Writing violence in your stories by Teel James Glenn
Since the first storyteller sat around a
campfire spinning tales of gods and heroes it has been a given that a little
action makes a mildly interesting story into a real grabber. Put your hero or
heroine in physical jeopardy and you can have a winner. Conflict is the key to drama in your story
and physical conflict, i.e., a fight, can really seal the deal with a reader.
Of course action is not the only answer,
to be sure, and emotional conflict is the real essence of drama, but the line where
drama ends and adventure or melodrama begin is an iffy one. If the level of
your drama is high, if the characters are convincing and we as a reader care
about them then you can get a real frenzy of worry out of us by having a
villain try to club our hero. Or shoot him or…you get the idea.
Any physical violence, however, has to
serve the purpose of the story so you have to use the same criteria for its
inclusion as any other story element. Ask yourself, ‘is this fight necessary?’
That is when you ask yourself the six questions your journalism teacher used
insist you ask: Why, Who, How, Where, What and When?
Why?
Why is this fight the solution to this
moment of the story, instead of a dialogue scene? After all, Shakespeare put the fight at the
end of Hamlet for two very strong reasons. It was the dramatic climax that
brought together several plot threads, and it was used as a device to reveal
the true personalities of the major participants: Laertes regrets using the poison, Hamlet is
proud of his swordsmanship, Claudius reveals his cowardice etc. Even Conan
Doyle threw in action scenes in his intellectual puzzlers—albeit in brief,
intense moments.
There
are four chief reasons to have a fight in a story, though often a fight (or
action scene) can and should serve more than one of these reasons.
1: To amaze or confuse a character
(in a mystery particularly as misdirection)
2:
To scare a character (to raise the stakes in a story)
3: To conceal/reveal some plot point within
the smoke and mirrors of an action scene (see #2)
4. To reveal or accentuate a
character trait (is he a coward, a hero, a fool?)
Who?
Who is involved in the action; the
principal? A secondary character? If so,
what is their stake in the confrontation (their personal why)?
How?
How did the fight come about? How does it
end? And in what state are the participants when it is all over? Will there be
lingering effects? And will the effects be physical or mental or both? There is
also the mechanical
how of a fight; that is, how to plan it out.
You can’t build a house without a plan and just as you would plan out a book or
story by making an outline you must do the same thing with the ‘story’ of a
fight.
You can write a fight to be specific in
these details--to reveal some of the traits above--or make it an
impressionistic (i.e. shaky camera) description, this is especially useful when
you want to obscure some plot point. And, of course, in first person POV
stories the ‘combat literacy’ of the main character can determine a lot of
these factors—i.e. a suburban housewife will not be able to describe a martial
technique with any accuracy but a boxer might use specific terms.
Where?
Where does the action take place? Is it
an interesting enough place, i.e. a kitchen, a garage, a spaceship port? What
makes that place of particular interest? Does it add color to the story, or is
it just a drab background, a diorama in front of which the action takes place?
What?
What is involved, physically in the fight? A sword fight; if so, what style? Or styles. Do they use the objects at hand or did they bring the ‘death dealers’ with them. (Jackie Chan movies are especially good at finding clever things to do with found objects in action scenes—you don’t have to be ‘clever’ funny but you should clever smart.).
When?
When is it
appropriate to have a fight instead of a non-physical solution? I know I keep
stressing this, but that cuts to the heart of the situation of many literature
snobs who will not deal with any ‘action’ because they feel it cheapens the
purpose of a story. I refer you back to Hamlet on this point—sometimes you need
a good dust up!
****
Flavors of violence and the ‘ouch’ factor:
Fights, like dramatic styles, come in a
variety of flavors, each suited to the overall tone of the story.
A grim, down and dirty knife fight might
be fine for a thriller, but wrong for a romantic comedy.
Once you understand that it hurts you can
think about the ‘ouch factor’: that is, how much damage and how much recovery
time.
This is where the flavors come in— how
you balance these elements: how real, how much pain, and to what end the action
in the scene in the story determine if the fight is farce or frightening
So how does it break down—what makes a
fight funny or scary or realistic?
Not everyone is a fight choreographer, but
every one can choreograph a fight. Really.
The first thing you do is to decide the
type of fight. For argument’s sake we will assume you want to design a sword
fight. Short swords.
I know, you don’t have any short swords
sitting around the house. No problem. Get some rolled up newspaper and a
congenial friend/mate/sibling. Now slowly, as in really slow like an old Six
Million Dollar Man episode, walk through five or six moves.
Just like a slow motion dance. Then write
it down; but in the writing the newspapers become real swords and you are
moving at breathtaking speed.
Now this may not be possible; you might
not be able to physically execute the moves, or have a long suffering
conspirator to collaborate with.
No problem. Just let the inner child out
and get a couple of movable action figures. Even the art store pose-able
figures with no features. Tape some short swords made out of pop sticks into
their hands and let them do your fighting for you.
Then write it all down.
Teel James Glenn ©2022
Teel James Glenn has killed hundreds and been killed more times, as he has traveled the world for forty-plus years as a stuntman, swordmaster, storyteller, bodyguard, actor, and haunted house barker. His poetry and short stories have been printed in over two hundred publications including Weird Tales, Mystery Weekly, Pulp Adventures, Space & Time, Mad, Cirsova, Silverblade, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery. His novel A Cowboy in Carpathia: A Bob Howard Adventure won best novel 2021 in the Pulp Factory Award, the winner of the 2012 Pulp Ark Award for Best Author and he was a finalist for the Derringer short mystery award in 2022. Learn more at Theurbanswashbuckler.com
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