Things I am finding are hard to write

[Mrs Gordo]

I am finding it is difficult to write two things: Fight scenes and Sex scenes.

the fight scenes, I have problems trying to visualize the fighting style and it becomes a jumbled mess, I find myself getting frustrated and I am probably selling the scenes short.

sex scenes are also tricky. I'm not going to go full smut, I have mad respect for writers that can do that but I have not read enough romance novels so I don't have the vocabulary to find different words for "heaving bosoms" etc. But I would like to be able to write a tasteful love making scene and I am finding that much light the fighting the visualization is difficult. I feel like the fluidity of the writing is difficult on those intimate scenes.

Any tips on the above from the more skilled writers out there?

 

[Ethan Reigns]

To visualize a fighting style, you have to know a fighting style. I have been trained in Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido so I can describe a set of moves without much trouble. But when you are writing, the more important thing is to convey who is having more difficulty and who is confident about the outcome. One person may be flailing away like the famous Xander vs. Harmony fight and the other could be getting in effective moves that render the opponent helpless. There is a whole vocabulary of kicks and punches but the most important thing is that the reader should be able to visualize the choreography of the fight. Let's try one from Hapkido:

1. Purposeful strides took Emilio across the room to where Stuart was standing and grabbed Stuart by the lapels. "So you're the one who has been trying to muscle in on my business. I'm gonna teach you some manners."

Stuart stared into Emilio's eyes, trying not to convey any idea that he would resist. Stuart raised his right arm over his head, drove it down between Emilio's wrists and raised his hand on the other side where his right hand clasped his left. He pulled his clasped hands up on his left then swung them to the right, twisting Emilio's grip loose. With his left elbow right in front of Emilio's nose, he drove it forward and heard the satisfying crunch of cartilage. It was like a ballet, a sinuous move of one hand meeting the other and gracefully stopping in position before unleashing destruction. Emilio screamed and stumbled backwards, falling over a box behind him. Stuart said, very quietly, "I burned my copy of Emily Post."

Let's try one from Tae Kwon Do:

2. The men who were trying to take over his father's business were no longer mystery men. They were standing right in front of him. The tall one said, "Tell your father he has until the end of the week to clear out." Jimmy Kim looked at them. One of them was armed with a revolver in a shoulder holster. There wouldn't even be a shell casing left behind if he decided to use it and he would be just another victim in Koreatown.

"We will not clear out. And you will not get this store."

"There are two of us and one of you. Well, almost one of you." The two thugs got a chuckle over that one. Jimmy set one priority: keep the gun from being used. A lightning front snap kick to the man without the gun impelled the other one to pull the gun out. Exactly what Jimmy had wanted. As soon as the gun was out, the armed one was hit with a back kick that hit him in the chest. The momentary stoppage of his heart caused him to drop the gun. Jimmy then drove him across the alley with a side kick, up against the wall and dropped an axe kick from high above his head onto the gunless gunman's collarbone, cracking it. He had no more taste for a fight.

The gun was still lying on the ground and the other man had recovered from the shock of being kicked in the chin and ran for the gun. He had to get it and shoot but all Jimmy had to do was get it away. Jimmy kicked the man's hand as soon as he tried to pick it up, broke the man's trigger finger and sent the gun clattering across the concrete out to the street. A passerby said, "Cool, a gun" and picked it up. Injured and with their weapon gone, the two thugs beat a retreat. The store would be safe for another day.

 

[Blaze]

I don't write much, but as a reader I do have some preferences. For the fight scene, one thing I really enjoy reading is when the writing style matches what is going on during the scene. For example during an intense fight scene, you'd use short sentences, straight to the point. Hike up that tenseness! You can almost make the writing a bit disjointed, while maintaining some logic. Make the reader feel like they are living what the character is living, make them nervous or scared just like the character is. A fight scene is no time for boring description.

As for the love scene, it depends how graphic you want to get. My suggestion is read a lot of love scenes! See what type of scenes you want to write, and what you enjoy. Don't use silly words to describe the scene (eg: her lips were like a life jacket calling my name while I sank into her abyss...okay that was ridiculous but you catch my drift). When in doubt keep it simple. I prefer when people don't go overboard with vocabulary you would never hear in the real world.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

@Ethan Reigns i think it certainly helps that you are familiar with the fighting styles! Thanks for the examples!

