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Writing process

Writing fight scenes

All writers have strengths and weaknesses. One of my strengths is dialogue. I can write a whole novel in dialogue. (I know, they’re called scripts, but my stories sprawl so much the end result would be longer than a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel.)

One of my weaknesses is emotion. Sherylyn goes through the stories after I have finished the first draft and adds emotive moments throughout. Another weakness is fight scenes.

I can’t write fight scenes.

I can picture the fight in my head as I’m writing. I know what happens, but getting it down on paper is another thing altogether. The first draft is a wire-frame outline pulled totally out of shape The fight has no excitement, no emotion, and not much happening, and then suddenly it’s over.

So I rewrite it with more description and it turns into one long boring ‘he did this’ and then ‘she did that’ and then they did it all over again. The fight takes forever, and any urgency is lost. Not only that, I still can’t get past the ‘he did this’ text for what is actually happening.

At least my scenes are realistic by then, if somewhat boring. I have a writer friend who specialises in the impossible fight. You know the ones. Where the antagonist has his back to the protagonist and then she (the protagonist) shoots him between the eyes. Or the physically impossible contortionist scene where she’d have to be Elastagirl to pick up the weapon the bad guy dropped.

Another writer friend suggested we could both benefit from taking a fight scene in a Jackie Chan movie and trying to describe it.

I think I might try it.

Expect our next few books to have kung-fu-style fight scenes.

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