Writing Fight Scenes

Marie Brennan

Sept 2013 · Book View Cafe

About this eBook

Have you ever:
• Held a sword?
• Taken a karate class?
• Punched another person in the face?

Even if your answer is “no,” you can still write a good fight scene. In this guide, fantasy novelist Marie Brennan will show you how. Drawing on her experience with fencing, stage combat choreography, Okinawan martial arts, and above all writing, she lays out the components that turn the strikes into a compelling story.

From purpose to tactics to prose, Writing Fight Scenes walks you through the anatomy and execution of combat on the page.

 

Ratings and reviews

This really explained the mechanics of writing a fight scene, the technical stuff, but it also made me realize that a fight scene isn't all that technical.

About the author

Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for inspiration. She has recently misapplied her professors' hard work to the short novel DRIFTWOOD and TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT, a sequel to the Hugo Award-nominated Victorian adventure series The Memoirs of Lady Trent. The first book of that series, A NATURAL HISTORY OF DRAGONS, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Her other works include the Doppelganger duology, the urban fantasy Wilders series, the Onyx Court historical fantasies, the Varekai novellas, and nearly sixty short stories, as well as the New Worlds series of worldbuilding guides. Together with Alyc Helms as M.A. Carrick, she is the author of the upcoming Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy, beginning with THE MASK OF MIRRORS in January 2021. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon at www.patreon.com/swan_tower.