Writing Combat if You're Not a Fighter

Aside from gym courses in archery and fencing when I was in college, I have never studied any form of fighting. The fencing class gave me some insight into the physics of sword fighting, but it lasted a semester, and though I won half my matches, I can’t say I was any more than a raw beginner. So how am I qualified to write combat?

Well, in one sense, I’m not. I don’t know any of the fine points of sword combat, or any other sort. I’ve never been in a fight; I’ve never been near a fight. How am I supposed to write a convincing fight scene?

One thing that I see a lot in books is a Hollywood sense of action. Fight scenes are long and drawn-out, dramatic and exciting. But not very real. Bodies do things that bodies are not made to do, and unless there is technology or magic enhancement involved, my belief goes promptly from suspension to hitting the ground with a hard, meaty smack. In other words, it doesn’t work for me. And if that style doesn’t work for me as a reader, it makes sense for me as a writer to avoid writing that style of combat.

It does work for some people, and that’s okay. Not everyone wants realism in their fiction. One size does not fit all.

So how do I write real-life combat so that it works? A combination of research and imagination is how I approach it. Talking to people who have studied martial arts or been in real fights is helpful. Those people tell me that real fights seldom last long, because real combatants don’t have the same skill levels, and because real bodies don’t stand up to prolonged beating. I recently had an occasion to look up knife fighting on the Internet, and found an excellent page pointing out the problems with making any assumptions at all when it comes to knife fighting.

And then there’s knowledge of basic physics. Most people understand more about practical physics than they are consciously aware of. If you hit someone’s arm, an average person will understand that the effect varies depending on where you hit it. Hitting an arm near the shoulder doesn’t do much; hitting an arm near the hand is likely to knock it out of alignment. If you kick someone’s ankle, they may fall; if you kick their thigh, there is less chance of that.

The problem is that one needs to think of these things consciously when writing, and decide if one wants to follow or ignore real-life physics. Things that affect the writer’s decision may be such things (as previously stated) as technological or magical enhancement, environment, the physical parameters of one’s character, etc. In my eyes, the important thing is making that decision, and knowing what I’m striving for.

That’s the place where I think many writers stop thinking. They know real world physics, but especially if they’re dealing with a fantasy or science fiction setting, they assume that anything goes. (That’s part of a different discussion). But to make the combat seem realistic to the reader, there needs to be something the reader can understand or relate to, and there needs to be a solid reason if it varies from what we have learned at the most basic level ever since we learned to walk.

I don’t mind if godlike characters have godlike battles. If it’s set up in the story, that’s fine with me. What I do mind is if an ordinary character suddenly becomes Spiderman for no reason, or if a teenaged boy with a sword manages to defeat four adult swordsmen (there’s a story in that scenario). What I want is a reason. What I want is for the combat to fit into the story in a holistic way, and for it to be solidly founded in the world the author is creating. What I want is consistency.

I’m sure my fight scenes aren’t 100% accurate, and that a person who has done a lot of fighting probably could see flaws, but I try to think out fight scenes and write them as reasonably as I can. I try to get into the skin of the character, and think of what they would do, and how they would do it. I try to think of the physiology and training of the character, their reaction time, their propensity to freeze versus their propensity to fight. I think of the physics of the world I’m working in. I think of who the opponents are, and whether they have training or reflexes, what their physiology is like. How my character is feeling internally is also crucial. No fight scene is as compelling as one in which the character has a stake, and for me, the best way to make that stake clear is to sit closely in the character’s body and brain.

I’m not perfect. My writing is always a work in progress, and no matter how finished I feel it is, I can always find errors reading back. The important thing for me is to have it properly thought out.

My literary fights don't tend to last very long. One of these days I’ll work on a longer fight scene with a good rationale in order to stretch my skills. For now, though I feel pretty good about what I’m doing, though I know I can always improve.