and I've never had a problem voicing my opinions, so if you would like, i would like to help.
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Ok,battle scenario. Man to Man aerial battle (Yes, they are flying) over large body of water. Evenly matched foes as far as strength, speed, and stamina are concerned. Mixed style martial arts. One protagonist trained in U.S. military hand to hand, Praying Mantis Kung-Fu, Basic Krav Maga, Hapkido, Judo, European Broadsword fighting. Antagonist trained in WWII Style Nazi SS Hand to Hand, Karate, Sambo, and European Fencing. Both are proficient with firearms, although that does not really matter here. Both have killed before. Neither have any remorse. They hate each other.
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Just go with straight brawl then. When stuff gets to fancy sometimes just the hate and rage can carry a fight. Who ever has the most wins. Just remember the times we got into brawls at the bars in Germany.
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Bloody afairs with carnage and dead bodies everywhere! Wait, that was someplace else.
Bloody afairs with carnage and broken bottles everywhere. Drunks crying over spilled liquor. T'was sad. All those frothy heads of beer spilled recklessly on the filth floor by angry warriors itching for battle. Yep! thats more like it!
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What's the voice of your narrator like? Is he an every man/ smart ass like Harry or more stoic and serious. For instance if you want to describe being placed in a hammer lock (wang chung in martail arts? i dunno) you could say something like "He did that damn wrestler move where he made my wrist touch my shoulder blade. Looks like it hurts on tv right? Guess what it does. And silly me I didn't know the counter for it."
I dunno that's just what popped into my head. Feel free to steal it or completelly disregard it.
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Ok,battle scenario. Man to Man aerial battle (Yes, they are flying) over large body of water. Evenly matched foes as far as strength, speed, and stamina are concerned. Mixed style martial arts. One protagonist trained in U.S. military hand to hand, Praying Mantis Kung-Fu, Basic Krav Maga, Hapkido, Judo, European Broadsword fighting. Antagonist trained in WWII Style Nazi SS Hand to Hand, Karate, Sambo, and European Fencing. Both are proficient with firearms, although that does not really matter here. Both have killed before. Neither have any remorse. They hate each other.
I would suggest watching a few episodes of DBZ.
Do an all out fight. Have them pound on each other until neither has anything left. Broken faces, hands, that sort of thing. Having either character actually take damage, instead of just getting a little bruised and tired, brings the reader into the moment more clearly. Unless your guy is superman or something. Then blood is bad, unless you have a way to explain it.
Don't think the swords could be reliably employed. The styles are so different, and the weapons not suited for each other. Broadsword is way heavy, and an epee is way light. Unless NAZI man is using a saber. Then it would even out.
gota have them fight to a standstill, then have one pull out the ace in the hole. One has to be better, for whatever reason.
Also, have you thought of whos going to win?
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If you're in first-person, you just have to decide if the narrator would use those terms. Is he a technical fighter who'd think, "Ok, now I'm doing move X against Hold Y" or would he just punch the other guy in the nose?
If it's third person, then yeah, you have to acknowledge that at some point you're either writing to an audience that will appreciate the technical fine points (like David Weber/John Ringo who spend, quite literally, pages and pages of text on finer points of how Gun A works vs. Gun B) or you're not. If you are writing to a specific audience, get as technical as you'd like. If you're writing to a wider audience, you're going to bore some people by getting too technical.
In the latter case, I'd suggest writing it in whatever way fires you up the most. Then go back and read it, pretending it's about a topic in which you have only a passing interest and try to figure out at what point your eyes glaze over. Some technical terms will add verisimilitude and a certain colorful twang. Too many, and it's as bad as 4 pages of washing machine parts inventory.
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Also get a lay person, some one who knows nothing about the subject matter to read it and give you a brutally honest report. Or a few lay persons.
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Well, all seems to be going well. My contacts have read it and they like it. I found a balance between technical and something for everyman. So thanks for all the input. It was all helpful.
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Combat always gets to me too. Honestly, I think the best thing to do is just rein it in. I have the same problem where I want to over-describe everything, but in the end, while I might care exactly what type of Eskrima/Boxing/Kung Fu/Whatever, the character is using, in the end it's the cinematic play-by-play in the reader's mind that matters.
