Quick! Write a fight. Fast, abrupt, blow by blow. He punched. She kicked. A lamp flew across the room. The guards fell. Another kick landed.

The book flies against the wall! The reader falls asleep. Why? Because a string of short phrases and sentences, which the author used because that’s what the writing books said is the best thing to do, got boring. Oops. Which is probably a worse crime than being technically incorrect. The latter is wince inducing among those of us who might be familiar with the type of weapon/martial art/fight involved. The former kills the book for the reader. Rather like reading certain “adult situations” in romance that are pages of anatomy rather than of romantic development.

Below is the checklist I got at a “how to write action scenes” clinic session.

What is motivating the character in the scene? [Is it get the McGuffin? Save his lady love? Avoid getting caught as she sneaks out of a place she wasn’t supposed to be, perhaps with state secrets in her handbag? Is it challenge the bad guy to one-on-one combat to save the city? There has to be a solid reason behind getting into the fight, even if you the author don’t agree with it necessarily. The character has to believe it, and thus the readers.]

What is keeping her from getting what she wants or needs? [Is it the guards? Getting caught between two gangs and having to fight his way out? Being caught by someone’s body guard? Mean dogs that have not been fed today? A curse and a ghost?]

Where is everyone? [If you don’t know, and the reader doesn’t know, the scene will be a confusing muddle. A quick summary of who’s where, and of any important furnishings or weapons, is a good feature to include as your PoV character scouts the room. It will also keep you from having your characters inadvertently teleport.]

Does the action change the situation? [If not, why the fight {or love scene}? Move the story along, and perhaps save the description of the fight for a place where it can move the story, like in a tavern later, impressing someone who will hire the protagonist, or go to bed with him.]

Which is more important: choices or choreography? [there’s a right answer. It is “choices.” What your character does and why drives the scene. Making sure that the correct sword fighting style is used in the proper way is less important {OK, unless you are a character in The Princess Bride. IYKYK.}]

Does the PoV affect what is described and how? [Can your character know about the guard running up the hall toward the sound of the fight? Of the other lover hiding in the wardrobe who will fall out and into the fight at the wrong (or right) moment? About the secret passageway that will allow her to get away? No? Then the author had better plan that into the scene.]

Do injuries and fatigue matter? [They’d better, or the book will fly. Kick someone hard in the knee and she’s doing to be ineffective in some way, depending on how much damage was done. A bullet in the shoulder is not an injury Sam Spade will shrug off and keep going. He’s going to lose use of that arm ASAP, and will be in rehab for quite a while. And so on. The protagonist, if hurt, will have slowed reaction times and limited motion.]

Is there at least one meaningful reversal in the scene? [You need to keep building stakes and make the victory worthwhile for the reader and the protagonist.]

What does victory cost? [Time? Love? Respect? Two months on the bench doing physical therapy and not earning money? A chewing out from the boss for messing up part of the investigation, as well as thanks for finding the McGuffin? Home and loved ones who cannot accept that the hero had to fight, and now consider him a failure for resorting to violence?]

When the scene ends, what’s different? [If nothing, why the scene?]

Notice that combat accuracy is nowhere in this list. The presenter said, more or less, “do your homework, or elide it so you don’t make massive mistakes.” He had read a scene (horrible warning) that had various audience members groaning for several different reasons. I could tell that the writer of the original scene had never had a knee injury, for example. Which fighting style wasn’t as important as knowing where everyone was, and what the reason for the scene happened to be. Going back, we redid the scene to be more entertaining, and believable.

For a master class, read some of Larry Correia’s fight scenes. Long sentences are not slow when he writes a fight. Or read the sword fights in The Princess Bride.

Keep in mind, too that an action scene can be a battle. If your PoV is that of the battlefield commander, he should not be in the thick of fighting. I fudged things in Elizabeth and Empire because I was blending two historical people into one character, and readers wouldn’t be surprised that she would get into trouble, even when she was supposed to be safe and literally above the fray. If you are writing a modern battlefield commander, he’s not going to be leading from one of the tanks, or with the infantry. Think Princess Leia in the original Star Wars at the Battle of Yavin.

Now, go forth, and write fun action scenes that do not lead to books being walled.