Two weeks ago, I had mentioned that I was going to be hosting an online forum workshop in writing fight scenes, for the Catholic writer's guild. Karina Fabian had managed to draft me ... or I volunteered, I'm not entirely certain. Either way, it was an interesting little experience.
Since most of you folks have been with me for a while, I'm going to give it to you.
Don't worry, I wasn't paid for this, so giving this away for free will hurt no one. And, few to no people wanted to show up and play with my workshop, even though there were over 25 viewers for each post. But, I've been told few people showed up anyway for the forums, something to do with schedule confusion.
So, since this workshop screwed over my blog posts last week, I figure that I should get some use out of it.
This is how I began.
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Introduction: Writing a fight scene –
Who or what is a “John Konecsni,” and why does he get to tell me
about fighting?
It's a good question, and one that
needs to be answered before many of you begin this workshop. I have
been writing fight scenes since I was sixteen. I've written many
novels, most of which fester on my home computer, and that I
constantly revise the more I learn about life, the universe, and how
to better destroy both. I grew up wanting to write thrillers and
science fiction military novels, and I originally thought the best
way to go about having a fast-moving novel was to have as many fight
scenes as often as possible. Then I read them, and spiked more fights
than I can recall.
In short, I'm a person who has studied
many a fight scene, and has learned from his own mistakes. I mention
this because there will be instances where you will read some of this
and wonder, “Why is he telling me this? Does he think I'm stupid?”
The answer is no, but these were
mistakes that I have made repeatedly over time, and sometimes still
make when I don't think.
One of the documents that you will need
can be found at this link here. It is a collection of “how to” articles for self defense and
fighting. It is a compilation of a lot of basic fighting techniques,
as well as things related to fighting. In short, you don't need any
previous knowledge of any fighting technique, martial art, or even
the basics of street fighting for this workshop. I will, however,
recommend right now that you check out the link, and at least give
each article mentioned a passing glance. They will be used over the
course of the workshop.
Recommended reading:
Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series
(for fight scenes on both small and large scale)
David Weber's Honor Harrington series
(for navel warfare)
John Ringo's Posleen War, Ghost
and Princess of Wands
series (mostly for hand-to-hand, infantry, and special warfare)
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