Writing effective fight scenes

A friend of mine once submitted a detailed action screenplay with a blow by blow final fight between protagonist and antagonist only to be told “that’s great, but you’ve crossed into the department of the director and fight choreographer- all you need to write is THEY FIGHT and who wins”.

Whilst that is a little sparse, it was the advice of an industry insider. I quoted that once and was torn into on one of these forums by an irate writer who said “you’d better know how to fight and how to write about it, buddy” (when I checked that writer I don’t recall seeing any successful work to their name).

So, that means anyone who wants to write action fights had better go get qualified as a martial artist, right?

Actually, that’s not necessary.

In my humble opinion, if a fight is not necessary for the story, then it can be written sparsely and with a minimum of detail. Something like, “A fights B, it’s a bitchy scratch-fight that destroys half the room until B punches A out cold”. Short, simple, descriptive, and it paints the picture in the mind of any producer or director that reads it. That also allows artistic licence from the director and choreographer as to whether they want a Cecile B DeMille cast of thousands battle, or an Indiana Jones vs Swordsman off the cuff quick hit incident.

Also, depending on where the fight appears in the script, it may be necessary to put less description if the surrounding incidents don’t require that amount of pay-off in the fight description.

However, if the fight is a) vital to that point in the script, b) poignant to the story or characters, c) involves an incident, person or item necessary to the plot or d) any other important reason you can think of, then by all means go for more detail.

Do you need to go into a blow by blow detail? Assuming the fight ticks the boxes of a) – d) above, and you want to write that level of detail, then it’s not wrong to do so- just as long as you can accurately convey the necessary mood and actions you want to within your script. However, it’s great if you know the technical language, but does the person who has to read, review, and ultimately decide on the viability of that script?

Do you need to know your roundhouse kick from your axe kick? Your upper cut from your jab? Your Destrenza from your disengage? Does your Capo Fero conflict with your Silver?

At what point did I just lose the producer? Bear in mind the producer who reads the script also has to know what you are talking about and going into great detail can lose them; and if you lose them, you’ve lost a lot! A script has to hold the attention of the reader above all else, and that applies not just to action fight choreography but also to all the other elements that make up a script: action, dialogue, character, story arc, scene description, etc.

In all things, I hold the writers commandment close to my heard “a script is a story told in the minimum necessary number of words to be effective”. That doesn’t mean “sparse is better”, but it does mean “too much can detract from what you are trying to say”.

As a final point of advice, check out the pdf scripts of existing movies you have seen with fights in them. Patriot Games (Harrison Ford vs Sean Bean on the boat) or Die Hard (Bruce Willis vs Alexander Gudonov): I’m choosing them because they are not martial arts movies, but fights between “normal” people and somehow those fight scenes transcended from the script into a visceral, exciting set piece appropriate for that moment in the film.