Up
for a Fight? – Writing the Real Deal
With
Amazing Thriller-Writer Eric J. Gates
Hello Everyone! I am happy to welcome the amazing Eric J.
Gates back to Author 911 today to discuss the best ways to write a fight
scene. Eric is the author of the incredible
Cull series, Outsourced, and the must have book on How NOT to be An Aspiring
Writer. I just finished reading his fourth book in the Cull Series, Blood Demon and is was Extraordinary....
Recently
I have been chatting with a friend and fellow author about writing fight scenes
in her novel. Unlike most writers, this is an area that doesn’t give me too
many problems, or at least, not of the same kind that they experience.
Let’s
lay down a few antecedents: I have been trained in 26 different fighting
systems, holding black belt degrees in 14 of these, and a host of weapons
during a long and interesting life. But my knowledge is not just theoretical.
Unfortunately, I have had to use those skills on occasion… and I’m still here,
so they must work. I also have an encyclopaedic knowledge of many other
fighting styles and weaponry. Oh, and with two exceptions, none of that stuff
was oriented to competitions (with rules and regulations etc).
I
love to read thrillers and there are many written by ex-soldiers. Whilst most
get the details of the ‘conventional’ fighting right (using weapons issued by
their army/navy etc), many have little or no experience of ‘unconventional
combat, particularly the close-quarter variety that their protagonists display
on the pages of their books. So as a source for a writer attempting to produce
a convincing fight scene, studying them is not always the way to go. As for
Hollywood, well forget it. Bruce Lee once commented on the difference between
real combat and theatrical representation of combat – in movies you only ever
see the latter.
Now
I’m going to try the impossible here (those who know me well, will recognise
the trait that gets me into trouble more than any other). I’m going to give
you, the potential writer of fight scenes, a few pointers for making your
combat more realistic. This will give you a good foundation which you can then
embellish at will. So this post isn’t too long, I’m going to stick to unarmed
fighting – maybe, in a hypothetical Part 2, I’ll talk about weapons, although
they will get a mention or three here. The following will be Fictional-genre
generic; I won’t be speaking about magic spells – never used them – you’re on
your own for that.
There’s
a huge difference in the way a trained fighter and Joe Public react to the
threat of a fight. It all starts in the amygdala. This beastie sits at the base
of our brains and associates stimuli with emotion. It’s the thingumajig that
stops you holding your hand over an open flame (once you’ve done it the first
time, of course). It’s a primitive part of our brains responsible for the fight
or flight reaction. Joe Public will usually go for the flight option, if
available. If it isn’t, then the submission option is next up. It’s only when
Joe Public tries for the fight option that trouble occurs. A trained fighter
is, of course, also subject to this process. The difference is analysis.
Someone who has fighting skills (not just an experienced bar brawler) will take
in a series of factors which will enhance the decision the lizard brain
chooses.
These
factors include:
a Number
of assailants – even a large group is limited in how they can attack one
person. I’ve fought more than ten at once, successfully, because I used the
other factors below to restrict the number that could interact with me at any
given time. Almost all group assailants will not have practiced their attack,
so they will get in each other’s way naturally, something your protagonist can
help with.
b Space and terrain –
it’s a very different thing fighting in water, on ice, on sand or loose dirt,
on a hard surface, on an incline or uneven surface, in a narrow area, on a
moving vehicle (think cars, trucks, trains, aircraft, or even horseback). The
area you have to operate can be used to limit what your opponent(s) can do, and
it can limit your protagonist’s options too. Hollywood took this to a
ridiculous extreme in the second ‘Kill Bill’ movie with the fight in the
trailer. As a master swordsman, I teach my students to draw a metre long katana
in a space the width of their bodies, in less than a second, and most get the
hang of it very quickly. The trick is in the use of your waist and the way you
‘manage’ the sword scabbard. The scene in question, where the swords couldn’t
be drawn because they kept hitting the walls, was hilarious, for all the wrong
reasons! Using the terrain as a weapon (Hollywood again tends to limit itself
to throwing dirt into the eyes of the fighters) is important. Many of the older
fighting systems that use throws are based on this. When a human body is thrown
onto a hard floor, against a streetlamp, railing, wastebasket, parked car etc,
the terrain becomes the weapon. It’s
not about using a kerbstone to hit the bad guy, just the opposite in fact.
c Natural
weapons – in traditional Japanese fighting philosophy it is recognised that the
human body has 16 natural weapons (obviously including items such as hands,
which can be used in a huge number of ways, feet, head, elbows etc). Learning
how to use these effectively is the basis for the world’s unarmed fighting
systems. But there is another natural weapon that trumps all of these – your
intelligence. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen people in casts
because they threw a punch and broke bones in their hands or feet (of the 206
bones in our bodies, more than half are in our hands and feet). There’s a
Golden Rule in striking – never hit something hard with something soft (an
untrained fist against a jawbone is not recommended).
