Rayne Hall - Writer’s Craft Power Pack (Fight Scenes, Magic, Dark Stories, Word-loss Diet, Short Stories to Promote)

Writer's Craft

5-Book

Power Pack

by Rayne Hall

COMPRISING:

*WRITING FIGHT SCENES

*WRITING ABOUT MAGIC

*WRITING DARK STORIES

*THE WORD-LOSS DIET

*WRITING SHORT STORIES TO PROMOTE YOUR NOVELS

WRITING FIGHT SCENES

WRITING FIGHT SCENES

by

RAYNE HALL

Copyright 2011-2014 Rayne Hall

All Rights Reserved

Cover Art and Design by Erica Syverson

Scimitar Press

January 2014 Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

WRITING FIGHT SCENESCONTENTS

Introduction

1. Gritty or Entertaining?

The gritty fight scene and the entertaining fight scene. Blending entertainment and grit. Which style for which genre? How much violence does a fight scene need? Blunders to avoid.

2. Location

Use the setting to add entertainment, realism and suspense. Blunders to avoid.

3. Structure

A blueprint for your scene in six parts: Suspense, Start, Action, Surprise, Climax, Aftermath.

4. Swords

Three main types: thrusting, cleaving and slashing. Blunders to avoid.

5. Knives and Daggers

Dagger or knife? Concealment. Connotations. Fighting techniques. Blunders to avoid.

6 Staffs, Spears and Polearms

Thrusting and throwing spears. Poleaxes, billhooks, halberds. Blunders to avoid.

7. Clubs, Maces, Axes, Slings and Arrows

Historical clubbing and cleaving weapons. Archery. Blunders to avoid.

8. Firearms

Three main types: rifle, handgun, shotgun. Blunders to avoid.

9. Improvised Weapons

What a resourceful character may use at a pinch, and why readers love it.

10. Magical Weapons and Warfare

Inventing a plausible magical weapon. How to defeat a magician. Magical warfare. Blunders to avoid.

11. Unarmed Combat

Hand-to-hand fighting. Two types: grappling and striking martial arts. Inventing a fantasy martial art. Who wins? Blunders to avoid.

12. Self-Defence

Why readers love self-defence scenes. Self-defence for the skilled martial artists. Self-defence ideas the inexperienced fighter. Blunders to avoid.

13. Strength, Skill and Strategy

How much strength, skill and strategy do fighters need, and where do they get them? Blunders to avoid.

14. Psychological Barriers

Reluctance to fight. Reality shock for martial artists. The 'freeze'.

15. Female Fighters

Reader expectations. Physical and psychological differences. Skills and backstory. Inexperienced female fighters. Different fighting styles. Female curves of arousal. Women and weapons. Female soldiers. Clothing and armour. Blunders to avoid.

16. Male Fighters

Characteristic male dialogue and body language. Skills. Men and their weapons. Male curves of arousal. Men against women. Blunders to avoid.

17. Animals and Weres

How animals fight. Writing from an animal's point of view. Were animals. Animals as weapons: dogs, horses, elephants. Fighting against an animal. Blunders to avoid.

18. Make the reader care

Purpose and motivation. Raising the stakes. Emotion. Stacking the odds. Manipulate the reader's instincts. Blunders to avoid.

19. The Inside Experience

Deep point of view. Using the senses: which sense in which part of the fight? Blunders to avoid.

20. Armour

Historical and modern armour. Shields. Blunders to avoid.

21. Fight Situations

Brawl. Duel. Ambush. Assassination. Riot.

22. Group vs Group, One vs Many

Managing the point of view and reader sympathies. How to make a one-against-many fight plausible. Blunders to avoid.

23. Battles

Plotting and structuring a battle scene. Blunders to avoid.

24. Siege Warfare

Active and passive siege warfare. Blunders to avoid.

25. Nautical Fights

Tips for pirate fights and naval battles. Destroy, plunder or capture? Boat or Ship? Blunders to avoid.

26. Genres

Tips for romance, humour, fantasy, horror, thriller, mystery, historical literary, young adult and children's fiction.

27. Erotic Tension

Hand-to-hand fighting. The erotic connotations of daggers. Male fantasies of female fighters. Post-fight horniness.

28. The Final Showdown

The big fight between the hero and the villain at the end of the book. Blunders to avoid.

29. Pacing

Tricks for fast pace. Word choices and sentence structures. When and how to slow the pace. Blunders to avoid.

30. Euphonics

Subtle techniques for creating a mood of foreboding, fear, hard action, defeat or victory.

31. Sabre-Sharp Dialogue

How to make it sound real. Witty zingers. Catchphrases. Blunders to avoid.

32. Background Music

Tunes to put you in the mood.

33. Research

Where to find out more.

34. Excerpts

Two fight scenes by Rayne Hall: excerpts from Storm Dancer and Scylla and the Pepper Pirates.

INTRODUCTION

This book will help you to write a fight scene which is entertaining as well as realistic, and leaves the reader breathless with excitement.

You may be clueless about fighting matters, as many authors are. The book will show you step-by-step to write plausible fights and avoid blunders.

On the other hand, you may be a skilled martial artist, a military historian or a combat veteran. Then the book will guide you to turn your knowledge into vivid fiction.

I'll give you a six-part structure to use as blueprint for your scene, and reveal tricks how to combine fighting with dialogue, which senses to use when and how, and how to stir the reader's emotions. You'll decide how much violence your scene needs, what's the best location, how your heroine can get out of trouble with self-defence and how to adapt your writing style to the fast pace of the action. There will be sections on female fighters, male fighters, animals and weres, psychological obstacles, battles, duels, brawls, riots and final showdowns. For the requirements of your genre, there is even advice on how to build erotic tension in a fight scene, how magicians fight, how pirates capture ships and much more. You will learn about different types of weapons, how to use them in fiction, and how to avoid embarrassing blunders.

A few years ago, when I struggled with my fight scenes, I looked for guidance and found none. So I set about discovering for myself what makes a great fight scene. I studied famous fight scenes in classic literature and in modern thrillers, observed their structure and analysed their techniques. Armed with these insights, I wrote fight scenes which enthralled the readers. Before long, other writers asked me to help me improve their fights. From there, it was a small step to teaching online classes in Writing Fight Scenes. All the time, I continued studying the subject and adding to my knowledge.

When I look back on my early fight scene attempts, I cringe - the mistakes are so glaring, the structure so awkward, the style so embarrassing. Now I know how to make a fight scenes work, and I want to share these techniques with you.