Understanding melee combat for the fantasy writer.

Every fantasy writer should know how to write a fight scene that is neither boring nor Hollywood exaggeration. To that end I came up with this guide to help fantasy authors write exciting and logical fight scenes.  You need to start with the 8’s. The 8’s are the basis of all hand to hand fighting be it martial arts with hands and feet or weapons. Besides the eights you will need to know the three basic guards. It is from the guards all the hero’s attacks will come but more of that later. Melee combat can then be boiled down to what I call 3-8-8.

The basic guards are-

1- High Guard

2- Middle Guard

3- Low Guard

The high guard will place a weapon up to protect the head and shoulders. 

The middle guard places your weapon before the torso protecting from the shoulders to the groin. The low guard protects the groin to the ankles.

From any guard you are able to attack based on the 8s. You will have to make sure your writing flows with your imagination and your actions but if done well it all works together.

Mobility-

The first thing you need to focus on is the hero’s footwork. It is from the footwork that the hero can move and attack, or dodge and evade an attack. This is the first 8, the eight paths of movement.

In any combat situation you can only move in eight (8) directions-

1- Forward

2- Forward Right

3- Right

4- Back Right

5- Back

6- Back Left

7- Left

8- Forward Left.

This is it. If you stand up you can see the directions naturally. If you step forward or to the right you use your right foot. If you step forward and left it is your left foot that leads unless you do a crossing move in that direction. Crossing moves are called transitional movements because they take you from one place to another and adjusts your body position, slightly but provides for more offense or defense if done away from or towards your opponents dominant hand.

In any fight, real or imagined, everything takes places with these movements. Watch any boxing match, or MMA fight and see where the fighters place their feet. Someone is moving forward in one of those directions and the corresponding footwork backward is conducted by the other fighter. So if you understand how your character is moving, you will see how your villain will naturally move to get away from the hero, or move to meet the hero.

A key to helping you understand spatial placement during the move is that the average man's stride is 18 inches from heel to heel. Thus if your hero moves you can be reasonably accurate in your distances if you keep this in mind. A crossing move would place your hero 36 inches away if he is moving to dodge or flank, thus he is three feet from his opponent. Taking that into consideration, with a sword the hero might be away from the foe but able to still strike effectively.

Attack Angles and Zones-

The second 8 is the angles of attack: They also come from the eight points on the compass. Imagine the human body radiates the compass points outward starting with the high or head spot. You can see a progression from head to shoulder/chest to stomach/groin to upper legs to calf/feet and back up on the left side.

1- High

2- High Right

3- Right

4- Low Right

5- Low

6- Low Left

7- Left

8- High Left.

It is from these directions all melee attacks you write will come.  And it is from these directions that you will be able to see the most logical way your characters will defend the attack. 

Thus if the hero has a sword in a high guard, it will be up near their shoulders protecting their head. From here they can swing to the high, high right or high left naturally.  However, they can also attack right, low right, low left or left as easily by moving along the corresponding eight paths and then striking along the 8 angles open to them.

For instance your hero has a right-handed high guard with a long sword. His opponent has a long sword in a right-handed middle guard. The hero moves right then forward right to get an angle on her foe. By these two moves she is now on his left flank he has to turn to face the hero, since the movement places the hero outside of the natural range of the villain’s sword the hero can attack to the high, high right, right or low right areas of his body. These correspondingly are the head, left shoulder, left arm, left torso or left upper thigh.

Remember every move your hero makes is opposite to their opponent. If the hero moves right it is the villains left. If the move is to the left it is the villains right. Always describe the moves from your heroes perspective and when describing where your hero is hitting from the villain’s perspective.

i.e. Jerok swings his war sword from a high guard into a quick right strike to the surprised man's torso with the blade arcing down in a blur towards the exposed ribs on the left side of the barbarian guard.

Things to remember when writing a fight scene.

Attack and counter-attack: The primary tactical principle for all text fights is that for every attack there is a counter-attack. Opponent’s attacks are met with counter-cuts and thrusts that set aside the opponent’s weapon to force a way through their guard. Counters can be combined with avoidance, grapples and disarms to make them defenseless.

Avoidance: The first and most basic defense to a fighter is to not be where the weapon strikes. This may be accomplished by stepping back and out of range. However with a sword or any weapon that is being used in a swinging attack, the best method is to step into the opponent directly or at an angle to either side and counter-attacking.

Setting Aside: Attacks may be countered by setting them aside with the heroes own weapon. This is similar to a parry. Setting aside is an action that happens two ways, by either cutting into it to strike the opponent by passing through his own attack, or by redirecting the blow with the heroes weapon to gain an advantage over the opponent. Well executed setting aside techniques are fluid and naturally set-up a counter attack.

Grappling: When the distance is closed and the length of weapons make strikes ineffective, grappling is used to regain proper fighting distance, to throw an opponent off-balance or disarm them.

While many other techniques are used in actual sword fighting, understanding the basic movement patterns and striking options will help develop the scene you want to create. Understanding when and how to use counters, avoidance, setting aside and grappling can make you a writer who creates compelling fighting scenes and sequences that are engrossing and vivid for the reader.

Magic and your world.

 I had an interesting discussion with another author at the Ambler Creative Writers group meeting. A life-long Dungeons and Dragons player, he was struggling with how to make magic more believable in his writing.

I asked him how he defined magic. That stumped him and it stumps a lot of new writers to the genre because they tell me that magic is magic. It can do anything and everything; except it can’t.

Magic when broken down can only do three things, a) create, b) harm, and c) protect.  Magic is a non-zero-sum game; the expenditure of power is not equally proportionate to the effect created.  Then I asked him how magic worked, what was the system that allowed magic to work in his world. He stared at me aghast, as if I had broken some fundamental law of fantasy writing. He merely mumbled that magic was magic.

Magic in fantasy writing is a cost intensive situation; the expenditure of magical energy to create an effect is a cost. Effects don’t just happen, even though the reader may not see the mechanics underlying magic in your world, you as the writer have to understand how magic works.

Does it cost mana, chi, psionic energy? Maybe blood or even costs the life of another to create the effect.

Magic must be a cohesive system that makes sense in your world; it must be at least explainable to you so that you as the writer understand the limits of magic.

Do all spell casters in your world draw on the same energy pool to fuel their powers? Or is magic highly specialized? Do elemetalist have to carry and use their element, i.e. fire, water, earth and air to create their spells? Do high wizards need wands or staves and magic words that require years of study to master the intricacies to cast their spells?

As you can see there is a slew of ways that magic can be used in your works, but there must be a system that makes sense in the framework of your world to allow it to exist.