How to Write a Compelling Fight Scene in Your Fantasy Novel

Many authors find fight scenes notoriously difficult to write. Maybe you just skipped the fight scene chapter until last? Or maybe you haven’t even written it yet? Sound familiar? If so – and you’ve written a science fiction or fantasy novel – then this blog post is for you.

So why are fight scenes tricky to write?

Well, they’re usually high stakes and the outcome is crucial to the plot. In a fight scene, every sentence counts, and most authors don’t have lots of personal fighting experience to draw on. Plus, there are lots of badly scripted fight scenes out there in the wild. TV and film often inspire authors, but these formats have different requirements to the novel format, so what works in TV and film might not work on paper.

And there are several easy mistakes to make, too, from getting the logistics wrong and not being immersive enough, through to overemphasizing the tech or magic to carry the scene forward. But before we dive into these details, it’s important to get the basics right. If readers don’t care about what happens to the characters involved, or the stakes are not big enough (in the context of the story), then your fight scene will fall flat even if it is well scripted.

Three highly experienced editors will now take you through some other important points to consider. We’ll start with the bigger-picture issues you’d expect a developmental editor to cover, and then move down to sentence level.

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Fight scenes in fantasy fiction novels

Here’s what Genevieve Clovis of Clovis Editorial has to say:

There are so many elements that go into writing a compelling and believable fight scene. A lot of advice for fight scenes holds true across genres, but sometimes we need to get a little genre-specific. Kath Kirk will talk about fight scenes in science fiction in a moment, so I’m going to focus on the fantasy genre, specifically on using magic in your fight scenes.

Let’s assume you’ve followed the oft-touted guidelines of ensuring the use of magic costs the user something (this could be a physical, emotional, or social cost). In a fight scene where magic is being used, this cost needs to make itself known either during the fight itself or immediately after. There are lots of ways you can play around with this idea, but the most important thing to remember is that whatever the character is fighting for has to mean more to them than what they’re giving up by using their magic. The exception to this is if the character doesn’t yet know about the cost, in which case, this is a great moment for them to learn about it.

Your characters are no doubt awesome and willing to pay the price of using their magic. But before you ruthlessly dump them in the middle of a battle, think about how they use their magic, because this will have a huge impact on how they fight. Maybe they have super strength and are invulnerable and therefore are just going to run in swinging and have themselves a grand melee. That style of fighting makes sense with those innate powers, but if your character needs to cast a spell, how do they do that? Do they need to concentrate? Do they need to draw out runes, wave a wand, perform a certain set of hand gestures? Is there an oral component? If they need time to set up a spell, then chances are they won’t be in the thick of battle. They’ll be somewhere on the edges where they are safe from immediate attack but can see what is going on and aim their spells appropriately.

Whether your character is in the thick of things or providing support from the edges, you want your readers to be experiencing this moment with them. The best way to do that is to show your reader what it feels like to wield this magic. Is the magic internal? If so, how does it feel inside the character’s body? And how does that feeling change when they cast a spell or use their magic?

If the magic is coming from an external source, the character is probably still going to feel something as they wield this power. Let the reader feel this with them. And when the character pays the price, let the reader feel that with them too by using sensory details to describe the impact that price has.

Fight scenes in science fiction novels

Just as magic needs to serve a plot and character development purpose, so does the tech. Kath Kirk of Gecko Edit warns writers not to let the tech get in the way of the story:

Hard science fiction, and even some softer science fiction, has a reputation for overwhelming readers with technobabble. But ultimately, fiction is entertainment (even when it’s asking big questions). Especially in fight scenes, it’s easy to get tangled up in the shiny gadgets. But a story is more fun when its protagonists are faced with obstacles, puzzles they need to solve using their own talents and particular expertise. That’s why in any given Doctor Who episode, the TARDIS goes missing or breaks down, or the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver is revealed to have a design flaw – it doesn’t work on wood!

Authors like Iain M Banks and Adrian Tchaikovsky are experts at making the tech serve a purpose as a vehicle for story, not a barrier to it. Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries have a weapon itself as a protagonist: a security bot who just wants to be left alone to watch crime serials. These authors show how the tech can be innovative and awesome, and as complex or simple as you like.

Keeping track of the types of damage that can be done with this laser or phaser pistol, or whether ballistic weapons are a good idea on a pressurized spaceship, is important. But every gadget needs to be serving the story, or it ends up being a lot of tinsel and sequins getting in the way of the human (or humanlike) experience of space, the future, and undiscovered worlds.

That also means that if you’ve come up with a great gadget that doesn’t serve the story, find a plot reason for it to exist. Don’t leave the reader wondering what the point was of Chekhov’s Death Star.

