Fight Scenes Part 1: Purpose
"Don't tell me I can't fight,
'Cause I'll punch out your lights…"
-Moxy Fruvous
Do we really need a reason for a good fight scene? Well, in comics, SF, fantasy, and the rest of that vague continuum that we refer to as "genre fiction" the answer might at first appear to be no.
Flip through the typical superhero comic, and you'll find it loaded with fight scenes. They are everywhere. It's not unheard of to have an issue that is basically one huge brawl punctuated with the occasional bit of dialogue, usually to set up the next exchange of punches or gunplay or whatever.
When I write scripts for Stone and Perils of Picorna, I write a lot of fight scenes. And I've written a fair amount in my Luminations and Four Visitors serials at The Edge of Propinquity.
Part of what's going on here is that I try to write fight scenes with a purpose. I want to avoid having the scene detract from the story. And that means that it needs to do more than just advance the plot. At the heart of each story are the characters and the changes that the characters undergo over the course of the events in the story. That's what holds the reader's interest.
Quick obvious (some might say blatantly obvious) example involving a well-known battle scene: Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star. Obviously that advances the plot. The Rebel Alliance is not destroyed. They are now free to um… relocate to Hoth, actually. But the point is that the Rebellion lives on. But that's not really the point, is it? The point is that Luke is able to find the faith that he had been seeking, and his acceptance of the Force makes the difference, allowing him to perform the heroic feat that he would not have been capable of back when he was this whiny punk who just wanted to go into town to shop for power converters.
The battle scene is necessary to show that the hero has grown. That's the kind of purpose that you often see in big, climactic fight scenes. We've got one of those planned for Perils of Picorna. In issue #6. Because big, climactic scenes tend to happen, well, near the climax. I'm writing a big, climactic fight scene into Stone as well, although in that battle, the focus will not be on Donna Stone, but on the soldiers she has taught and trained.
Earlier in stories, fights serve other purposes. Here are a few:
To put the hero or villain over. Actually, since I'm dipping into my pro wrestling jargon here, I should probably have said to put the face or the heel over.
This is a scene that builds a character up. Superhero comics use this type of thing all the time, with mixed results. Sometimes it works. Occasionally it fails badly. Sometimes it just feels like a dull routine.
A group of muggers close in on their victim, who is walking alone along a shadowy street in a Gotham City slum. Most of you can probably figure out what's coming, and let me assure you. The purpose of this is not because The Batman has some character flaw that he needs to overcome in order to beat these guys. These guys are jobbers (cannon-fodder would be the term for those not so inclined toward WWE action). The reader is going to see the Batman take these generic thugs apart, and the purpose is nothing more than to remind the reader that the Batman is someone that you do NOT want to mess with.
This works equally well with villains. After all, we want the villain to present a challenge for the hero. Otherwise the story is not going to be all that interesting.
Here's an example of how NOT to do this. Meet Vultura (played by Lorna Gray).
She's the villainess in the serial Perils of Nyoka (1942), which is one of my inspirations for the Perils of Picorna comic book that I co-write.
Vultura is in a fight scene with Nyoka (Kay Aldridge) in the first episode. It doesn't go well for the villainess. She gets trounced. In fact, Vultura needs a guy in a gorilla suit to help her by the time it's all said and done.
This is a problem, because like I said we're only in episode 1. And we've just established that our "Big Bad" villain is no match for the general spunk and scrappiness of the heroine (let's just say that nobody actually displays a whole lot of fighting skill here; but Kay Aldridge does totally bring the scrappy).
In Perils of Picorna, we have a fight scene between our (scrappy) heroine Picorna and our villainess Jespina at the beginning of the second issue, and we went for a different result. Here's a bit of preview from the upcoming second issue (featuring the artwork of the awesome Missy Pena!):
What we're doing here is establishing the villain as a challenge (getting her over, as the jargon would have it). A difficult challenge, which will hopefully get the readers wondering how Picorna is ever going to find a way to defeat Jespina.
Fight scenes can also be used to provide lesser challenges for the hero, possibly to mark the progress on the heroic journey.
And of course, they can advance the plot, although often what can be accomplished plot-wise with a fight can be accomplished in many other ways as well.
Fight scenes are fun to write, so it's easy to get caught up in them, especially in a fighting-heavy genre. When I write, I try to approach each fight scene with a sense of purpose, and that purpose is usually more than just moving the plot along. It's part of the establishment, growth, and development of characters.
I'm looking forward to writing some good character development, including the occasional punch in the face.
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