Board Thread:General Wiki Discussion/@comment-4952704-20150304163627

This forum post is partly inspired by one of Sci's. Which one? The one about stupid comedy. Anyway, this is something i have wanted to bring up for a while now. People like Nick know this by now, i am not a fan of fight scenes in fan fics. Mostly because they're written really boring, at least a lot of them.

This might seem a little random, but tell me in the comments, how many of you simply get bored of fight scenes or try to skim through them? I don't mean fight scenes in tv and movie, i mean written on here. Do you know why The Number Game is so great? Well, let me ask you this, was it great because of the fight scenes? Or was it clever writing? If you say the first, i'm shocked. But i myself think its clever writing that made it great.

I might be alone in all this, i might be the only one who thinks most fight scenes on here are really boring. But i'm willing to bet i'm not the only one. If i'm not, you may be asking me or yourself "What makes it boring?". I'm gonna cover that right now.

Suspense/Intensity: This is a big one. Many scenes lack the intensity and suspense. Fight Scenes are supposed to get you excited, get really jumpy, and all that. However, a lot of the fight scenes i see do not make me feel suspense. Why? For one, nobody ever uses the surroundings/environment to their advantage. The best action scenes in movie and TV is when the surroundings actually play a part.

Case in point: The train sequence from Spider-Man 2. Why was that so great? I'll tell you. Just imagine for a minute, what if the train itself wasn't moving. Like just a train that isn't moving at all, with no people in it. Just a fight on top of a non-moving train. See how lame that sounds? Spidey and Ock were fighting on a moving train, while dodging from the surroundings and each other. Ock threw Spidey off the train, and he had to get back up, etc. That had suspense because for once, '''IT USED THE SURROUNDINGS TO ITS ADVANTAGE. '''Hell, when Spidey tries to stop the train, that's an extent of that. Now compare everything that goes on in that scene, to just Spider-Man and Doc Ock fighting on a train, not moving at all, with no people. No dodging the surroundings or anything. See?

If you're writing a fight scene on a... let's say spaceship, that's gifted for you. You have the surroundings to your advantage. Play around with that, make some of the parts crash and have the villains/heroes be sucked out, make the spaceship go places, dodge meteorites/suns, go to random planets avoding the surroundings there. That sounds really cool, but that is not all. You need something else, and i'll tell you what you need.

A Suspenseful Villain: This one is a bit hard to explain. I'm gonna tell you to imagine things a lot this time. So imagine a villain. But, a really powerful one. A major one. A beast of a man, someone who you fear. But also, as someone who never lost a fight. Someone who always won, no matter what, against anyone. Lets say your hero, lets call him Richard 50, isn't exactly a noob but isnt super skilled either. Someone who can be taken down and has lost, but he's still the hero of the story, he still wins in the end.

Put your fearsome and skilled villain up against someone who is half noob, plus add the surroundings. But you're gonna need clever writing, so make the villain actually ADAPT to the hero. Make him be like a person who makes his opponent go first, so he can adapt to him quickly. I don't mean adapting as a power, i mean like someone who actually uses his brain. Cause if it's a power, its kinda lame at that point. Do a lot of dodging, a lot of powerful hits, especially from the villain.

To further aid this, after your first encounter with this villain, use the strongest side character that you have. Lets say that this Richard 50 has this mentor, who is super skilled and almost the same level as your villain. After you've showcased the villains' ability to take down Richard 50, let him fight your strongest man next. This is where some of the suspense comes into play, as both are almost equally skilled. Now you do the almost equal amount of hits to each other. Lets say that Richard 50's hits felt light to the villain, but the villains' hits made Richard 50 go almost unconscious.

Now that you've got your big guy, let them fight. Show them dodging each other, show the villain actually struggling as well as the mentor. Not just with the fighting, with the surroundings as well. They both got power and skill, so that should make them both struggle. Now, this is important as well, DO NOT, under ANY circumstances make the villain lose/cheat. Yeah maybe the villain can have cheap shots/cheat with the surroundings, but but for the final take out, never make the villain lose. Make him win, and actually show him adapting. And not cheating, that's really lame, and takes away some suspense from the villain. But you need more than just a great villain and all that, you need one more thing:

Clever Writing/Detail: The final piece of all this, DETAIL. I think that is one thing TJ did right with his fight scenes, he gave details. He made it feel cinematic. He gave details to camera angles, to what the hero/villain is actually doing. He isn't just being like "(Jetray shoots lasers)". No. That is incredibly lazy, and it takes you out of the fight scene. Just give more detail to that, say where he's shooting lasers, and if you want, add realism. Say that around Jetray's eyes/tail, there's burn marks. Say that there's smoke coming out of the lasers, just keep it detailed.

Explain the camera angle, don't be like "(Richard and Illuminatibot fight on the central ship)", that is also lazy. Explain the fight, and give details to camera angles, if you imagine it to be a bird's eye view, then detail it to what you imagine. Instead of just saying they both fight, if you imagine Richard uppercutting Illuminatibot, SAY THAT. It ain't that hard.

But of course, you need more than just detail. Be clever. I've stated that make the villain adapt, show how he adapts. Make him observe wtf Richard is doing, or go all the way, make it that Richard does the same moves every time on each of his villains. Maybe fight 1 would be semi-unpredictable for the villain, but fight 2 is where the villain just blocks everything. Like if Richard 50 always does scoop slams, make the villain do this on Richard instead, etc. Detail your fight and be clever with your writing.

I think that's all you need for your fight scenes to make it, at the very least, good. If you can do all of this at once, i will go to your message wall and clap. Before Sci or whoever comes in here and argues that this isn't tv or movie, does that excuse boring fight scenes? Also, bonus tip, take advantage of your powers. Like if Richard 50 can shoot lasers out of his eyes and electricity out of his hands, make him do both. Or do that Grudge Match thing with Stinkfly and Kevin, that was really cool to see.

I've said all i needed to say, comment opinions down below. 