DXX

[desperance]

...and still of course not finished the chapter I fondly, foolishly thought I might have finished yesterday, because that's not the way these things work and you'd think I would've known that by now.

Still, onward and, uh, onward. Farther up and farther in. The end might almost be in sight - tho' actually I'm going to the shops now, to replenish my store of chocolate biscuits. I might think of something else, too, while I'm there. You can never have enough shopping.

Comments

Avoidance abounds

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

Hee. I'm out of chocolate, too, and I need it because... Well, because.

And I'm doing this and updating my LJ profile and cleaning the bathroom and anything else I can think of, but not scribbling because there's a Fight Scene I need to work on. *gulp*

Fight scenes are hard.

Re: Avoidance abounds

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Uh-huh. Is true. Have you heard my heresy? Fight scenes are dull. Dull to write, dull to read. "He hits him, then he hits him, then..." Etc. Ad mortem. I've got a big one coming up, and I'm dreading it.

Which is of course why they're so hard to write, because we try harder, because the default position is so dull...

Re: Avoidance abounds

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

There's no scene so hard it can't be tackled by sufficient avoidance, here's my favourite example of a fight scene not wasting any space on the fighting:

"I didn't stop to threaten, just struck his unveiled face. It was a soldier's gesture of contempt, but it put him on the ground, and when he scrambled to his feet he had drawn his sword.

I remember little of what happened next. The city man was no match for one of the desert such as us, and with the battle rage in me I only stopped when someone seized my sword arm."

Re: Avoidance abounds

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

Ooh - that's a good one; I've made a note of that.

My plan is to write in some detail, cringe at what I've written, then cut most of it out.

Fight scenes, like some sauces, need a lot of reduction.

Re: Avoidance abounds

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

Heh. It's true.

One last skive - I have to pick up a prescription - then I'm getting stuck in.

I have highlights of the Rugby Union world cup to remind me of chaps the size of Jonny Wilkinson tackling chaps the size of Chabal or Ibanez - and stopping them. Sometimes. It can be messy and skilful and amazing and doomed. But it can be done. It can.

Then I can go back later and look at what I've written and go, 'No, no, no....' *g*

[angelsasha.livejournal.com]

I went to the shop at lunchtime to buy boring stuff like pasta, stock cubes and mouthwash but they had chocolate on offer at the end of several aisles. Maltesers, Minstrels, Chocolate Orange, Toblerone, chocolate Digestives, it went on and on! How is a girl supposed to resist? *wibble*

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

You have a store of chocolate biscuits? How can you have a store of chocolate biscuits? Chocolate biscuits aren't for storing...

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

Right - here goes. Fortified by coffee and chocolate, I'm heading into the fray. Wish me luck.

How did you say it goes? Oh yes. He hits him....

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Now you're getting it. My work here is done.

*departs, for other realms*

To the Angel of the Fight Scene

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

Thank you - 'tis done :) All I have to do now is type it up!

I hope you enjoyed your sojourn in other realms, however brief it may have been....

Re: To the Angel of the Fight Scene

[desperance.livejournal.com]

"Enchanting as it is to wander in a garden of bright images, are we not distracting your mind from a subject of almost equal importance?"

(From memory, and not quite right: must reread book.)

That was swift: bravo! Or, given that it's a fight scene, bravado!

I must go and finish my multi-purposed interview between characters with hidden agendas. Damn them. Life used to be so much easier, when all my characters said exactly what they meant on every occasion...

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

It's probably cruel, but it thrills me no end that you keep on having to relearn parts of the process every time you do this. I thought I'd have to be sitting in the Dummy Corner all by myself ... *g*

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. It must be, oh, twenty years since I promulgated Brenchley's First Law of Everything, which states - unequivocally - that Everything Takes Longer. And it still applies, even though I know it and I think I've accounted for it...

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

Okay. I'm having that tattooed on my forehead.