[Kiva]

Introduction
Thank you to everyone who has been following this series. Finally, we get to the good stuff – writing fight scenes. Obviously, the fight scene is the most important part of your story. It’s the main reason anyone opens our posts. However, fight scenes can be the most difficult sections write. You will need a coherent action sequence, along with a narrative that captures the excitement and sexiness that you envisioned. I hope this part of the series will give you some useful tips.

Disclaimer: I don’t consider myself the best qualified writer to give advice on writing fight scenes, as there are plenty of writers here who do it better. Also, each writer has his/her own method for describing fight action. I will explain my method and hope you find some things helpful. I invite other writers to contribute their ideas.

What goes into a fight scene?

I think of fight scenes as multi-layered.
1.   Action sequence – This is the bare-bones skeleton of your story, in which everything else hangs. I create a mental image of how the fight will proceed from beginning to end. At this point, I’m only interested in observable physical facts of the fight. The sequence is neutral without emotion, eroticism, etc. Those will be added later. Conceptualizing an action sequence will be our first step

2.   The add-ons – These are the important extras to help bring your skeletal sequence to life. These are the screams, grunts, bruises, sweat, scratches, the environment, etc. This is where you create the intensity, flowing adrenaline, ferocity of the action. These will be blended into your action sequence.

3.   The story – the fight is a story within a story. It should also be a continuation of your overall story. Don’t forget the big picture.  What are the characters feeling? Spectators? Husbands? Character dynamics? Don’t forget the plot. This is the psychological, emotional, erotic aspect of the fight.

Action Sequence

Preparation
Before you start creating your fight scene, you might consider:

1.   What are your characters relative strengths and weaknesses? These should come into play during the fight. Is one fighter bigger and stronger than the other? How will she use her power advantage? Will she wear her opponent down? Or will she run out of gas against the smaller faster fighter? Is there an age difference? Will the older, more experienced fighter dominate. Or will she tire out against a more youthful, energetic opponent?

2.   Other contrasts such as blonde vs. brunette, tall vs. short, ethnicities, will be useful when you write your narrative as a way to tell the fighters apart during the fight. We will discuss this in the next post.

3.   Don’t forget the environment and setting you created. Is the fight in a barnyard? Hotel room? By a lake? Etc. These peripherals will also be a part of your fight scene.

Getting Started

Lessons From Pro Wrestling
I grew up with pro wrestling frequently on TV in our house; my dad and brothers were big fans. We lived in a resort town where live shows ran at a sports arena each month. I met several pro wrestlers in person and was amused at how the “heels” were actually nice guys. I was never a huge fan, but I appreciated the showmanship and athleticism; it was obvious to me that pro wrestling was tough work. Later, when I studies theatre in college, my respect for pro wrestling increased. Rather than low brow entertainment, I saw it as a unique form of theatre as its own genre. I’m still fascinated how these men and women work their craft.

So, when you watch a pro wrestling match, what is really happening? Using its own lingo, a pro wrestling match is two workers performing a sequence of “spots” interspersed with “transitions” and “rest holds” culminating in a predetermined ending.

Got that? For those of you unfamiliar with these terms:
Spots – a maneuver or series of moves. These can be basic or highly complex. Common spots are body slams, power bombs, drop kicks, DDTs, pile drivers, leaps from the top rope, etc. “High spots” are especially spectacular and risky spots designed as crowd pleasers. E.g. moonsault off the top rope, Mick Foley falling from the top of a cage onto a table below.
Rest Holds – A slowing of the action to give both wrestlers a breather while deciding what spots to do next. Example would be a double knock down, headlocks. Rest holds can be made to look painful (chin lock, “nerve holds”) when, in fact, the wrestlers are taking a break.
Transitions – wrestlers maneuver into place to set up a spot (e.g. climbing the top rope to execute a “superplex”).

Traditionally, pro wrestling matches were not scripted. The wrestlers were told in advance the winner, the manner of ending, and the length of the match. They would work together, improvising the rest of the match, as one of them would “call the match,” communicating by verbal and nonverbal signals the sequence of spots they would perform.

