…Because, after all, pigs, from whence the porkiest of all bacon comes, wallow in mud puddles, right? (Trust me, they do. I grew up on a farm.)
So, anyway, as to this “rasslin’ in the mud” thing…
Once upon a time I found myself in a very public disagreement with Laurell K. Hamilton. I don’t regret this, mind you. I mean, it pretty much seems that any time I’ve ended up on a panel with Laurell at an SF/Fantasy Convention, we have disagreed about something. Fact is, any time we have ever talked we have disagreed. I suppose that makes us both the disagreeable sort. This is not a commentary on her, mind you. Nor is it a commentary on me. It’s just a simple fact that we don’t see eye-to-eye on some things…
But anyway, back to the rasslin’. You see, the disagreement in question occurred in front of 12.7 billion of her fans, as they are pretty much the only people who show up at a panel where she is appearing. In fact, I even had one of her fans tell me that she, “had no idea what I was even doing up there on the panel, because she was there to see Laurell, not the rest of us people sitting up there, and who the hell was I anyway?”
Well… I was scheduled to be there. After all, it wasn’t the “Laurell K. Hamilton” panel, it was a How To Write Convincing Detectives Panel.
Duh.
Apparently some of her fans are unaware that other people get paid to write, too. Not all of them, just some. I don’t want anyone to think I am handing out a wholesale diss here, because I’m not. Nope, it’s definitely targeted, and they know who they are. Unfortunately, they probably won’t see this because they have no idea that anyone else writes for a living. See how that works?
But anyway, back we go to the rasslin’. The disagreement in this case was on the subject of “fight scenes.” It wasn’t a “bad disagreement” by any stretch. No actual fighting. No cross words. No hair pulling. Although Laurell did raise her voice. Not sure why. In any case, it was just a major difference of opinion, based largely on a major difference of genres.
Here’s the thing – anybody who has ever been in an actual fight can tell you that they aren’t pretty. Fighting – actual hand-to-hand combat – is an ugly jumble of thumping, kicking, biting, gouging, and all around dirty pool. It might – and I heavily stress might – start out as a pugilistic endeavor, with hands being thrown and noses being broken. However, in a down and dirty street fight (and yes, I’ve been in a few. In my misspent youth I was a bit of scrapper) after a punch or two, someone goes down, and unless that person is unconscious or incapacitated all hell breaks loose and the fight then turns into a fucked up wrestling match.
THAT is how to write a convincing fight scene. Sure, you can line out the punches, kicks, bites, gouges, grunts, groans, and cussing, so that it is writable in such a fashion as to be readable – but at the end of the day, the fight should be a crazed mess of desperation – on both sides – and a struggle to come out on top.
Laurell disagreed. Her writing of a fight scene involved all manner of choreography to get everything just right. She’s not the only writer who does this, so I’m not throwing rocks at her by any stretch. I am, however, chucking a few stones at the concept. To me it sounded pretty much like Jackie Chan rehearsing for a scene in one of his movies. A fight that would be entertaining to a degree, but pretty damned unlikely. Even a boxing match, or mixed martial arts match, isn’t a pretty dance and they have rules to follow.
When you throw out the rules, everything goes to hell…
So here’s my advice – save the elegant, wang chung foo, choreographed, ballet dance of a fight for your Epic Zombie Vampire Were-Ninja Fantasy novel. That’s where “everybody was Kung-Fu fighting” belongs. If you are writing something with any sense of realism whatsoever, and you want readers to actually believe the fight could happen, tap into your memories of when you were rolling in the dirt with the school bully in the fifth grade. THAT’S how it really happens…
As always see the very first post on this blog which states up front: My advice is my opinion. You can disagree with it all you want and I don’t care. Welcome to America…
MRS
