The Saxon Thief
When I'm not working, I have four things I like. Let's keep some mystery about two of them, but the other two are writing and fencing.

To me, fencing is like a drug. If I had the time and money, and my no-longer-young body could keep up with it, I would be tempted to spend all day, every day just fencing.

But taking sword play into books is difficult. Every Hollywood screenwriter who has even a vague possibility of including a sword fight knows that it will breathe much-needed action into even the most turgid storyline. In novels, not so much.

The longest sword fight in cinema history is in the film Scaramouche. There are also some fairly long descriptions in the novel on which it is based. But they somehow lack the same zest. As a fencer I enjoyed them, but most readers go past them.

Surprisingly, watching fencing is also quite boring for bystanders. What you see in films is dramatically slowed down. I was once an extra on a BBC drama where they wanted a scene from a fencing competition. We were astonished at how slow we had to make everything before the cameras could pick it up.

However, what makes it live, even for people who don't understand or don't follow, is seeing and understanding the emotions of those concerned. Most of us can't read a sword fight, but we can all read a face.

In writing, this is the key as well: explaining the ins and outs of blade work takes too long. Focus on the emotions, hopes, fears and reversals, and everything else false into place.