How do you write these??? I've always sucked at them. Tips would be great.

I'll admit I'm not very good at them either. I did come across some tips for them and zeroed in on what things I need to do to hopefully improve.

The first tip is to read other people's renditions of them. This is my biggest problem... I've watched a lot of them but I've only read a few. (It does help with the next tip though.)

The second tip is to visualize the scene. While you are doing that, write it all down. Everything that comes to mind, from all perspectives. This will give you a reference to pull from. Don't try to include everything in the finished scene however. In live action, they show the action and the reaction. The same premise applies to written fight scenes but it's a lot harder since you have to describe it from a single perspective. (Or at least it helps. I find omniscient writing is harder to connect with. And you want the reader to feel connected, involved in the moment.) You can choose to describe it from an observer's perspective or from the perspective of one of the people in the fight. They each have their advantages and limitations. An observer can see everything that's happening but they won't feel any of the physical impact. The fighter will feel all the physical impact but they can't know everything that is going on.

The third tip is to make sure your words have energy and impact. Choose action verbs. Keep sentences as short and to the point as possible. This increases the pace and helps the reader feel the anxiety and excitement of the moment.

The final tip is practice. As with all writing, the more you do it the better you will get. (This is my second problem. I haven't tried in a while because I get frustrated when I can see what's happening in my head but I can't seem to get it down on the page.)

Omg this is a problem I struggle with so much myself, and I make it so hard for myself because I love writing all sorts of action/fight scenes. And I also love writing scrappy angry characters who go like FIGHT ME nearly constantly. My stories always play out so coolly in my head but when I put it down to words it suddenly becomes adkslkdajskladj

Found this amazing post on tumblr with some tips on action writing, it's really helped me alot and I hope you will find them useful as well! Here's the link! Here's an reply to the post above with more good tips!

thank you both of you!!! I will definitely check those out! I am trying to write a magical girl story, but it includes Melee instead of just spells and stuff. In addition, I want to be a script writer so this is extremely important for me to learn how to do these right.

Hi again! I'm not sure what kind of fight scene you're looking to write, but I was searching for some tips of my own to help me with my own story and came across this blog just filled with writing advice from knives/guns/fantasy fights. I hope this helps! :)

thank you so much! This is so cool since I was in martial arts for 8 years. :D

Great topic, and I thoroughly enjoy the links that have been provided so far.

I've always struggled writing fight scenes, which is majorly important if you're working on a post apocalyptic work. One thing I've realized is that you have to figure out the appropriate pacing for the scene and setting. As a roleplayer, I've noticed that sometimes people would drag out a fight, which, if it were to actually happen, it wouldn't take nearly as long. For something that's high energy and meant to keep reader in the moment, I personally like the prose to reflect that by not dragging it out. However, sometimes a fight, even if it is brief, needs the pace to slow down for dramatic effect. For example, in a more realistic setting that takes place in high school, I had to 'slow down' a character punching another character in the face because it was a pivotal movement, and arguably, the climax of this short story. The narrator reaches his breaking point, and for the reader to experience the full effect along with the immediate repercussions, they have to be sucked into that moment for all of it to really sink in. It's one heck of a challenge.

Also be aware that creative writing allows you to be more free with grammar, punctuation, ect.

How you word and punctuate a sentence can give a slower or faster pace to the scene. As I write exclusively in first person POV I will have the narrator not finish a word to better show a chaotic fight scene. Though this might be something that would only work with first person POV now that I think about it O.o