 

[NileQT87]

For Buffy and Angel, look up a lot of martial arts/karate vocabulary. Certain things like roundhouse kicks are things everyone has seen on the shows a billion times. Angel moves like a boxer and David did a lot of boxing punches for his closeups, as he himself practiced that. Faith notably is a very wild fighter. Sophia Crawford is known for being a very fast kicker. Each had styles. Watch the shows and you'll notice this.

Angel jumps around a lot during fights as an evasive measure, likes to run across rooftops and jumps casually off them, has a preference for his broadsword, does a ton of manhandling and grabbing of his opponents, likes to snap necks and behead, can be very quick, brutal and violent (whereas Buffy is more moral and really struggles with having to fight anything not totally black & white, whereas Angel is quite willing to kill bad humans), but has a tendency to hold back with certain opponents, is liable to make a weapon out of something he was stabbed with and can tank a lot of damage because of crazy high durability stats. The shows liked to show how much body damage vampires can take (falling out of skyscrapers, getting impaled, shish kebabed, shot and burned constantly was Angel's running joke)--often stuff that would kill a Slayer outright.

Angelus always runs his gob too much, is sometimes too busy gloating and laughing to fight and gives up tons of wide-open opportunities to go for the kill to instead try to inflict more psychological pain, whereas Angel does not talk as much during fights and has a better track record for winning because of it.

Buffy, of course, gets quippy with insults about whoever she's fighting in an effort to knock them off their game with distraction.

Remember that Angel isn't Spike. Not every sentence coming out of his mouth has a pet name. Same with Buffy.

One thing I've noticed with David Boreanaz vs. the scripts is that he tends to leave off a lot of personal pronouns (especially "I") that were written in the scripts. He shortens sentences as part of his speech pattern. The other thing is I can always hear the Philly accent in his voice and it gets more prominent when he's sarcastic or being silly.

 

[white avenger]

One of the problems with writing a fight scene is that you are trying to describe a technique that takes less than a half second to execute, and the description takes half a minute to read. You lose the immediacy of the scene. Fight scenes are best seen, rather than described. That's where a good stunt coordinator becomes invaluable.

I can describe in great detail the hapkido technique for disarming an armed opponent, but, unless the reader is actually interested in that detail, it becomes very boring, very quickly. For example:

The mugger stepped forward, brandishing the heavy hunting knife. The defender raised his hands and brought them together in a clapping motion, his left palm striking the inside of his attacker's right forearm, halfway between the wrist and the elbow, and his right palm striking the back of the attacker's right hand, with sufficient force to snap the wrist bones and send the knife flying away.

Proper technique, correct results, but simply boring, especially if the engagement progresses into a punch, take down, and capture. We could spend several pages, just describing an sequence of actions that would actually take only a couple of seconds to execute.

It's generally better, in my opinion, to say something like:

The mugger attacked with a knife. The defender slapped the knife away, punched the attacker in the stomach, kicked his feet out from under him, and used his belt to tie the man's hands behind his back.

Basically the same action, but you don't bore the reader with unnecessary details.

As for sex scenes, opinions are going to vary greatly on that subject, going from the simple "fade to black" technique to out and out full blown porn. It just depends on what the reader is looking for.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

One of the problems with writing a fight scene is that you are trying to describe a technique that takes less than a half second to execute, and the description takes half a minute to read. You lose the immediacy of the scene. Fight scenes are best seen, rather than described. That's where a good stunt coordinator becomes invaluable.

I can describe in great detail the hapkido technique for disarming an armed opponent, but, unless the reader is actually interested in that detail, it becomes very boring, very quickly. For example:

The mugger stepped forward, brandishing the heavy hunting knife. The defender raised his hands and brought them together in a clapping motion, his left palm striking the inside of his attacker's right forearm, halfway between the wrist and the elbow, and his right palm striking the back of the attacker's right hand, with sufficient force to snap the wrist bones and send the knife flying away.

