This year I had the joy of teaching Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) and stage combat at the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference. After each class and during the 15 minute strategy sessions, students asked questions about their specific fight scenes.

Because several general questions arose repeatedly, I’m going to address them here to help others who are wanting to write combat into their stories.

These three tips can help you frame fight scenes that grab attention, further your plot, and show character development without distracting your readers from the story.

1. Understand Your Fight Sequence.

I’m a proponent of the world building philosophy that you should know more about your entire world than your readers do.

You may know all of your lore and history, but you don’t have to give your audience every detail. Rather, your world should be so infused with your knowledge that the reader has the feeling of being in a new universe.

The same can be true with a fight scene. In a movie or play, the entire fight would be choreographed for the actors. I recommend that you have the same detailed understanding of your sequences. You want to know your fight scene in its entirety–if a move makes sense, if the reaction follows from an action, and if a series of moves is even possible.

However, you don’t necessarily need to do a play-by-play in your story. You might have an extended fight scene, but you can also provide general details until you get to the climax, pick up in medias res, or use any number of artistic strategies to make the scene enjoyable.

The main purpose of knowing your sequence is so that your reader doesn’t struggle with understanding what’s happening because the plot of the fight doesn’t make sense to you and thus to them.

2. Avoid Using Obscure Terminology.

This question arose in at least two classes that I taught: “Should I use terms like oberhau

or unterhau in my fight scenes?”

Unless you’re writing for a niche audience, I recommend avoiding the uncommon jargon from the HEMA manuscripts or karate manuals. The manuscripts are akin to technical writing. They are dry and difficult to read at times because they’re so step-by-step.

You are writing action sequences meant to entertain and amaze your audience. The fight scenes are vehicles of inspiration rather than merely how-to guides.

Knowing the technical terminology can help you in crafting the fight scene for yourself, but the jargon may distract the reader from understanding and enjoying your story.

That being said, seeing the phrase “Wrath Strike!”* would delight my soul if I read it in a book.

3. Have a working knowledge of your weapons and what harm they can do.

If your characters fight with weapons, you need to have a working knowledge of what makes that weapon dangerous and the harm that the weapon can cause.

For example, bladed weapons are partly defined by where the blade is sharpened. A hunting knife is usually sharp on one side while swords are sharpened on both edges. Some weapons are sharp on one side and partly sharpened on the opposite, depending on the shape of the blade. These distinctions will determine how the weapons are used in a fight.

In a fantasy setting, the weapon can have any shape or style, of course. The main thing is that you know the functionality of the weapon, what damage it causes, and how it causes the damage.

The Homeric epics, especially the Iliad, do an excellent job of designating how a spear works and what it does. Almost every heroic warrior hurls a spear with the result that the spine and/or some major organ erupts from the other side of his doomed opponent. You have absolutely no question about how the spear is wielded and how it is going to destroy you.

A Google search usually yields all the answers you need for the weapons, but if you can get involved in martial training, you’ll have a more in-depth working knowledge of your chosen methods of pain.

Fight Scenes Have a Purpose.

As with all advice, take what serves you and jettison the rest. If you’re a genius at making obscure terminology feel normal, bring in all the Italian names for a parry and teach the world!

If your fight scene is both unbelievable and amazing, take to heart the adage “never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.”

What matters most, in my experience, is that the fight scene makes sense in its structure and in its service to the development of plot and character.

These three tips can help you keep the reader in the flow of the story and leave your world feeling satisfied and looking forward to the next book.

* ”Wrath Strike” is one translation for the term “Zornhau” in the German manuscripts.