d Acquired weapons –
there are so many everyday objects that can be turned into effective weapons
that you would be surprised. In the average room, in an average house, there
will be over fifty! In your car, probably about another twenty (I once took on
three assailants, as part of a demonstration, while sitting behind the wheel of
a stationary car. After a few seconds I had trapped all three using everything
from the driver’s seat belt, steering wheel, window frame, and handbrake, left
the vehicle and walked away). No I’m not superman, or Jason Bourne, but by
using imagination tempered with a little knowledge (primarily of anatomy and
physics) you would be surprised just what can become a weapon if needed. What’s
the weirdest weapon I’ve used? It’s a tie between a banknote, a cardboard
drinks coaster and an ice cube. Newspapers, magazines, umbrellas and walking
sticks are almost conventional. It’s all about being flexible …in your
thinking.
e Attitude
– I always advise my students (bodyguards, police, military, Joe Public) to act
if attacked. The puffing out of the chest, bluster approach could get you
killed or seriously hurt. It’s tantamount to incitement. I recommend making
yourself smaller (than the attacker), stepping back at an angle (better
defensive position as it allows offense while reducing target area), relaxing
your whole body (it makes for far quicker reaction time), and slowing your
breathing (deep breathing increases oxygen flow to the brain and muscles which
helps think clearly, react faster and control the adverse effects of
adrenaline). I also strongly insist that (in a mugging situation) nothing you
have on you, NOTHING, is worth your life – just hand it over and forget about
violence, even if you are confident in your abilities. Only if your assailant
is clearly bent on doing you harm no matter how much you collaborate, should
you react.
f)
Offense/defense
– many Martial Arts taught as Self-Defense are based on allowing your opponent
to make the first move. Whilst legally this allows for justification for your
defense, one blow etc could be all they need. The old adage of ‘a good offense
is the best defense’ may be applicable. When faced with multiple opponents,
often the bluster-boy is not the leader. Scan the group, identify who’s in
charge (eye contact between them can be a dead giveaway) then going on the
offensive against them can be a good strategy if your protagonist has the
skills. Don’t know who’s the leader? Go for the biggest. That scene in the Tom
Cruise Jack Reacher movie where he explains his defense to the four thugs
(something you should never do – explain, that is) is strategically accurate,
believe it or not. In the herd mentality, when a leader is taken down, the herd
usually is unfocused, needing time to find a new leader – time your protagonist
should not allow.
h Adrenaline – I’ve
already mentioned this several times. I hinted at its adverse effects too. One
of these is that it’s an exceptional natural anaesthetic. I‘ll give you a
fr’instance: a few years ago, one of my students saw a bunch of some 30
skinheads beating up a single individual in the street. No cops about (cowards
generally choose their terrain more carefully than their victims). So he
intervened. Finally the cops turned up… and arrested everyone… including the
victim and my student. They were in a
police car on the way to the cop shop when someone remarked that my student’s
white shirt was bright red at the back – he’d been stabbed during the fight and
was unaware of this due to the adrenaline coursing through his body. (As I’m
sure you want to know - he did get released with no charges and he put 6 of the
attackers in hospital before the cops arrived).
iAttacker’s weapons –
In my experience, most attackers when wielding a weapon, tend to focus on that
weapon to the exclusion of anything else they could do. This means that often,
when you ‘remove’ that weapon from their control, psychologically you’ve won
the battle. There’s something I also teach my students about using ‘recovered’
assailants’ weapons – if you know how to use it, keep it; if you don’t, throw
it away where the assailant can’t regain control of it.
Finally, don’t be
too specific. This was the mistake I made. Compare these two short fight scenes
(the first is from ‘2012’ my first novel, is technically correct, and makes
this mistake; the second is from ‘the CULL – Bloodstone’ – see I’ve learned
something too!):
2012
The
CULL - Bloodstone
I
can’t (and shouldn’t) write your fight scene’s for you; it’s your novel after
all. I will however put my knowledge at your disposal. Write to me via my
website (www.ericjgates.com – contact Eric page) and ask specific questions please. I’ll
do my best to help where I can. You don’t want to fight about that, do you?
Check out Eric Gates! He know just about everything!
check out www.ericjgates.com to read extracts and discover the inside secrets...
follow me on Twitter: @eThrillerWriter and on my Blog http://my-thrillers.blogspot.com/
follow me on Twitter: @eThrillerWriter and on my Blog http://my-thrillers.blogspot.com/
