Choreography, darling - the trouble with fight scenes

This week I've been writing, re-writing, and re-writing a fight scene. I always find them problematical, but I thought this was just me, with my aversion to violence.  But then I stumbled over a blog post from Writeonsisters, and realised fight scenes are a problem for many writers.

Phew, what a relief!  Often when I'm reading other authors' fights I'll consider them over-detailed and far too long.  Part of this is my childlike mind.  Despite having two Masters' degrees and being a qualified Solicitor (lawyer), I still read a bit like a wide-eyed child.  And I very quickly get bored with too much detail and description of a scene.  Which poses a problem for writing fight scenes.  It means I have to force myself to slow down, to choreograph each character's moves, to put in the detail that I normally skip over when reading.

This week's fight scene was also challenging because of the number of characters involved.  I had four baddies, who were holding my heroine hostage.  Then I had three rescuers.  That's eight people to keep track of.  And I didn't want any of my baddies killed.  I wanted them to escape so they could cause trouble in book two.  And I needed to tip the odds in favour of my outnumbered rescuers.

So I had some shots exchanged while the rescuers dive for cover.  When they fire back, two of the renegades run for the exit.  I think I can justify that because they've already been portrayed as losers, and one as a whinger too.  So now I had two renegades, a hostage, and three rescuers.  Better odds.

My alien Yull charges at the hostage-taker and frees Aris, but gets stunned in the process.  The move sends the remaining two renegades running for the exit, leaving Aris on the point of fainting after being throttled, and Yull in a coma induced by the energy blast be took.  That gives me a tense scene where nobody knows if Yull will wake up.

I'm not the only writer to tie myself up in knots about fights.  My friend Eileen Robertson had seven characters in the confrontation scene at the end of her first book.  She worked on it for months, sorting  out problem after problem with the choreography.  Oh, what we writers put ourselves through!

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera :Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Plain and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more at www.wendymetcalfe.com