Wednesday, May 4, 2011

A New Obstacle

Oh, this novel is killing me. In a good way (sort of), because all of these challenges are leading me to a better and more realistic novel, if it all works out and I write it well enough.

Now I have a new obstacle. In the end of the novel, right before everyone dies, they need to fight back. I didn't have them doing so and both of my readers wrote "WHY AREN'T THEY FIGHTING?!" And why don't I have them fighting?

Because I've never written a combat scene before. Not a real one. I've had characters captured and hurt, but said characters have always had zero knowledge of any combat skills and didn't have the skills or the chance to defend themselves. In TOSOL, Lyddie has limited (still some) knowledge/skill, but her aunt has more, and the villain has even more. Even though Lyddie is disarmed fairly easily by the villain, I need to know how one can fight with her prop as well as how she can be disarmed. These are all things I'm not good at, so I've taken the coward's route and avoided it... until now.

The muses are not smiling down upon me. I've been trying for days to write this scene. The pace is all wrong, and it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about, despite the reading I've done on the subject.

Ugh. And I thought writing the make-out scene was hard. Any suggestions on how to write a fight?

2 comments:

  1. I've heard that watching a fight scene and then trying to write it down, actually helps. Although I never tried it. So, get yourself a few action movies, take a notebook with you, and start practicing. Practise makes perfect, right?

    And don't worry, I think that's pretty natural. I mean, I've had fighting classes, and I still struggle at writing them sometimes (by the way, it's a great experience, you learn lots of things from practice).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't draw them out unrealistically long- real fights usually don't last long. Which means less work for you! Maybe try watching some MMA too, depending on who your characters are and their fighting background and all that. Also, you don't necessarily need to describe a fight blow by blow... Hope that helps a bit. (:

    ReplyDelete