When explaining an action sequence

[oOWonderKinOo]

Do you ever struggle to describe a fighting sequence? I'm constantly having issues when trying to build an excellent mental picture of what's going on for my reader. I really enjoy writing action scenes but I'm afraid that I'm just confusing them. I wish I could send them pictures of little stick people performing the moves I'm trying to describe so they aren't lost. XD (edited) -.-;

[Keyguyperson]

All my action scenes either boil down to long, detailed explanation of every muscle twitch by everyone involved, "CHARACTER GOOD MURDER CHARACHTER BAD HA HA HA", or something that I have to redo because it sounds vaguely sexual.

[Ellri]

When we want to write a long battle sequence, we usually do it as a collab. Much easier to get the action / reaction pattern a fight should have.

[NuttsnBolts]

I tend to slow down the fights by explaining individual movements step by step with enough detail to set the scene. It's almost like a step by step dance. If I need to speed things up I tend to describe the overall movements and give little detail, leaving more to the imagination and feel of the scene.

[TJByrum]

I see people sometimes explain every movement. I also see people explain it in short, but descriptive-enough ways. The two knights fought viciously, bashing and thrusting at one another as sparks lit the air air around them.

[NuttsnBolts]

I see people sometimes explain every movement. I also see people explain it in short, but descriptive-enough ways. The two knights fought viciously, bashing and thrusting at one another as sparks lit the air air around them.

@TJByrum

JESUS CHRIST MATE!!!!! Keep it clean for the kiddies! We don't wanna hear about any of that dirty action!

[Hank]

For me, the best way to learn to write action scenes was reading a lot of novels by a writer called Dan Abnett, specifically his Warhammer 40,000 novels. That man has military sci-fi action down to a science. I'm at work right now and don't have a copy of his novels handy, but off the top of my head, he writes something like this: Sidestepping the downward chop of the Ork's great axe, Gregor's breath caught in his throat at the size of the weapon, and the monster wielding it. The Ork was easily eight foot tall, made entirely out of green, rippling muscle, and the blade of his axe was approximately the size of Gregor's torso. If one of the Ork's strikes connected, Gregor was sure he would be entirely disemboweled. However, he was a trained agent of the Throne, a veteran member of the Ordos Xenos, and (most importantly) significantly faster than the Ork. Kicking up dust as he moved, Gregor ducked beneath the whistling serrated edge of the Ork's axe as the beast swung the weapon sideways. Gregor thrust his powersword forward in an attempt to pierce the Ork's thigh and sever vital tendons; when up against a bigger opponent, always attempt to cripple his movement. The blade connected, but before it could pierce the Ork's tough flesh deep enough to cause significant damage, the Ork roared and backpedaled away. For a creature that large, it moved with alarming speed. Gregor wasn't about to give his opponent time to recover and dashed forward. Anticipating the Ork's next move, Gregor flexed his muscles in preparation. He had dodged the Ork's last strike by ducking and, as expected, the Ork attempted to compensate by swinging his axe low, barely a foot off the ground, trying to sideswipe Gregor's legs into nonexistence. With blistering speed, Gregor vaulted over the pitted, rusted axe blade and slammed into the Ork's chest with his feet while he plunged his powersword into the Ork's chest. Grunting in effort, he reversed his momentum, pulled the blade free and leapt off the Ork's torso with a graceful backflip. Blood spurting from his chest, the Ork moaned and collapsed. That's descriptive enough, no?

[Darcs]

Fade to black, go to another scene or a flash back or something, come back to the resolution. Unless it's a super important fight for the plot or one of the characters involved there's no point going into crazy detail over it, either give a short, barebones, but impactful description or use the scene to develop the character. For things like that, skipping around, using the black holes of the fighting can be interesting narrative tools, and the interpretation of how you skipped around through the character's thoughts the bits of the fight you may get, back story bits, or something else entirely, and then how you get to the conclusion can be fun, because then people can interpret their own meaning of why Jonas' mind went to the memory of being in the zoo with his mother as he fought the giant serpent. Freud would say he wants to bang his mom. Jung would say he saw an innocence in the ferocity of the beast. Maybe it's juxtaposition? Maybe his mind didn't even go there??? Of course for those fights you DO need to have shown then I say go all out. have 20 pages for a 5 minute fight.

[clark]

It depends on what you're trying to do, but I find that sometimes it's better to use the reader's imagination rather than explain every beat in detail. Hyper-detailed scenes can get tedious and can lose the momentum if you're not careful, and I think that readers usually have good imaginations and sometimes it's better just to let them do the work. But that depends on what your goal with the scene is. To use the dance analogy: if you were to write about a dance, I think it's important to ask yourself: why are you writing this scene? What are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to show us that your character is graceful? Awkward? Are you trying to evoke an emotion? Are you showing the chemistry between your character and the partner? Does the reader really need to be able to follow every step and pivot well enough to recreate it? Probably not. Details can be important. Maybe you have a dance-based magic system and it's crucial to hint to the readers that someone is pop-and-locking a spell up in the dance circle. Or maybe a body-snatcher has replaced your character's lover and is outed by dancing in a markedly different style than before. In those situations, I think details are important. But I think details for the sake of details should be questioned. I think the same applies with action sequences and probably every other kind of scene. You have to ask yourself why the reader needs all the details. Now I kind of want to come up with a dance-magic system.