Space Opera Fans discussion

Hi all. I need some help recommending books with fantastic fight scenes. Tonight a writing group member read a fight scene he wrote that he absolutely loves. To be honest it wasn't all that great, there was too much:

- they locked eyes
- whistling swords
- singing bullets
- locking eyes
- cleaving someone in two from the shoulder through the pelvis with a broad sword

Personally, in my writings, my fight scenes are filled with punches, blockes, kicks, punches, throws, punches. I don't get into the poetic side (which his fight scene was not).

Anyone got any recs for books with fight scenes that are just plain awesome? Fast moving, slow moving, poetic, whatever, but great. I want to be able to present him with a few books to study fight scenes at the next meeting.

Eye of Argon?

[*snicker*]

Okay, seriously, since you're talking about whistling swords and singing bullets, you probably don't mean space opera unless it's a mashup. Anything military sci-fi that was written by a former real-life soldier is usually good, or by a real martial artist.

But if you really want to help him, I suggest Rayne Hall's book Writing Fight Scenes. The kindle edition is only $3-4 and it has links to videos.

And maybe drag him to your next martial arts class? Yeah ... that usually does it. There's nothing like getting punched and kicked in the face a few time to end the 'and then they hacked at each other for 8 hours straight' battle scenes. Three minutes, maybe ten if you're a super-athlete :-P

And tell him to stay away from the MFA snobs. They don't know a fight scene from flower-picking. Short. Punchy. Brutal. Think about it after it's done.

Not sure if you've jumped into the current group series reads, but Contract of Betrayal (which was last month's book) has an excellent fight scene toward the end of the book. I've always struggled drawing my fight scenes out for more than a few paragraphs, so I thought this one was really well done.

Paralysis by Stephanie Traylor also has a very lengthy (but high-quality) fight scene, again toward the end of the book.

I also follow a blog on Tumblr called How to Fight Write that offers general tips and guidelines about how to write realistic fight scenes, and I've found quite a few of their posts helpful

Anna wrote: "Eye of Argon?

[*snicker*]

Okay, seriously, since you're talking about whistling swords and singing bullets, you probably don't mean space opera unless it's a mashup. Anything military sci-fi t..."

Yeah I wonder if my training in the Marine Corps allows me to write fight scenes more realistic. I'm not tooting my own horn saying I'm the master, but I know the scenes are better than what he wrote. I want to help him, because he REALLY wants to learn how to write better.

Thanks for the rec!

E.J. wrote: "Not sure if you've jumped into the current group series reads, but Contract of Betrayal (which was last month's book) has an excellent fight scene toward the end of the book. I've a..."

I completely forgot about How to Fight Write. I think it's because a few of their posts, about a year ago, were just horrible. But most are really good. Appreciate the rec.

And now that I've heard about five hundred thousand good things about our current group series read, I'm going to check it out as my next book to read.

Anna wrote: "Eye of Argon?

[*snicker*]

Okay, seriously, since you're talking about whistling swords and singing bullets, you probably don't mean space opera unless it's a mashup. Anything military sci-fi t..."

it's not space opera. some odd sci-fi fantasy mashup. the idea is there, really interesting premise.

I'm no expert but I have heard from others that Fritz Leiber is the go-to source for writing good sword-fighting scenes.

Fight scenes are today, thankfully, mostly written by people who have absolutely no clue how to kill someone with a knife, a sword or their bare hands. Most people in our Armed Forces nowadays do their killing at a distance, and violence is relatively rare on our streets today (American readers may differ on this last point). For that reason, fight scenes today are often absurdly romanticized. I very much doubt, for example, that anyone in history has ever managed to kick a gun out of anyone's hand. Kung fu movies also have a lot to answer for, in terms of convincing bookish nerds that they (or literary characters very much like them) can confront seven foot tall hulks of muscle and thrash them within an inch of their lives.

The best fight scenes I'm aware of come from the thriller genre, because they're often more down-to-earth. I also believe the older thriller writers write the best fights because there was a time, from around 1918 to 1950, when most men walking the streets of Western democracies had been trained to kill other men and many of them had actually done so. The early work of Alastair Maclean contains some very good examples of dirty pool fisticuffs (*When Eight Bells Toll* starts off with one). The climactic fight scene in *Dune* and the 'robling' fight scene in *The Face* by Jack Vance are also very well written - and of course, you can't beat Tolkien, a veteran of the Somme who must have seen man after man die right in front of him.

If anybody wants to learn medieval-style swordplay and lives in the Boston metro area, I recommend you take classes from and/or follow the Facebook page of THIS guy:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Athena...

Athena School of Arms / Steven comes to the ARISIA sci-fi conference every year to run a variety of hands-on classes and really knows his stuff. He posts stuff from time-to-time about other hand-to-hand martial arts as well, such as plausible one-man-takes-on-an-army fight scenes.

