Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes

Whether a side-street skirmish or an all-out war, fight scenes bring action to the pages of every kind of fiction. But a poorly done or unbelievable fight scene can ruin a great book in an instant.

In Fight Write you'll learn practical tips, terminology, and the science behind crafting realistic fight scenes for your fiction. Broken up into "Rounds," trained fighter and writer Carla Hoch guides you through the many factors you'll need to consider when developing battles and brawls.

- In Round 1, you will consider how the Who, When, Where, and Why questions affect what type of fight scene you want to craft.
- Round 2 delves into the human factors of biology (think fight or flight and adrenaline) and psychology (aggression and response to injuring or killing another person).
- Round 3 explores different fighting styles that are appropriate for different situations: What really happens in fights on the street? What is the vocabulary used to describe these styles?
- Round 4 considers weaponry and will guide you to select the best weapon for your characters, including nontraditional weapons of opportunity, while also thinking about the nitty-gritty details of using them.
- In Round 5, you'll learn how to accurately describe realistic injuries sustained from the fights and certain weapons, and what kind of injuries will kill a character or render them unable to fight further.

By taking into account where your character is in the world, when in history the fight is happening, what the character's motivation for fighting is, and much more, you'll be able write fight scenes unique to your plot and characters, all while satisfying your reader's discerning eye.

Carla Hoch is a writer and trained fighter with experience in nearly one dozen martial arts and fighting styles. She is the blogger behind FightWrite.net, a blog dedicated to teaching fighting to writers, and regularly teaches classes and workshops on fight writing as well as fight techniques for writers. She lives in Spring, Texas, with her husband, two children, gossipy guinea pigs, and a cat who finds Carla’s computer to be a fine place to sleep.