Maybe I should say FIGHT LIKE A FIGHTER…
Over time, I’ve advanced from just testing what I needed, to enlisting others for help. I needed specific help though, not just random people on the street.
My first helper was my husband—then on his way to an MMA Black Belt. “Honey, come strangle me! What if I just drop to my knees? Can I bend your finger? What if I put you in a choke hold?” He was a really good sport, and that produced some writing gold. Later, I graduated to my kids’/husband’s dojo. I went in and found the upper level Black Belts who were readers and got them to stage fights for me. (These are them. Look at all those MMA blackbelts!!! I called them ‘my ninjas’ and other writers quickly got jealous of me for having a whole ninja crew to turn to!)
They were wonderful. But they kept asking me these pesky questions I hadn’t thought of:
“How tall is your character?”
“Five feet and some change.”
“Is she right or left-handed?”
“Does that matter?”
“She’ll escape toward her dominant hand. A leftie may have an advantage if a fighter expects a right-handed attack.”
*Huh! I did not know that!*
Then they asked these questions:
“How well trained is your fighter? And how well trained is the other fighter? And if trained, in what styles?”
“What era is your fight in? Are they armed?”
“Where are they fighting? Are there objects or weapons nearby at easy reach?”
So many things to think about. Blocking. Who hits first? Who wins and what defines winning?
This made my writing even better. I was good with the choreography of fights, but that last one was a doozy! What defines winning?
Does it mean my character lives? Gets away? Unharmed? What about the one (or many) they are fighting? Are they even alive at the end of the fight? If so, what shape are they in? And are they going to come back in a future book hell-bent on revenge? They just might.
(Want to read a trilogy with the fight scenes these ninjas helped with?)
HAPPY READING!