He recommends THIS modern multi-aggressor fight scene as plausible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmWo7...

Now -I- recommend THIS swordfight scene from Rob Roy as being one of the most plausible / realistic for somebody who is incredibly well trained (European swordplay):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVasl...

And here's a great factual documentary about Eastern martial art swordplay. They pick apart some ancient samurai large-scale battles which is really cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Min9D...

If you want to learn the move Black Widow used to disable Happy Hogan in the boxing ring in Iron Man II, it's called the Flying Arm Bar ("I want one..."). I did it ... once. Ouch! It hurts falling onto your back like that to disable somebody!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76bEA...

This YouTube uploader has a good series of realistic, basic hand-to-hand martial arts techniques they teach aimed largely at policemen (if you're former military, this stuff is probably a piece of cake for you, but it might help your friend):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvu3v...

Anna wrote: "Now -I- recommend THIS swordfight scene from Rob Roy ..."

My favourite clip is this one.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/20...

It's got an irritating 28-second advert on it, but it's worth it. Sharp-eyed viewers may recognize the same scene from *The Magnificent Seven*, starring James Coburn, a knife, and a gun.

Also, hearken to the wisdom of Master Ken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyXhy...

Black Widow was in Iron Man 2? and who's Happy Hogan?

all I remember of the movie is it having the most disappointing ending ever.

Dominic wrote: "Also, hearken to the wisdom of Master Ken..""

OMG! That's hilarious! I know quite a few of those moves, but we've never lined them all up like that to practice them (the men-folk in our class would complain). :-)

******

Jonathan wrote: "Black widow was in Iron Man 2?"

Yes. Here's the flying arm bar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iojX...

I found this very useful.

https://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/on-thud-...

Anna wrote: "Dominic wrote: "Also, hearken to the wisdom of Master Ken..""

OMG! That's hilarious! I know quite a few of those moves, but we've never lined them all up like that to practice them (the men-folk..."

I forgot how good that movie is. Horrendous ending though. I'll never get over it.

Jonathan wrote: "Hi all. I need some help recommending books with fantastic fight scenes. Tonight a writing group member read a fight scene he wrote that he absolutely loves. To be honest it wasn't all that great, ..."

I think it's a bit wrong to ask how to write a fight scene and more, how to write an action scene. Some of the best action scenes I have seen just had characters flinging logic and words at each other.

I feel the Internal Monologue and emotions of the character is the most important thing way more then the actual goings of the fight. Look at the final battle of Starwars VI vs Starwars III. The battle in VI wasn't technically impressive but it was a great scene that showed the emotion of the characters flowing out and was really intense for the viewer. However while the scene in Starwars III was way more visually spectacular I was bored watching it.

As far as realism make it as real as you can but you're best bet is to include Fantasy or SF elements in order to magically allow healing or something which will give way more flub factor on realism.

http://monsterhunternation.com/2010/0...

Urf...

I actually -study- martial arts (and I'm limping today ... too!). You don't have time to THINK during a fight. You don't have time to notice the scenery or contemplate large social issues or any of the other B.S. people who have never fought seem to think belong in a fight scene. All there is, is you, and the fist that is coming at your face or weapon that is coming straight for your vulnerable belly. You don't even have time for small motor movement. All that matters is anticipating that next punch or kick or knife or bullet and staying alive one more second.

So, no ... no internal monologue. Not if you're talking realistic fighting. You can think before the fight as you size them up, or you can think after the fight, after you won or got your butt kicked. But if you have flowery internal monologues during a real-life fight, somebody who knows what they're doing will be wiping the floor with your protagonist 3:-)

Anna wrote: "Urf...

I actually -study- martial arts (and I'm limping today ... too!). You don't have time to THINK during a fight. You don't have time to notice the scenery or contemplate large social issues ..."

Aaron wrote:

One way I have found of conveying this is to sit behind the characters eyes and describe only what they can see as a stream of consciousness. The thoughts are just the search for the next move.

Jonathan wrote: "I forgot how good that movie is. Horrendous ending though. I'll never get over it."

Do you mean Master Ken, Rob Roy, or Seven Samurai? :-)

Anna wrote: "You don't have time to THINK during a fight."

I don't mean the pondering of the galaxy or other-nonsense by internal monologue I mean the internal monologue of the fight itself. I mean the sheer drive and force of you wanting to win/beat the shit out of this guy/survive one more moment. I'm also talking about the feints, the baiting, the internal risk calculation they are taking on their actions.

I've never liked using internal monologue in a fight sequence. To me it sounds too contrived, but that's the beauty of books. Everyone can like different things, so we get different stories.