craft - FightWrite

How to Make a Dangerous Character

FightWrite — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 20:15:51 +0000

What makes a character scary? Why does the circling shark make the men onboard the Orca tremble? Why does the hound roaming Dartmoor warrant a call to Sherlock Holmes? Why does a writer’s number one fan fill every cockadoodie reader with dread? The answer is simple. Each of these characters poses a physical threat. Why do they pose that threat? The answer to that isn’t quite so plain. In today’s post with FightWrite® on the WD blog, we are going to look at what makes a character dangerous, the framework behind judging the credibility of a threat and how we …

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Universal Facial Expressions

FightWrite — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 18:32:41 +0000

When it comes to communication, what is said actually says the least. As much as 65% of communication is unspoken[i]. It is so vital that we are born with an understanding of it[ii]. The importance of body language lies in why communication as a whole is indispensable. We need it to survive. As this unspoken communication is so vital for humans, it’s important for the characters we write as well. In the next few posts with FightWrite, we will be looking at the unspoken dialogue our characters bodies can speak. In today’s post we will look at universal facial expressions. …

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Writing Deception – Verbal Content and Style

FightWrite — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 20:32:00 +0000

Deception is manipulating the thoughts or feelings of others for personal gain. And, no matter how good our characters might be at deceiving others, they will always give clues to their duplicity. In this post we will look at how deception can be revealed through the very words our characters use to conceal it. To understand how that deception might be revealed, we have to understand how deceiving relates to running from bears. What is Deception Deception is not lying. In fact, the best deception involves truth which is why it is a vital tool in the fighter’s tool chest. …

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Fight Write Round Two Muchahuahua

FightWrite — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 04:45:24 +0000

In Fight Write, Round Two, we watch a fight scene take shape. This is that scene. It is not perfect nor intended to be. It is meant to be a resource companion for the book to which writers can use the tools they have learned. They can map out the action, monitor pacing, look for weapons of opportunity, circle what they like and cross out what they don’t. It is the writer’s piñata to bust as they see fit. Enjoy! Download To Print *** Combat Con La Muchahuahua *** The morning sun touched lightly on the blood-spattered dandelion flowers. Dew …

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Writing Scenes With Sparring

FightWrite — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 15:47:54 +0000

Sparring scenes matter. To write great scenes with sparring, we first need to understand what sparring is, isn’t, and what makes them great. If you look up “the best fighting movies of all time,” you will see a great deal of overlap in the top ten. I have seen many of those films and they all have something in common beyond fighting sequences. They all have scenes with sparring. Now, I don’t know about you, but I love those scenes. They are far more than action sequences. In this post, we will look at writing scenes with sparring. We will …

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Why Your Character is Fighting

FightWrite — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 15:34:18 +0000

Why anyone does anything is everything. Getting out of bed to go to work is a wholly different enterprise than getting out of bed because you hear your dog being sick. Why? Because the reason is different. Even if you love your job, you won’t fly out of that bed like you would upon hearing your pet summon gastric juices. The latter is a very “spring loaded” situation. You’re the same person, you’re still just getting out of bed. The difference is the why. It is the same with fight scenes! Why a fight is happening changes the fight because …

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Where Your Fight Scene Takes Place

FightWrite — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 15:31:00 +0000

When writing a fight scene, where it takes place is of the utmost importance. In fact, where a fight takes place is more important than who is fighting. Don’t believe me? Read on. The importance of where a fight takes place Think about it like this, would you rather fight a gorilla or a shark? Well, it all depends if you’re on water or land. On land, you could best a shark just by sitting and being patient. And, in the water, a gorilla is just a hairy anchor. You could win that fight just floating on my back. Where …

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What Fight Scenes Can Do For Your Story

FightWrite — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 15:34:10 +0000

What fight scenes can do a lot for your story is a lot! Like, a lot, a lot. Stuff that goes far beyond the fray. Don’t dismiss them as a one-dimensional. A fight scene can be so much more than a moment of action, a scene that just gets left behind as the story progresses. Trust me, those scuffles, clashes and battle of wills can give you a whole heap of options that you might not have considered. Those options can be carried throughout the story, or carry the story all on its own. mapping your fight scene Define …

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Fight Scenes With Magic

FightWrite — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 19:41:33 +0000

December is a magical time of year. So, I thought it only appropriate for FightWrite™ to discuss fight scenes with magic. We keep it nerdy all year here! I have been helping writers with fight scenes for over five years now. Without question, the writers I mentor most are those of speculative fiction. And, because spec-fic includes basically everything with an element that doesn’t exist in reality, the majority of my work has centered around fight scenes with magic or fantastic qualities. Magic in fight scenes is a vast and deep subject. By magic I also mean any …

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NaNoWriMo Fight Scene Guide

FightWrite — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 20:23:08 +0000

November is National Novel Write Month a.k.a. NaNoWriMo. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to get that manuscript out of your head and onto the screen. You aren’t writing a finished product. You are putting the pieces and parts of the monster on the table. Sewing it together, shocking it to life and putting it in a sports jacket will come later. And, when you find yourself arranging the bones of a scene with a brawl, here is FightWrite™’s quick and dirty guide to NaNoWriMo fight scenes. NaNoWriMo Fight Scene Guide – Serve the Story But first, before we go further, …

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