Do You Skip or Skim Over the Fight Scenes in Novels?
Yeah, sometimes I do. The blow-by-blow accounts of the fights I run across in crime fiction are so often graphic and detailed. Special emphasis is paid to the creative ways blood can spatter and gore can appear. The characters in noir and hardboiled novels have to live up to their tough guy/gal reputations. I've probably written a few of these fight scenes myself.
Sometimes if the fight scene runs on for page after page, I roll my eyes and flip through the unread pages. It's amazing the stamina and endurance our heroes and bad guys have in the extended fight scenes. Do hand-to-hand fights really last that long?
Elmore Leonard's dictum says you've failed as a writer if your reader starts skipping ahead in your novel. That sticks in my mind a lot nowadays. So, my fight scenes are fewer and shorter when they do appear in my narratives. Hey, it's better (and safer) to be a lover than a fighter.
Happy reading to you and yours!
By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Ask the Dice, a hit man crime novel set in Washington, D.C.
Sometimes if the fight scene runs on for page after page, I roll my eyes and flip through the unread pages. It's amazing the stamina and endurance our heroes and bad guys have in the extended fight scenes. Do hand-to-hand fights really last that long?
Elmore Leonard's dictum says you've failed as a writer if your reader starts skipping ahead in your novel. That sticks in my mind a lot nowadays. So, my fight scenes are fewer and shorter when they do appear in my narratives. Hey, it's better (and safer) to be a lover than a fighter.
Happy reading to you and yours!
By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Ask the Dice, a hit man crime novel set in Washington, D.C.
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Randy wrote: "I know the feeling. My worst experience was with a series I really liked, science fiction: The Horseclans novels by the late Robert Adams. Set in a future America where civilization had collapsed, ..."Right, exactly. Then tonight I started reading Wayne Dundee's Counterpunch, a boxing novel. But there's a lot more to the storyline than the protagonist just duking it out in the ring all the time. I'm really liking it. Nice period novel.
I have the Dundee, as well, and have enjoyed the others in the series. I've read a number of Dundee's westerns and am certain I will like Counterpoint when I get the chance to read it.
It's always suspicious when you refer to your own work -- it appears self-promotional.But I must say: I've always striven in my own fight scenes to show the idiocy and immediacy of violence. I know what it's like to be beaten, cut, shot at, et cetera.
If you show violence as something generic and blase, readers will notice.
Pearce wrote: "It's always suspicious when you refer to your own work -- it appears self-promotional.But I must say: I've always striven in my own fight scenes to show the idiocy and immediacy of violence. I kn..."
Thanks, Pearce.
depends on how long the fight/battle description goes on for. If it is more than 5 paragraphs, I start to skim. I've been the victim of violence...have no need to relive pain and horror and fear. I spent 10 years in an abusive relationship: cracked ribs, bruised bones, ruptured discs, guns held to my head...no need to relive horror. been there, done that.
Michele wrote: "depends on how long the fight/battle description goes on for. If it is more than 5 paragraphs, I start to skim. I've been the victim of violence...have no need to relive pain and horror and fear. I..."Sorry for your pain. I like to get the idea of violence across if the scene/plots calls for it, then end it. The extra gore is unnecessary.
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They went on interminably for me, really slowing down the action with blow-blow hacking and slashing. I enjoyed them more by skimming along, hitting a few highlights. A battle could go on for ten fifteen pages.
Other than that, I enjoyed the ideas he brought forth on future America.
I met him at a con once, but didn't mention my feelings. He was very popular, so others must not have been bothered by his seemingly endless battles.