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How to Write (and Read) a Good Fight Scene
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Michael R. Underwood is best known as the author of the tongue-in-cheek contemporary fantasy series starring Ree Reyes and the metafictional novella series Genrenauts. This week, he launched a new serialized fiction project: Born to the Blade, which will be released in weekly installments for Serial Box Productions (for more about Serial Box, click here). Today, Mike joins us to talk about how he and his co-writers on the series on Born to the Blade try to inject character and purpose into their fight scenes. (And with a title like that, you know there are going to be fight scenes.)
Writing (and reading) a good fight scene is definitely a skill, even if you have experience with martial arts or fighting styles in real life (as I do). I’ve written before about how fight scenes can and should reveal character and develop the plot, but for some audiences, fight scenes all feel the same. If you find yourself skimming (or fast forwarding) past fight scenes, or the thought of writing one seems daunting, think about the examples you’re already familiar with.
One common way that fight scenes can provide characterization is through the act of cheating—which characters will cheat or won’t, why, and how. A young upstart slips metal into their boxing glove, a desperate duelist secretly coats their sword with poison, a disgraced combatant accepts a gangster’s offer to sneak their banned weapon into the arena through subterfuge. Cheating in fights is just one way to provide characterization; there are so many more.
In my Ree Reyes Geekomancy series, the geeky protagonist’s fighting style is a direct reflection of her own martial arts training and the magical ability to channel geeky cultural properties closest to her heart—both of which tell you about the type of person she is and who she wants to be. She adjusts her approach to each fight based on the threat and the magical power she’s bringing to the table—the magic helps some, but part of why Ree is effective as a combatant is her flexibility.
I’ve tried my best to apply what I’ve learned about storytelling through combat in most of my work, in different ways each time.
Therefore, when I started writing Born to the Blade with our team (Malka Older, Cassandra Khaw, and Marie Brennan), I was excited for another chance to push myself on storytelling via fight scenes.
As we developed Born to the Blade, we spent a lot of time on who the main characters were, what they thought about one another, and on the different fighting styles they used – what Earth-based martial arts they would draw on, what weapons they’d have, and so on. We mostly drew on late medieval and renaissance European styles (especially Italian, Iberian, and German sword & hand-to-hand styles) as well as some East Asian and Southeast Asian styles. We worked to be clear about the ways that these different sword styles developed alongside one another, knowing that some of them would have changed over time. The systems and styles needed to feel like the living traditions they were, practiced by people who were constantly adjusting and pushing themselves to beat one another.
Black Panther. Rurouni Kenshin. Dorothy Dunnett’s The Game of Kings. Ranma ½. Mad Max: Fury Road. One of the first things we did was reflect on books, shows, and movies with particularly memorable fight scenes – where the fights revealed character and established worldbuilding. For my own part, I’d be a dirty liar if I didn’t cite The Princess Bride first. Inigo and The Man in Black get to know one another throughout the fight, and we as the audience learn more about each of them – not just what techniques and styles they use, but how they deal with being outmatched, how they tackle environmental hurdles, and more.
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In Black Panther, T’Challa fights M’Baku in ritual combat that can only end in a yield or a death. T’Challa being who he is, he pulls lethal blows and fights to force M’Baku to yield, not wishing to deprive the Jabari people of their leader. This refusal to use the full range of possible attacks in any given moment means that T’Challa is giving himself a harder fight.
On a fundamental level, every kind of fight scene uses the same tools and presents similar storytelling opportunities. You write the personality of characters through the weapons they use, when and how they talk while they fight (or never speak), what style they use, how they do or don’t use their environment, and so on. Probably, the most narratively important aspect of a fight is the conflicting agendas and approaches of the different parties. You convey these priorities through the action, show the characters struggling to keep to their agenda/approach when faced with overwhelming force or when the opponent can claim the advantage because of what they’re willing to do that others are not.
Since Born to the Blade is epic fantasy with a big cast, we wanted to use every opportunity to reveal and develop character. Here are a couple of examples of what we tried to do with our fight scenes:
When Ojo (one of the main characters) fights his rival Lavinia in the first episode, we saw that we could showcase them as well as their heated relationship through how they fight. Ojo’s command of a two-weapon style shows his versatility and focus, Lavinia’s aggressive style shows her arrogance and terrifying level of skill. We also wanted to show that these characters had fought one another several times, with Ojo losing most of their duels over the past few years. Because of this, he tries to change the fight by trying to use different sigils and applying his skills in grappling.
In the fourth episode, Kris (another main character) is challenging for their nation to have a seat on the Warder’s Circle, which requires getting the approval by diplomacy or duel. In practice, this means they need to beat a warder from each of four or more of the six nations. Each of these nation’s representative has a different attitude on the prospect of Kris’s bid that would color how they approached the fight as well as their own fighting style (both sword & sigil style).
Ojo supports Kris’s bid, but refuses to throw their fight – he must keep up his reputation with the other warders and doesn’t want to appear desperate – so he doesn’t push himself against Kris in the way he does fighting Lavinia. When Kris faces Warder Penelope of Vania (legendary for her two-handed longsword style) Kris displays strategic thinking and bladecrafting skill with a complicated sigil to create a second blade. This gives Kris versatility and allows Kris to change the shape of the duel as they try to use one blade to trap/bind Penelope’s while the other goes for the winning blow.
In Born to the Blade, we flex our craft skills in using fight scenes as a major storytelling tool, and we hope you’ll join us in our dance of sorcery, statecraft, and swordplay.
Loyalty. Betrayal. Magic. Steel: Choose your weapon.
The first episode of Born to the Blade is available now. Subsequent episodes are released every week.