Proper technique, correct results, but simply boring, especially if the engagement progresses into a punch, take down, and capture. We could spend several pages, just describing an sequence of actions that would actually take only a couple of seconds to execute.

It's generally better, in my opinion, to say something like:

The mugger attacked with a knife. The defender slapped the knife away, punched the attacker in the stomach, kicked his feet out from under him, and used his belt to tie the man's hands behind his back.

Basically the same action, but you don't bore the reader with unnecessary details.

As for sex scenes, opinions are going to vary greatly on that subject, going from the simple "fade to black" technique to out and out full blown porn. It just depends on what the reader is looking for.

Good point maybe I'm trying to be too detailed with the precise movements. If I can work on conveying the actions more broadly it may look less clunky.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Monkey Pants]

I also hate writing fight and sex scenes, and I tend to cut them out by just describing or hinting at what happened in a few sentences...the lame way out lol. If I do try to write them, I just try to keep them simple and describe exactly what I imagine happening without adding too much style to that section of writing. I also think in sex scenes it's really important to have it be personalized. Reading sex or smut can feel robotic or weird if what's happening could apply to any other characters. I try to think of exactly what each character would do, if they're more aggressive or submissive, do they talk or not, that kind of thing.

 

[EarthLogic]

@dcai0830 Looks like posters above have addressed the fighting styles issue quite well. As for sex scenes I think you should go with the 'less is more' approach. Writing good sex scenes is actually very difficult; as the Bad Sex in Fiction Award demonstrates, even the most accomplished fiction writers struggle with it. 😛 So if you're not sure about how to describe it, best to keep it short and then maybe even fade to black. Better to leave things up to the reader's imagination. A few pointers:

- Step away from the euphemisms! No 'heaving bosoms' or 'turgid members'. If it sounds like a cliche it probably is.
- It might be more effective to start with focusing on the emotions of the characters rather than their physical actions. Try to imagine what they're feeling or thinking and that may make it easier to imagine what they'd do as a result.
- Don't be afraid to be a bit more abstract. Sometimes erotic fiction is more effective when it deliberately avoids direct description. A passage that evokes a myriad sensory impressions through more lyrical and metaphoric language can be quite powerful.

Oh and I'm willing to beta for you if you'd like. Never done it before but it sounds fun! 😀

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

Writing is hard, especially since there is no single recipe that work every single time. People have already given some good advice: Don't get bogged down in details, keep it personal to the characters and the overall style of your work, try to use descriptions that also convey emotions and intentions...

I just wrote my first sex scene. Because it was between Angel and Buffy, I felt I had a license to be a little silly, since it is fantasy, true love and all that. If I were to write an awkward, drunken one night stand story with more mundane characters, it would have to be very different.

 

[Puppet]

Fight scenes are the worst. I'm always struggling to write more than just a few paragraphs, desperately wanting to just do a fade-to-black/skip-to-the-next-scene thing. But in one of my stories I decided to challenge myself and wrote, like, 3 pages of this knock-down, drag-out fight between Spike and Buffy, and most of the reviews were about how great it was. So don't be afraid to push yourself, it might just get the best out of you.

I don't do smut, so I'm no help there. I'm a firm believer in the fade-to-black method.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

Sounds like a lot of support for the fade to black sex scene... lol

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

Sounds like a lot of support for the fade to black sex scene... lol

There are others things you could do. A sexy fightscene for Spuffy or Fuffy. A tantric magic ritual for Tillow. Shirtless tai-chi for Bangel. The options are endless.

 

[Last Watcher]

I actually like writing fight scenes. I find fights and dialog are the easiest parts......it's the general storyline I have trouble with. As for sex scenes, the first one I wrote I went back to a few weeks later & it was a case of.......okaaaaay! No way can I ever post that! What was I on that night? 😳🙄 So since then I've erred towards the 'set the scene, let the reader know what is going to happen then fade to grey-ish' 😉

If you are interested we've posted a few fight scenes (mostly against Vampires) in the Gunn chronicles RPG we've got going The Gunn Chronicles if you want to take a look. (Notice the blatant plug there 😉 ) but of course, as this is a 'family forum' there are no sex scenes........yet! 😉