Duration of action?

[polsmurphy]

How long does your action last? My character was just attacked. She isn't a fighter and was overpowered quickly. The encounter only lasted about three inches of single spaced text. It's as long as it should be, I guess. There's probably nothing wrong with it, for some reason I wonder if it's enough.

Do any of you have this issue? Can you make a fight that would be over in minutes last several pages?

[polymath]

I see two related considerations to take into account: time passage and psychic access.

Time passage, story time and narrative time passing. A paragraph depicting a minor fight scene might be, say, a quarter of a manuscript page long, roughly seventy words, or about thirty seconds of reading time for average readers. That's narrative time passage. Story time, the fight might occupy the passage of a few minutes, or be right at or about thirty seconds or so. If the story time pace and tension needs to increase, one method is to increase the word count. If the narrative time pace needs to decrease and the tension needs to increase, one method is to decrease word count.

Psychic access involves close access to a viewpoint character's perceptions, cognitions, and thoughts. A fight scene that's pure external action depiction tends to be paced fast in narrative time with condensed story time. It's an immediate perception of action and reaction with little time for cognition and thought. A fight scene doesn't have to be pure action. It can include introspective cognition and thoughts. How a character who's beaten feels about the fight as it unfolds would interest me, draw out the pace and tension, and more closely parallel narrative and story time or extend narrative time longer than story time.

Slowing down narrative pace in my experience tends to parallel real life traumas, like how time seems to slow down right before and during a car wreck. But that's relevant only if the surrounding context asks for an escalation in pace and tension, like if the fight is a reaction consequence of a cause it might be a comparatively trivial discovery or reversal and best gotten over with quickly. Alternatively, if the fight scene represents a comparatively significant discovery or reversal, it might better be drawn out with added cognition and thought reactions.

[sierramcconnell]

How long does your action last? My character was just attacked. She isn't a fighter and was overpowered quickly. The encounter only lasted about three inches of single spaced text. It's as long as it should be, I guess. There's probably nothing wrong with it, for some reason I wonder if it's enough.

Do any of you have this issue? Can you make a fight that would be over in minutes last several pages?

With fight scenes, which is one of the things that I have trouble writing, I focus more on what the reason behind the fighting is. I used to be a length person, but if you worry about length, you run the risk of making it very boring and drawn out.

What is the purpose behind your fight? Why was she attacked?

Also, are you writing in first or third person?

[polsmurphy]

first person. The attack was out of the blue and she really didn't know why. The results of the attack change her life forever.

polymath, the scene sets up a turning point. I like the way you talk about time passage and psychic access. That must be why it's not playing right to me. The attack itself happens in seconds. But yeah, I can see the need to slow down time to create rising tension. I've been afraid that interjecting her thoughts will slow the pace too much.

[polymath]

Cool, polsmurphy.

I intuited pacing and psychic access concerns might be behind your hunch. The subconscious of a writer has a powerful influence when it can be heard and brought to bear.

[dios4vida]

When I first came onto the forum there was a post by Serzen about the rules of combat. It's a fabulous post that everyone writing hand-to-hand combat should read. I'll try to find the post and put in a link to it later. I think two of his rules are applicable here (yup, I saved the rules for reference):

Lesson Seven: Cause the fight to be over as quickly as possible. The longer you fight, the more likely it is that you’ll make a mistake and wind up getting hurt or killed. Your goal should not be to kill the opponent; rather you want to make him stop fighting. It’s just as effective to sever the tendons in his sword hand as it is to stab him in the eye AND it’s less dangerous. Remember that you want to stay at the longest distance you can fight from.

Related to Lesson Seven: A fight can last for several minutes, but likely won’t last more than three. It’s exhausting work. During the fight, expect there to be several phrases, with each phrase built of 2 to 5 actions. A typical phrase might be attack ->parry, riposte ->parry, counter-riposte. Rarely, another counter-riposte. One might also see attack ->parry, riposte ->counter-offensive action (attack in time, arrest, etc). Phrases of 4 actions or more are rare. After the final action the combatants will usually break distance to evaluate what just happened and look for new opportunities. They might also simply hold their guards but take no new action for a moment as they evaluate the phrase that’s just passed.

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If the actual action is only a few minutes long, I don't think it should take several pages. Unless it was done in an utterly brilliant fashion (completely plausible!) it would seen unnaturally drawn-out. I think filling the space, albeit short, with intense action and using all the "writerly" tricks to increase the tension should be more than enough to make your point. You can spend your time afterward having the character reflect on the actions or talking to others if it really seems too abbreviated, but all things considered I think short and sweet is just fine.

[polymath]

Two kinds of close fighting I've seen in literature, ritual combat, no less deadly for following a code of conduct, and street fighting which follows no Marquess of Queensbury rules. I'm not a fighter by any stretch of the imagination, though I've studied most of the pugilistic arts, hand-to-hand and close weapons combat, and projectile combat. And been a punching dummy for instructors and acquaintances' practice.

I've witnessed my share of street fights. They usually begin combat, after tradings boasts and insults, with a sucker punch or a similar sly assault. More often than not, a sucker punch was the first and last blow landed.

One street fight I witnessed was a ritual combat, two knuckleheads vying for unofficial kickboxer champion of the county. They'd been drinking and their discussion turned from who's who, to who's the best. They had to take it outside to settle the question. They fought like it was a square dance, pogo jumping all the while, feint, close, refuse contact, feint, close, kick or punch, double jab, block, retreat, boast, compliment one another for an effective blow, feint, close, refuse contact, and so on. It was over in two minutes and both of them were knocked senseless and bloody. So when the police arrived they couldn't flee. They were still best of friends the last time I ran into them.