Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll.
Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast.
Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention.
Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them.
Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently.
ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face.
Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.
Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone.
A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way.
If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword.
ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters. (CLICK ME)
If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability.
People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot.
Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME)
If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)
Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here.
How to apply Writing techniques for action scenes:
- Short sentences. Choppy. One action, then another. When there’s a lull in the fight, take a moment, using longer phrases to analyze the situation–then dive back in. Snap, snap, snap. - Same thing with words - short, simple, and strong in the thick of battle. Save the longer syllables for elsewhere. - Characters do not dwell on things when they are in the heat of the moment. They will get punched in the face. Focus on actions, not thoughts. - Go back and cut out as many adverbs as possible. - No seriously, if there’s ever a time to use the strongest verbs in your vocabulary - Bellow, thrash, heave, shriek, snarl, splinter, bolt, hurtle, crumble, shatter, charge, raze - it’s now. - Don’t forget your other senses. People might not even be sure what they sawduring a fight, but they always know how they felt. - Taste: Dry mouth, salt from sweat, copper tang from blood, etc - Smell: OP nailed it - Touch: Headache, sore muscles, tense muscles, exhaustion, blood pounding. Bruised knuckles/bowstring fingers. Injuries that ache and pulse, sting and flare white hot with pain. - Pain will stay with a character. Even if it’s minor. - Sound and sight might blur or sharpen depending on the character and their experience/exhaustion. Colors and quick movements will catch the eye. Loud sounds or noises from behind may serve as a fighter’s only alert before an attack. - If something unexpected happens, shifting the character’s whole attention to that thing will shift the Audience’s attention, too. - Aftermath. This is where the details resurface, the characters pick up things they cast aside during the fight, both literally and metaphorically. Fights are chaotic, fast paced, and self-centered. Characters know only their self, their goals, what’s in their way, and the quickest way around those threats. The aftermath is when people can regain their emotions, their relationships, their rationality/introspection, and anything else they couldn’t afford to think or feel while their lives were on the line.
Do everything you can to keep the fight here and now. Maximize the physical, minimize the theoretical. Keep things immediate- no theories or what ifs.
If writing a strategist, who needsto think ahead, try this: keep strategy to before-and-after fights. Lay out plans in calm periods, try to guess what enemies are thinking or what they will do. During combat, however, the character should think about his options, enemies, and terrain in immediate terms; that is, in shapes and direction. (Large enemy rushing me; dive left, circle around / Scaffolding on fire, pool below me / two foes helping each other, separate them.)
Lastly, after writing, read it aloud. Anyplace your tongue catches up on a fast moving scene, edit. Smooth action scenes rarely come on the first try.
As a reminder to myself as an author but good to know for everyone. @thehugwizard any other tips to add?
I have been working on getting a schedule for the fic updates this month, and here it is!
February 12-13: I will always find you (Klaroline); Protecting His Family (Sherlolly)
February 19-20: Cinderella’s Beast (Klaroline); Lost Love (Stargate)
February 26-27: Queen and Smoak (Olicity); Crossing Realms (Sherlolly)
These are based on personal messages and recent reviews from readers who are waiting (patiently) for updates. I will get to the other stories as soon as I can, but for now, these are the ones I’m focusing on for this month! Thank you!
Redoing my Writeblr Introduction for 2022 since a lot of my projects and publishing goals have shifted slightly in the last year.
First of all, let’s get the ‘hello’s’ out of the way! My name is Ari! I’m a fiction writer in her thirties based in the South-East of England.
I live with my mother and my cat, and spend my days wandering through the fantasy worlds that I’ve created, and drinking copious amounts of coffee.
While Tumblr is my primary social media platform I’m also on Instagram, Facebook, and reluctantly Twitter. If you’d like to follow me on any of those platforms, you can find links to my profiles via my website; www.aristaholmes.weebly.com
My planned projects can be found below the cut. If you’d like to be added to my general tag list, or one for a specific project, please let me know! Either drop me a message on this post, or shoot me an ask. My inbox is always open <3
I’ve also created dedicated side blogs for each project, where I reblog any project specific content, world building notes, prompt fills, or snippet shares etc. Links to those side blogs can be found below.
Seasonal Novella - Once Upon A Fey Touched Holiday
The Fey Touched Trilogy is a Portal Fantasy and planned to be my debut novel series. I’d ideally like to publish Book One, Changeling, in the first quarter of 2023, so I’ll be focussing on completing the entire trilogy in 2022 so that I can follow a rapid release schedule for the series.
Assuming no delays or unanticipated crisis cropping up, I hope to have my Newsletter up and running by October 2022 to offer the free prequel short story to anyone who signs up.
Tag List:@/jezifster
Changeling Blurb
Fey go missing in the mortal realm. Everyone knows that.
When Lizzy’s mother is the next to vanish she is expected to grieve and move on. Instead Lizzy wants to find out what happened, but the answers she seeks can’t be found in the fey realm of Arbaon. With the help of her best friend, Booker Reed, Lizzy is determined to retrace her mother’s final steps, straight through an illegal portal and into the mortal realm.
Whatever leads she expected to find, it wasn’t an academy of vampires, and a world stalked by their rabid cousins, the kavians. Forced to rely on the vampires for protection, and secluded away behind the high walls of Speculo School, it quickly becomes clear that not everyone is pleased with Lizzy and Booker’s investigation.
