With examples from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, DBZ, and Die Hard.
I came to the realization last year that I didn't really know much about writing action or fight scenes. I knew some basic things like how you should keep your sentences short and use words with few syllables (that gives the scene a fast pace), how you need to make sure your action sequence is realistic, how you shouldn't give a blow-by-blow description because that gets boring. I took Tae Kwon Do as a teenager, so I do know a little about fighting people. I'm also a pretty good shot with a gun.
But I wanted to know more. I wanted to dig deeper
.
I wondered, what really makes an action scene great? What makes one
better than another? What makes one bad? Not in the writing style, but in the content itself. Are there cliche action scenes? Is it bad to use one? How do you improve an action scene?
I didn't know.
I asked people for references, blog posts, books, something, about writing great actions scenes. I couldn't find a book, and most people couldn't give me much guidance. But my friend James went out of his way to find a few sources for me, like this
podcast from Writing Excuses, and a blog called
Grading Fight Scenes, and he did his own
podcast on the subject with author C. Michelle Jefferies.
But I wanted more. (I get kind of obsessive about writing.) I wanted to develop an eye for writing action scenes myself.
So I decided to start studying instead of just reading or watching action scenes.
And I quickly ran into my first problem.