Welcome to week two of SomeGuy's combat writing. I hope this can give a bit of a leg up for anyone who deems it necessary to stab a character in their stories.
Swords, Steel, and Other Sharp Things:
Fighting skills, like many things, develop over time as you learn more and more parts to it. Everyone starts with the basics and moves up to fancier moves and techniques. In that same vein of thought, writers start with basics before adding fancier sentence structures and words. Put those two together and start talking about writing about combat, well... believe it or not, vocabulary is where it all starts! By all means you could say "A attacked B, but B defended from A and then attacked back at him..." But who are we kidding here? We can do better than that!
Now of course, while most of what I say today is based on swordplay and other similar close-ranged weapon styles, much of what I say is totally transferable to unarmed combat and other forms. So yes... let's start building up a moves list!
En Garde!
The easiest place to start would be guards and defences. Now in most people's minds they'll probably already have a basic understanding of what people look like when they're en garde - video games and movies have their uses in the collective unconscious and whatnot. But if you really want to hammer home how set the person is, you can always describe the fine points to a character's stance or guard.
Is the combatant relaxed and focused? Is she on the balls of her feet and are her feet set beneath the rest of her body? Depending on the style at hand, is her body turned to the side to give a thinner body profile? Does she have a firm-but-comfortable grip on her weapon? Is her weapon pointed at the enemy? She's probably set.
Now contrast that with a combatant that is breathing hard and slouched a bit. He's flat-footed and has his feet spread apart wide and to the side. He has his body facing out and exposed. He's got a death-grip on his sword. His sword is pointed at the ground. He's probably not so set.
A lot of these details aren't things you really need to mention unless you want to make a point that yes, this person does or does not know what he's doing, especially perhaps in comparison to others.
Talk the Talk, Make the Block:
There are three basic ways to defend against an attack: blocks, parries, and dodges.
A block is when you guard against the full force of an attack and stop it dead in its tracks. In armed combat, this is basically where you stick your weapon out in the way of the oncoming attack and stop it from getting to you. In unarmed, it's when you stick a limb like an arm out to block a direct shot - and yeah, they can be painful, but they can also be just as painful to the other guy. While all fighters will inevitably use all three forms of defence, blocking best characterizes strong, resilient "tank" characters who are more than happy to just plow through the enemy before he can land his big blow. Alternately, though, anyone suffering a massive barrage of attacks may only be able to "turtle up" and block in desperation.
So where a block takes the full force of a blow and neutralizes it, a parry simply deflects just enough so that the opponent's attack will miss. Ideally, a good parry can lead to a quick counterattack and is probably the most common form of defence described in sports like fencing. Parries are quick, require timing and skill, and the whole philosophy behind them just makes a fighter sound extremely cool (for lack of a better word). Parries characterize the cerebral side of fighting: fighters who see that the mind wins fights more than the muscles; patient fighters who know to wait for just the right moment; quick fighters that dart inside their opponent's range and take them out.
Finally, you have the dodge. Blocks stop the hit, parries redirect the hit... dodges avoid the hit altogether. Sometimes you just don't want to get hit, y'know? I probably don't need to describe the mechanics of "not being where an attack happens", so I'll just say that dodging can best characterize smaller, faster, more agile fighters. They have a good sense for reading attacks and where an enemy is going to attack next. Heck, maybe their weapon just doesn't feasibly allow for especially effective parries? Alternately, someone who squeals and jumps around as they get attack can be characterized as a little cowardly with a plethora of awkward (yet amazing) dodges - or maybe they're just lucky?
More Than One Way To Skin a Cat-Monster:
This is already starting to run long and no one really wants some kind of "fight choreography" lesson here. Here, I want to get back to the point I was making in my introduction: vocabulary. There are many, many words to describe attacking somebody else. Each one, however, describes a slightly different motion, a different kind of direction - and in a lot of ways, a different kind of mindset.
How about I just start listing them and explain from there?
- Slash: the basic description for an attack with an edged weapon. Sounds pretty violent and gets the idea across that yes, someone just got cut hard.
- Stab: basic description for an attack with a pointed weapon. It's a fairly neutral, all-purpose term.
- Cut: same motion as a "slash", but just sounds a lot... cleaner? If you describe an attack as a "cut", oftentimes you'll get a connotation of precision or of skill. Think a disabling cut that catches a guy in the wrist (and maybe bleeds them to death anyway? I dunno...)
- Chop: a hard, downwards strike designed to cut with the weight of your weapon behind the sharp edge. Just like kitchen knives on vegetables; just like axes on trees (or necks).
- Hack: A hack is about as violent as it gets with connotations of lack of control and whatnot. There is nothing pretty or technical with these; very aggressive, very violent.
- Slap: "It's okay, I used the side of my blade." Sometimes you don't want to cut the person, y'know?
- Hammer/Batter: When it all comes down to it, many swords are long, heavy bars of metal. Raining heavy blows on somebody works plenty well with them just as with clubs or - yes - hammers.
- Nick: Sometimes you only just barely catch the other guy.
- Smash: Think hammering/battering, but with body parts caving in. Or something.
- Lunge: A sudden, extremely long-ranged stab. Can catch people unawares, or can leave an attacker severely off balance and vulnerable. They're also very dynamic, though.
It's a basic vocabulary thing: some words will convey a better idea of what you're trying to describe. Or they can better characterize somebody who fights with them. And of course, this is obviously far from an all-encompassing list, but it should get some ideas flowing.
Wrapping Up:
Swords come in all shapes, all sizes, and are used in all styles. Along with cutting and thrusting, some can even be used in wrestling-type manoeuvres. They're good times.
But yeah. Sometimes it's funny how things work. A lot of times, you don't need a complex description of what your characters are doing; you just need the right word to describe it. So build up your fighting vocabularies, and you'll have some pretty dynamic sword fights to come!
Any questions? Things you'd like me to elaborate upon?
