By Merlyn Roth
I love reading a good action sequence.
I also rarely find a good action sequence to read. They’re hard to write! Too often they’re either too minimal (can’t tell what’s going on and everything goes by too fast), too wordy (the fight feels incredibly slow and like the characters are overthinking every action), or—my least favorite—incredibly unrealistic.
I don’t want to read a fight scene where the main character’s plot armor is preventing them from any actual injury. I don’t want to read a fight scene where the main character is so overpowered (’she was the BEST fighter, INCREDIBLY athletic, had INSANE body control, NOTHING could touch her, EVERY move she made was the right one and EVERY blow was an IMMEDIATE knockout’) that it feels like a parody of itself.
I find that last one both extremely common, and extremely irritating. Worst of all, many writers don’t seem to realize that the human body doesn’t actually have what I like to call ‘free real estate.’
What is free real estate?
Have you ever been reading a book where the main character takes an arrow to the shoulder or a bullet to the thigh? It’s fine! They pull the arrow out, dig the bullet out, and they’re back to normal immediately. No long term effects whatsoever! That’s when writers treat certain parts of the human body as ‘free real estate,’ as if any damage taken in that particular area is basically inconsequential. Those injures are just there to make the reader go ‘ah, the main character has taken damage,’ and nothing more.
But by this point, injuries like this aren’t worrying or surprising. Nobody bats an eye when a character is shot in the shoulder. Everyone knows they’ll get patched up, a bandage will be slapped on, and they’ll be right as rain the next day.
Friends, this isn’t how injuries work. Shoulder injuries, in fact, often take an excruciatingly long time to heal. I’ll never forget when my father underwent rotator cuff surgery (because a torn muscle in his shoulder had been plaguing him for years and preventing him from raising his arm over his head, or lifting anything too heavy) and his arm was out of commission for half a year. For the next six months he slept in a recliner instead of his bed because his shoulder couldn’t handle any pressure.
Shoulders are, in fact, important—as most joints are!
Thighs? Thigh injuries might recover faster, but taking a bullet—or an arrow—to the thigh is going to cause extraordinary pain. In fact, getting shot ANYWHERE will cause extraordinary pain. The concept of ‘big tough guy ripping an arrow out because he can’t be bothered’ only works in the heat of the moment—once adrenaline wears off, even that big tough guy is going to be forced to acknowledge 1. Ow, 2. Things need treated, 3. There might be lasting damage.
Don’t be afraid to hurt your main character.
Characters SHOULD get hurt! In many novels—fantasy and sci-fi genres in particular—characters are constantly in danger. Life- and limb-threatening situations are run of the mill. It reads as disingenuous and unrealistic if they’re not getting injured at least sometimes.
So, how do you keep injuries interesting? (This doesn’t apply to real life, by the way. Real life injuries tend to be interesting enough on their own without needing to add drama.)
Here are some things to keep in mind when choreographing your story’s fight scenes!
- Shins are the body’s shields, unironically. If your character blocks a blow with their shin, the other person is going to h u r t. Shins can take a hard blow, too—Muy Tai is a great sport to watch if you want to see shins really earning their keep. (Shin blocks hurt both parties, for the record.)
- Headbutting someone is a fantastic way to knock yourself out and/or put yourself in a lot of pain, rendering you useless. Your character might be a barbarian, but unless they have an armored forehead, chances are the headbutt is going to hurt them as well as the person they’re headbutting. If a squishy human is headbutting someone else, it’s a last-ditch move because both parties will likely be stunned.
- If your character punches someone in the teeth, the other person’s teeth won’t always break—but the puncher’s hand will likely get cut up! Watch a few UFC fights and you’ll probably notice this.
- Scalps bleed like crazy. If your character gets cut on their head, it can easily bleed into their eyes and blind them.
- You’re far more likely to daze your opponent if you hit them on the side of the head. The sides of the head are softer, and require less force when bashing.
- Contrary to many fantasy stories, a character who’s taken many concussions does not get ‘more resistant’ to concussions. In fact the more concussions you take, the more likely you are to develop a condition called ‘glass jaw,’ meaning it’s MUCH easier to knock you out, and those knockouts are MUCH more likely to cause lasting damage.
- Fingers and toes break easily in fights. If you don’t land a punch or a kick just right, the likelihood of breaking those appendages is high—rendering the rest of the fight much harder and much more painful.
- If you get punched in the nose, your eyes will water, reducing visibility.
- Adrenaline is, as they say, a hell of a drug—but adrenaline wears off. Your character might fight like a berserker while adrenaline is pumping, but as soon as it starts to wear off, EVERYTHING will hurt. The aftermath of everything from a smack to a stab will ache, bleeding, burn, be tender—you name it.
- If you think the pain the day OF a fight hurts, wait until the day after when bruises and injuries have really had time to swell and soften.
OF COURSE in speculative fiction, not every character is built like a human. Some will be tougher,
faster, more nimble; some might have fast-healing properties or armored skin (or just regular
armor). So think it through! What injuries make sense for which characters?
And don’t forget—not every character will fight the same way! If you’d like an article on different fighting styles and what those strengths/weaknesses look like, email us (hello@storytellersruletheworld.com) and let us know. In the meantime, have fun and remember—there’s no free real estate!
In their off hours, Merlyn Roth is an author of cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and horror, and a digital artist of SFW and NSFW character art. In their day job, they’re a farm hand, which means long hours in the sun…but at least they get to play with animals all day. They were one of the speakers at the 2024 Virtual Subscriptions for Authors Summit, where they talked about writing characters that hooked readers. You can find out more about Merlyn on their Ream.