Pro wrestling stories are the easiest ones to write. The tension is precooked. The moves are all defined. You just need to think like a pro wrestler and string your spots together.

From Pro Wrestling to Catfights
Some of you are saying, “Why are you telling us this? I don’t care about pro wrestling. I want to write about catfight.” Fair enough. Here’s the lesson. The same template used for a pro wrestling match can be used for catfights, or any other form of fighting. It can even be used for sexfights and titfights. You will redefine what you consider as “spots.”

Spots in catfights might include hair pulls across a room, slaps to the face, clawing boobs, etc. If you desire, you could throw in some wrestling holds like headlocks, body scissors, etc.

So, let’s get started.

Step 1: Decide on a winner and method of victory. Your fight scene will have a beginning and middle and late phase working toward your established ending. I presume you already decided on a style of fight. Think about the length and tempo of your fight. Will it be a short wild brawl? An epic marathon? Multiple rounds? Tempo will be very important to your story. It is important to have this planned before writing. Deciding as you write runs the risk of a disjointed fight scenes and abrupt endings. (Thanks to sinclairfan for reminding me of this last point.)

Step 2: List the spots you want in your fight
Open a separate document or pick up a paper and pen. Write down your favorite aspects of a catfight you want in your story. This need not be a complete list at this point. Think about what are your essentials. Belly punch? Kick to the crotch? Claws across the back? Make your list. Decide who is the aggressor and who is the victim for each spot.

Step 3: List your spots in a chronological sequence.
Start with the opening. Will the fighters charge at each other in a furious clash of bodies? Start out as a stand-up slap or fist fight? Or tentatively feel each other out like pro boxers or wrestlers. Then, place the spots on your list below the opening, in the order they will occur, with the ending at the bottom of the list. It’s alright to have gaps in the action at this point. You are only creating an outline. Don’t make your list into narratives at this point. Your outline might look like something like this:

A and B charge at each other throwing wild slaps, some land on face and arms
A and B grab at each other, pulling each other to the floor
A and B catball across the floor
A takes the advantage, mounting B on her back, throwing slaps
B grabs hair and pulls, dislodging A
B gets to her feet and kicks A in the belly

Step 4: Filling in Gaps and reversing advantages
Notice I put in some transitions. Catballing across the floor can be considered a transition or a spot. It doesn’t matter, but it bridges two actions. Unless your fight is one-sided, you will need methods to shift from one fighter as the dominant one to the other. Say Fighter A is dominating, but you want to reverse to Fighter B as the one in charge.  You will need spots or transitions to change the advantage. For example:

A is pelting B with slaps and punches, but B manages to land one hard blow to turn the fight around.

A has B mounted and is throwing slaps, but B bucks her hips and thrown off A. B rolls on top of A and twists her arm.

B could also resort to scratching, biting, breast and crotch attacks reverse her fortune. She could also execute an actual wrestling move, like a hip toss or judo throw if that fits the story you want.

To summarize, list your spots, think of how you’d like to transition the fighters from one spot to the next (filling in the gap), and how you would like to switch advantages between the fighters.

A holds B in a standing headlock (transition)
B pounds A in the ribs with her free arm until A breaks the hold (Spot)
B swings a punch at A’s head but misses, B is off balance (transition)
A buries her knee into B’s belly doubling her over (spot)
A tackles B to the floor (transition)
A gets on top of B, pounds the back of her head into the carpet (spot)
B manages to get her hand up and digs her nails into A’s right boob (spot)
B pulls A off of her, grabs her hair and forces her to her feet (transition)
B punches A in the crotch (spot)

I hope you are still following. Continue until you have completed your outline ending with one fighter submitting or whatever ending you’ve decided. I know it sounds like a boring play-by-play sportscast, but that’s OK. This is NOT your story. It is an outline from which you will work your narrative.

Don’t worry if your outline still has gaps. It is not necessary to give a complete second-by-second account of the fight. In fact, it is often better that you don’t. There are tricks you can use to truncate time and skip over fairly dull narrative. We’ll discus those later.

Step 5: Begin to list your extras.