One key suggestion? Everything has limits. A tool without limits risks a deus ex machina cliché. The sonic screwdriver doesn’t work on wood. The TARDIS’s navigation is iffy at best. Murderbot’s anxiety around humans tends to distract it from its tasks. Tchaikovsky, in Children of Time, shows how even the most brilliant technology is limited by user error, insufficient data, or sabotage. Or plain bad luck. Metal rusts, circuits blow, and your hull integrity is only as good as the seals around the rivets holding it together.

These limits force the problem-solving to be done by the characters, not the tech (even when the characters might be tech themselves). So, give them a shiny catch-all weapon that makes them invincible. And then let it break.

Even when the tech is working, it should be bound by the rules of physics that you have set up in your universe. Readers tend to like it when this at least parallels the physics of reality. If there’s no gravity or pressure, falling into the abyss isn’t a threat. Whatever the rules are, make note of them and be consistent in how they are applied.

Fight scenes should be the most exciting part of the story, which means that at this point, the stakes are maxed out, the protagonist is facing their biggest external obstacle, and everything is looking pretty dire. Without limits on the technology, the stakes cannot get high enough to keep the tension exciting. And as earlier mentioned, without adequate stakes, readers don’t care what happens to the characters.

Count the bullets, keep track of things that are broken, and throw the technology into an environment or situation it was never designed for. The limits themselves are bounded only by your imagination.

Getting the logistics right in fight scenes

Tech or no tech, magic or no magic, getting the logistics right is super important for a good fight scene (and a good sex scene for that matter!). Here’s what Kate Nascimento of KN Editorial has to say on the topic:

One of the main aims of line editing is to help ensure, as far as possible, that the reader stays immersed in the world you’ve created, removing any potential distractions that might make them stop and “notice” they’re just reading words on a page. And while the life-and-death stakes of a fight scene might get readers’ hearts pumping, the thing most likely to trip them up is far more mundane: logistics.

Take this fight scene. . .

We were so close now. We could see the door that led to our freedom. But we were outnumbered.

Four guards stood at the other end of the long hallway, and there were only two of us left. I hoped Caelynn’s magic might give us a fighting chance. . .

She started strong, hurling a huge fireball at them. Two of the guards dove away, but it caught the other two head-on and they instantly dropped motionless to the floor, engulfed in flames. I grabbed hold of the one nearest to me with my left hand and drove my dagger between his ribs with my right. He staggered to the ground, pulling me down with him, and the knife slipped free of his chest.

As I tried to wrestle free of his grip, the remaining guard screamed. Something warm and wet spattered across my face, and I looked up to see the man literally pulled apart by an unseen force – another of Caelynn’s spells. I made a mental note to make sure I stayed on her good side, and then took the opportunity created by the distraction to twist the blade in the torso of the guard I was still grappling with. As he cried out, I kicked him in the stomach, sending him down to the floor.

There’s definitely some gnarly action. But did you notice that the main character was able to grab one of the guards even though they were all the way down the hallway? Or twist their knife in the guard’s chest when it had actually been pulled free in the previous paragraph? Or that they and the guard were wrestling on the ground, and yet somehow they were able to kick the guard in the stomach and send him to the floor again? You can bet lots of your readers would.

As a writer, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a fight scene – the thrill of seeing your magic or tech in action, the high stakes, the guts and gore. Where people are standing or which hand they’re holding a knife in might feel like minor details in the grand scheme of your story, but if there are inconsistencies – someone struggling up from the floor when they’re already standing, or somehow slashing the arm of a person who’s all the way across the room – they’ll really stand out, especially for readers with a visual imagination, who might see the fight play out like a scene from a movie (complete with continuity errors).

If you’re able to visualize the scene yourself as you write it, that’s a great way to make sure it all works logistically. But if that’s not something that comes naturally, you could try blocking it out with miniatures (think D&D, Warhammer, or even buttons or pens!) or drawing it out on a piece of paper instead. And, of course, your editor can help too!

And to finish. . .

We hope you found these tips useful. If you’re still stuck on a fight scene then get in touch with any of these editors for personalized feedback!

Genevieve Clovis is all about the magic and the monsters. She adores editing fantasy, horror, or really any speculative fiction, be it dark and scary or weird and whimsical.

Kath Kirk edits all kinds of fiction but especially loves experimental science fiction that examines the human experience when confronted with weird or new situations. She particularly enjoys epic universe-spanning space operas, but she’s been known to dip her toes in softer, more cozy sci-fi as well.

Kate Nascimento mainly edits fantasy and horror fiction, with a particular soft spot for the dark and the weird – dark fairy tales, ghostly voices in the night, anything involving blood or magic or blood magic. She also edits comics and games.

Andrew Hodges loves editing all sorts of stories from dark fantasy, high fantasy, dystopia, and supernatural thrillers through to literary fiction, slipstream, and magical realism.

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