With danger building the further they dig, the two fey need to decide if the answers they seek are worth risking their lives for. The longer they remain with the vampires, the more Lizzy begins to suspect that her answers instead lie amongst the deadly kavians.
Redoing my Writeblr Introduction for 2022 since a lot of my projects and publishing goals have shifted slightly in the last year.
First of all, let’s get the ‘hello’s’ out of the way! My name is Ari! I’m a fiction writer in her thirties based in the South-East of England.
I live with my mother and my cat, and spend my days wandering through the fantasy worlds that I’ve created, and drinking copious amounts of coffee.
While Tumblr is my primary social media platform I’m also on Instagram, Facebook, and reluctantly Twitter. If you’d like to follow me on any of those platforms, you can find links to my profiles via my website; www.aristaholmes.weebly.com
My planned projects can be found below the cut. If you’d like to be added to my general tag list, or one for a specific project, please let me know! Either drop me a message on this post, or shoot me an ask. My inbox is always open <3
I’ve also created dedicated side blogs for each project, where I reblog any project specific content, world building notes, prompt fills, or snippet shares etc. Links to those side blogs can be found below.
Seasonal Novella - Once Upon A Fey Touched Holiday
The Fey Touched Trilogy is a Portal Fantasy and planned to be my debut novel series. I’d ideally like to publish Book One, Changeling, in the first quarter of 2023, so I’ll be focussing on completing the entire trilogy in 2022 so that I can follow a rapid release schedule for the series.
Assuming no delays or unanticipated crisis cropping up, I hope to have my Newsletter up and running by October 2022 to offer the free prequel short story to anyone who signs up.
Tag List:@/jezifster
Changeling Blurb
Fey go missing in the mortal realm. Everyone knows that.
When Lizzy’s mother is the next to vanish she is expected to grieve and move on. Instead Lizzy wants to find out what happened, but the answers she seeks can’t be found in the fey realm of Arbaon. With the help of her best friend, Booker Reed, Lizzy is determined to retrace her mother’s final steps, straight through an illegal portal and into the mortal realm.
Whatever leads she expected to find, it wasn’t an academy of vampires, and a world stalked by their rabid cousins, the kavians. Forced to rely on the vampires for protection, and secluded away behind the high walls of Speculo School, it quickly becomes clear that not everyone is pleased with Lizzy and Booker’s investigation.
With danger building the further they dig, the two fey need to decide if the answers they seek are worth risking their lives for. The longer they remain with the vampires, the more Lizzy begins to suspect that her answers instead lie amongst the deadly kavians.
Appreciate yourself and follow this account! Okay? It’s hard to imagine worlds nobody has ever dreamed of and put them to paper. You are amazing. You have talent! Even if it’s not something you can showcase like singing. You are still talented and every bit as important
my search history ranges from “how much did a mango cost in mumbai in 1919” to “which damaged artery can threaten life” and honestly i feel bad for whichever FBI agent is spying on me
we’re all suckers for a good romance, but quite often the characters just don’t vibe together and there is nothing more disappointing than that. any good romance should be one in which the reader genuinely wants the characters to be together, and i hope this helps figure it out!
disclaimer: i am not a professional author and everything here is based on personal experience and preference. i also have literally no experience with romantic relationships; this is all based on fiction.
give them obstacles
“why can’t they be together now?” is the question that you must always be asking about your couples, and if there is no clear answer, then something is wrong.
there should be a legitimate conflict keeping them apart. the classic one is romeo and juliet, where they are rivals, and nina and matthias are the same. with kaz and inej, it was their trauma. cardan bullied jude in the cruel prince and jo saw laurie as a friend in little women. make sure that there is a conflict that makes sense for the characters so that tensions rise and there is relief when they finally overcome it!
give them chemistry
don’t force the romance, let it come naturally. chemistry can be any combination of banter, physical attraction, common interests, longing glances, arguments, bonding moments, and friendship or alliances.
obviously depending on what sort of tropes you’re using, the combination will be different. but there has to be some kind of attraction between your characters that makes them feel like more than friends. multiple times i’ve read books where it feels like the characters are being forced to kiss each other by the author, and i realise this is incredibly vague advice, but let them play out their narratives in your head! don’t force them to do things that don’t seem to be working.
and my number one romance rule is The Kiss Rule: if they have to kiss for the reader to know they’re in love, then they’re not really in love.
give them grief
this kind of comes along with the ‘obstacles’ point, but let the fact that they cannot be together offer some sort of grief to the characters. or let the fact that they are together tear the characters apart.
<mark of athena spoilers> percy literally fell into hell for annabeth (yes my standards for men are too high) and honestly, that seems like a pretty important obstacle. but also percy’s fatal flaw is loyalty, which means that he will go way too far to stick by his friends’ side.
make it slow burn
even if your characters are attracted to each other at ford sight, don’t let them get together immediately. this comes hand in hand with my point about obstacles. make sure there is a reason the two aren’t together, and make it a g o n i s i n g.
add in a few *almost* kisses, build the tension, and let it drag out enough that the reader feels genuine satisfaction when they finally get together!