Think of how the fight sequence will create visible and sensory effects on the fighters. Make a list the ones you plan to include in your story. Will there be screaming? Crying? Trash talking? How will the fighters’ appearance change during the fight? Messy hair as ponytail bands become undone? Clumps of hair pulled out? Other effects are sweat, red skin splotches, scratch marks, early bruises, bite marks, facial expressions of pain, gasping for air, favoring an injured body part, etc.
Keep in mind, at this point, we are only interested in the effects on our fighters. We’ll get to involvement of spectators and the environment later.

Look at your action sequence and think of where you would like to insert the affects you listed.

We will end Part 1 at this point. Your homework, boys and girls is to outline an action sequence of your preferred style of fight, featuring spots you wish to include in your story. Start thinking about the effect the fight is having on your combatants. Next time, we’ll talk about preparing for your narrative.

[sinclairfan]

I agree with all of the above.  But I would also add in the outline:  decide upfront if it will be a short brawl, a marathon, or a multi-rounder.  Deciding midstream can make the ending seem abrupt.

[Kiva]

I agree with all of the above.  But I would also add in the outline:  decide upfront if it will be a short brawl, a marathon, or a multi-rounder.  Deciding midstream can make the ending seem abrupt.

Thank you, sinclairfan. This is an important point that I should have included. I still had time to edit, so I added this under step 1 and gave you an acknowledgment. Much appreciated.

[Phoenix_Falcone]

Reading through this has been rather enlightening.  Unlike your previous threads in this series, where I've mostly agreed and used the same techniques to write my work, this thread seems rather foreign to me.  None of my fights are written anywhere near this structured, and I certainly do not map the fight out prior to writing it.  It's akin to the sort of "stream of consciousness", but not as random as that.  Just simply writing the fight as it comes to mind, and writing each action based on the previous one.

My thought process around writing a fight scene is this: a real fight, when both fighters feel like they can win, even a professional one, is random and chaotic.  Unskilled fights are full of flailing arms and legs and desperate tactics trying to compensate for their lack of ability.  They are all heart and not much in the way of strategy.  Professional fights certainly are more strategy based, but any elite athlete knows that they cannot be predictable if they want to win more often than they lose, and elite level fighting is no different.  If an opponent knows what you're going to do, the easier it is for them to beat you.  None of it is choreographed, so in my opinion, why should I write a fight scene like that.

My methodology, which I understand may not work for everyone, basically sees me write the fight as I imagine it happening in my head.  I play it out as if I was fighting myself, and every time an action happens, I'd snapshot it and imagine how the other character would react to that situation based on that snapshot.

For example, lets say Person A has Person B in a headlock.  What possible ways would Person B be able to get out of that situation based on who they are and what their skill level is?  Lets say I decide that Person B throws a wild punch that hits A in the face.  How, then, does Person A react to that?  Their head recoils and they scream out, perhaps some hair flying around, and does it loosen the headlock enough for Person B to escape?  Or do they manage to hold on.

For me, this method of writing the scene as I play it out in my head, allows me to be more fluid with the action, and also incorporate the environment into the scene.  Also, in certain unreleased material I have written, it's allowed me to incorporate more complex fight scenes with more than two people, or even groups.  In my head, this allows me to keep the fight interesting and not as repetitive, as I'm literally acting out every part of the fight in my brain, much more organically than if I was listing it out first as Kiva suggests.  I feel like I can be much more realistic with the actions too (to a degree, there's some embellishment here and there), since I'd be imagining "myself" performing them.  There's obviously nothing wrong with her approach either, use whatever works for you.  I find that if I do it any other way, I end up making mistakes where things don't line up properly, or don't quite make sense.

I do tend to predetermine who wins though, I don't think you can really get around this.  The whole idea is the fight needs to fit within the narrative you're writing, so you can't just randomly decide who wins outside of maybe some very specific scenarios.  The result of the fight has to progress your story, otherwise you're just writing it for the sake of writing it.  Ideally as well, the fight should reveal more about your characters, or reveal more of the story as the action is taking place.  If we recall from one of the previous episodes in this series, Kiva talked about explaining through actions.  There's no problem at all with doing that during a fight scene.  Not to mention, there's plenty of scope for dialogue to happen (albeit simplified) within the fight too, especially if the fighters are taking breaks.  Just beware, it's not realistic for a character to suddenly start a five minute monologue in the middle of a desperate fight scene...

