Aiki Flinthart - Fight Like a Girl

Writing Fight Scenesfor Female Characters

by Aiki Flinthart

Published by ComputingAdvantages and Training P/L

Distributed bySmashwords

Copyright 2019 AikiFlinthart

Cover artwork by CrocoDesigns

This ebook islicensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not bere-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to sharethis book with another person, please purchase an additional copyfor each recipient. If you are reading this book and did notpurchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only then pleasepurchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work ofthis author

All rightsreserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, byany person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similarorganisations) without the prior permission in writing of thecopyright holder concerned, nor be otherwise circulated in any formof binding or cover other than that in which it is published andwithout a similar condition, including this condition, beingimposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ACataloguing-in-Publications entry for this title is available fromthe National Library of Australia.

Print copiesavailable from major online retailers.

ISBN-13:978-0-9945928-2-8 (Trade Paperback)

ISBN-13:978-0-9945928-1-1 (e-book)

NOTE:

This book is writtenwith AUSTRALIAN SPELLING, not USA spelling.

Dont panic.

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NOTE:

This book is writtenwith AUSTRALIAN SPELLING,

not USA spelling.

Dont panic.

Writing Fight Scenesfor Female Characters

Aiki Flinthart 2019

Stories are driven by conflict and steered by relationships.And the ultimate expression of conflict in a story is a fightbetween humans. Fights combine exciting conflict with arelationshipbe it between lovers, parent vs child, brother againstbrother, protagonist vs antagonist, or entire kingdoms. If we careabout the people in the relationship, well care about the outcomeof the fight.

But if the fight isnt written well, it becomes easy to skimover.

Im not here tochange your writing voice or style. What Id like to help youunderstand, is what to write in a fight scene for women (ormen). What key details will help with immersion. What thedifferences are between how men and women respond to violence. Andhow trained and untrained people fight.

Humans are animals.Males and females are different. Were both a mess of chemistry +instinct + a thin veneer of social conditioning. This book is aboutunderstanding which is which, so you can wrangle your characterinto behaving consistently and realistically. Thus making yourcharacters not simply 2-dimensional strong females who kick butt,but actual women with depth and breadth. Women who fight when theymust, but maybe not in the way that men do. Women who will do whatit takes to get through a difficult time. Women who are flawed andreal. Irrespective of their martial arts background.

Many how to write blogs and sites say women dont fight anydifferently to men. Theyd be wrong.

Are women equal, YES. Do they fight the same? Mostly,NO.

When it comes to fighting (be it an argument or a battle),women are not men with mammaries.

A lot of readers (maleand female) will skip fight scenes and just go to the end to seewho survived. I did a survey and asked readers WHY. Theoverwhelming response was that the fight scenes often dont advancethe narrative and/or dont show the characters emotionsso thereader doesnt care. Which means the fight scene was, bydefinition, gratuitous violence.

We authors must write the people, the relationship, and thefight, believably enough that the reader stays engaged the wholeway through. When one of the characters is femalea gender nottraditionally viewed as warrior-like in human historythat can bechallenging.

Lets face it, guys have dominated the Heroic Warriornarrative for the last five thousand years of written records. Forfemales, fighting has mostly been reserved for lovers quarrels inthe romance genre, or family arguments in womens fiction, orvengeful wives in murder mysteries. (Yes, I know there areexceptions, but they areexceptions.)

The last twenty years or so have seen more and more awesomefemale characters kicking badguy butt in movies and books. Which isfantastic. Unfortunately, many writers equate strong femalecharacters with kickass, killer woman assassin. This is fastbecoming a stereotype. Which could be why many people dontunderstand how brilliantly strong womenor femalewarriors can beportrayed.

Even ordinary women can be fierce creatures when you backthem into a corner. But, if youre not familiar with thedifferences between how the genders approach, handle, and react toviolence, then youre in danger of writing themincorrectly.

And in danger of having half your audience skim the fightscenes or abandon the book.

Who am I to tell youall this? Good question. Always investigate anyone who tries totell you what to do or how to do it better. Im an author, amartial artist, a mother, a wife, a businesswoman. Many years ago Ihad anunpleasant experience which led me to take up martial arts.I tried a fewSilat, judo, taekwando, karate. But couldnt find onethat seemed to fit. At about twenty-four I found a small YoshinkanAikido dojo run by a sensei I could respect and with students whowerent ego-maniacs. (Not easy to find in that town, at thattime.)

My boyfriend(later my husband) joined as well. We trained together for severalyears. I did my brown belt grading when I was 2 months pregnant. (Ididnt take any falls, though). Then came back to it when my sonwas a year old.

Eventually wemoved to a town that didnt have a Yoshinkan dojo. But when wemoved again, I was lucky enough to find a dojo run by a5th-dan who had trained for a decade as uchi-deshi(live-in student) in the head dojo in Japan. His skills arephenomenal.

So, Ive beentraining a long time, now.

Since taking upaikido, Ive been in a couple of minor altercations, but managed toget myself out of them with great success, thanks to the training.Ive also intelligently avoided a larger number by applying one ofaikidos central tenets: Avoid the falling rock. Dont be instupid places if you can avoid it. Talk your way out. Run away.

But traininginjuries do take a toll. Ive recently let aikido go to save mybattered body. But Ive taken up Brazilian jujitsu because I justcant seem to stay off the mat. And it doesnt hurt as much whenyoure already on the ground. Well see how that goes, but Imenjoying it so far and it fills a large hole in the aikidosyllabus.

When I took upwriting seriously in around 2008, my heroes and heroines could docool stuff like archery and knife-throwing, so I decided to learnthose. Now I do both regularly. Highly cathartic at the end of astressful day.