As for authors, for a good martial arts writer check Barry Eisler, particularly the final chapters of Hard Rain, you're looking for the knife/baton/pit bull fight (the book's pretty sweet too, if you're into that genre - espionage/assassin). For somebody you can check right now, read the Amazon preview of Matthew Stover's Heroes Die, which contains, hands down, the best fight scenes I've ever read in a Fantasy novel.
Link here to HEROES DIE, copy and paste: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0345421450/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-5814108-7130251#reader-link
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(I take it that they are flying via magic.) Have them trade insults.
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I'm a blackbelt in Jujistu, the unarmed kind they teach cops in New York. That being said it reflects much in the unarmed combat scenes in my stories. It can get technical, and sometimes you can get lost in the words. That's when I decided to blend technical realism with poetic liberties. It kinda closes all the gaps and adds to the imagery.
I suggest the fight scenes in the Dune series, especially the Original Dune. It gets down to it without getting stuck down in it. Also, I am a disciple of Frank Herbert.
I also agree with Corvidian, if your either of your characters are mouthy, let them get real mouthy, it adds to the tension.
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I humbly suggest you use any formal names for moves or strikes sparingly, if at all. Too many books go on about ""Eagle Claw Striking Fist of The Mystic Schoolboy", "Jade Mantis Striking the Cinnibar Monkey In Autumn Foliage," etc..... I'm sure you get the picture. My Obsidian Panda School will defeat your Steel Battle Carp Style!
Some of the best fights I've read were from John D. McDonald's "Travis McGee" books. The narration style and flavor changed, depending on how serious a fight was going on. I particularly remember phrases like "an uppercut that started somewhere around the floor and left me wondering where my head was going to land", it lends the sense of confusion and desparation that one feels when having one's brain sloshed around inside their skull. And with brawls where he had the other guy totally outclassed, the writing style was more calm, casual and perky even. A brutal paraphrase, "Eager to impress his audience, he came at me all studio black belt, "Hah!" and "Hiyah", so I stepped in and gave him a couple to the kidney, then eased him over to the couch and sat him down." And there have been times where McGee butted heads with a true professional, and got handed his ass. (For example, in one book, some MOSSAD boys left Travis McGee, Heroic Badass, wondering WTF? Hunh? Whuuzat?" )
Just a thought, and please remember, those aren't direct quotes, just soup from the bits I remember off-hand.
However, you go, good luck with the writing!
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Writing combat scenes is difficult. Reading about people exchanging blows is boring, no matter the blows have fancy names. You need tactics, twists, unforeseen complications. You also need characters the reader cares about, and high stakes.
Involve the setting (slippery ground, rain begins, rocky terrain, nearby cliff, good character fights from lower point plus is blinded by the sunlight, he stumbles over wounded, etc.)
Possible complications: some of the pov's friends are killed/in danger, but he can't help; weapons break; salves of arrows come in; the leader or one of the leaders is killed or wounded; or they make a last stand, surrounding the king, still holding their banner high; the characters might have been ambushed; the characters need to get close to a heavily defended place to be able to turn the battle...
In some combat scens, characters will have a perfect plan (which is ruined of course), sometimes they are desperate from the start.
In a fight among several characters, you need teamwork. Every member of the team has an important part to play in the master strategy. Then one of them fails or is killed, and the others need to improvise fast to save the plan. Say, a small group of comrades working together. The two archers are supposed to keep an eye on the bridge, and shoot at every enemy trying to cross, while the others sneak up on the enemy camp.
Or: half of the group is supposed to create a diversion, while the other sneak in from the other side of the camp, trying to steal something / free a prisoner.
Or: they try desperately to keep an escape route open, but then something unforeseen happens and they must decide to either abort the mission or to go on, whatever the outcome.
Or they stand in a circle, backs to each other, fighting desperately for their lives.
The important thing is that something goes wrong. The archers by the bridge are shot themselves. The diversion doesn't work well enough. Or one of the guys who sneak into camp has to kill a guard and he cries out. Or two men that cover the prots back fall... Or something is different than what the spies / scouts told the prot, the layout of the camp, the number of the guards... Or it was a trap all along... or the tunnels that one of the heros remembers from his childhood have caved in... or they finally storm the hill / the room that had been there goal, only to find an army / more bad guys waiting for them.