The one downside I suppose is, it can sometimes get a bit laborious to write, as I end up writing the scene in a very stop-start way, as I'm writing an action, then thinking about it, then writing, etc etc.  As I said, might not be for everyone, it's just how I go about it.

One other thing I would like to recommend, watch some videos of fights!  If you want to get better at imagining what happens during a fight, or even just learning how a fight flows, or how fighters get out of holds etc, watch it happen.  Not suggesting you watch anything you're uncomfortable with or wouldn't enjoy, but try and see what happens yourself, and really analyze the moves.  Doesn't necessarily need to be just regular fights either, you can do this with sexfights and things of that nature if you're unfamiliar.

[sinclairfan]

Reading through this has been rather enlightening. 

One other thing I would like to recommend, watch some videos of fights!  If you want to get better at imagining what happens during a fight, or even just learning how a fight flows, or how fighters get out of holds etc, watch it happen.  Not suggesting you watch anything you're uncomfortable with or wouldn't enjoy, but try and see what happens yourself, and really analyze the moves.  Doesn't necessarily need to be just regular fights either, you can do this with sexfights and things of that nature if you're unfamiliar.

Watch real fights on video:  Yes, but no.  When YouTube real fights first became a thing in 2010-2013, it was quickly obvious that many 'real' catfighters were just trying to get in-and-out as quickly and as risk-aversely as they could to just save face.  A loss was a draw, and an inconclusive draw was a win.

I can't imagine writing a story about a fight where both women's objective is a face-saving draw.  Pretty dull story.  Best to keep an element of fantasy alive in the story.

[Kiva]

Phoenix_Falcone: Thank you for sharing your method on writing fight scenes. You have the writing talent and knowledge of the topic to write your fight as you see it in your imagination without planning it out first. The excitement comes through in your stories.

I've had conversations here with members who tried to write stories but struggled with fight scenes and became discouraged about posting their stories. I think for beginners, establishing an outline of the fight would perhaps be easier than trying to write it on the fly.

I still plan out the fight before putting it to a narrative for most, but not all, of my stories. I know what it is like to be "in the zone" while writing and letting my imagination fly as I write. Sometimes I find new ideas and will deviate from my outline if I think it improves the story.  A prewritten choreographed outline of a fight sequence can work for any style of fight, whether it's a controlled pro wrestling match or a wild brawl between two unskilled catfighters.  It might keep our minds organized, but it should not limit the chaos, frenzy, intensity, violence, or eroticism of the story. It's all in the presentation.

[Phoenix_Falcone]

Phoenix_Falcone: Thank you for sharing your method on writing fight scenes. You have the writing talent and knowledge of the topic to write your fight as you see it in your imagination without planning it out first. The excitement comes through in your stories.

I've had conversations here with members who tried to write stories but struggled with fight scenes and became discouraged about posting their stories. I think for beginners, establishing an outline of the fight would perhaps be easier than trying to write it on the fly.

I still plan out the fight before putting it to a narrative for most, but not all, of my stories. I know what it is like to be "in the zone" while writing and letting my imagination fly as I write. Sometimes I find new ideas and will deviate from my outline if I think it improves the story.  A prewritten choreographed outline of a fight sequence can work for any style of fight, whether it's a controlled pro wrestling match or a wild brawl between two unskilled catfighters.  It might keep our minds organized, but it should not limit the chaos, frenzy, intensity, violence, or eroticism of the story. It's all in the presentation.

Very true!  I will admit I posted what my method is on the basis that it works for me.  I wanted to point out that there's numerous ways to go about this.  Certainly not suggesting your outline is not also a great way to do it, or that it's not a fantastic way for beginners to start.  My apologies if it came across like that.

Sinclairfan, I would like to clarify, I did not simply mean that.  Producer made videos (DWW, Fighting Dolls and the like), and even professional wrestling to an extent can help see how a fight progresses and what moves can be used, both offensively and defensively.  The fight itself is often not the objective of the exercise, especially if you're looking to write something like a boxing or wrestling story, where moves and hold detail are very important.  I merely make the point that seeing something play out in real life can give you context to how something plays out in fantasy.  Not suggesting a writer has to exactly mimic a fight in a particular youtube video.  But it can help people be more imaginative about how their written fight progresses, and also give them new ideas as to what situations to put their characters into.  At the end of the day, you're writing the story, you can be as fantastical as you want.  To Kiva's excellent point, it's all about the presentation ultimately.

[MikeHales67]

I’m reminded of the George RR Martin quote :
“An author is either an architect or a gardener. An architect will thoroughly plan out his story, structure it just so and foresee virtually every detail before writing anything down. A gardener will take a germ of an idea, plant it and see where it takes her.”

If you’re starting out, you should start out as an Architect, plan everything, think everything out. If we take a random but oddly-specific example of writing industrial Control System software. You start out writing all the ladder logic code on pieces of paper. Run through it, check it, think about it, check it thoroughly. After doing the job for 30 years you can just write the code with little conscious effort, you’re effectively now a gardener.

It’s a bit like the Dunning-Kruger hierarchy of competence,
1. Unconscious incompetence: You’re ignorant of what you don’t know.
2. Conscious incompetence: You’re aware of what you don’t know, but you haven’t taken steps to learn more.
3. Conscious competence: You’re actively learning and acquiring knowledge about a subject.
4. Unconscious competence: You’ve mastered a subject so extensively that you may forget or take for granted how much you truly know.
So yeah if you’re a beginner be an architect, after a load of practice you can be a gardener or you can decide you’ll stick with the architecting.
Some ideas for planning out a fight, if you not really good like Kiva, SinclairFan  or Phoenix.

1. Copy someone else's. No, I don’t mean COPY it. I mean break it down to its points and then re-assemble in your own words. You don’t have to do the whole thing. It’s a good learning experience as you learn how someone else structured a fight. Also, when you re-assemble it you can look at why your version is shite and theirs is good. You can also use movies, youtube fights etc etc I’m currently doing this on an MMA fight, which is a good exercise because a real fight is actually quite difficult to describe.

2. Ignore it and come back to it later. One of my favourite techniques. It is especially good if you work at home and quite easily switch between story and work with no-one looking you’re your shoulder. I have a word processor on my phone so if I get an idea while shopping I can just jot it down. I believe it’s called “Deliberation without Attention”. If I’m stuck on a problem at work I will go do something else when I used to have to use a smoke shelter at work. I would have a problem I would go talk to someone in the smoke shelter and by the time I got back I would have a solution.

3. Write yourself into a corner. Occasionally just have one of your characters totally trapped; arms pinned, legs immobilised, How does she get out of it? I don’t know but wait a couple of days and a solution will come to you and it will be amazing.

[sinclairfan]

Ironically, the architect/gardener metaphor works well for a catfighting protagonist in a fictional or even semi-non-fictional fight story.

Architect catfighter:  this woman has a highly specific "beef"/ feud with a very specific rival.  She builds up her courage to confront her enemy, selects a date / time / place that best suits her specific purposes, dresses for the event in sensible shoes and fightwear, wears her hair appropriately for the occasion, and pulls out at the last moment if the buildup doesn't play out as she expected.  [The quick pullout is the reason that IRL, many rumored/ potential chickfights fail to materialize.

Gardener catfighter:  This type of woman acts impulsively, tactically instead of strategically, something she compartmentalizes out of her "normal" life.  Frequently hormones or Jealousy are motivating her more than she realizes.  This can result in the eventual fight occurring at a time and place unexpected and even unwanted by both combatants.

[Kiva]

Sometimes, FyreCracka or I will try to entertain one of the Trillian groups by writing a short story of 1-3 paragraphs ("quickies') based on a single photo. The pic is usually of one woman dominant over another. We might take the POV of the woman trying to finish off her opponent, other times it would be the woman on the verge of defeat. One could also narrate as an eyewitness, as in one of the husbands. You can concentrate on the holds, the physical pain, emotional stress, psychological stakes in just a few paragraphs. It's a lot of fun and good writing practice.