Writing Battle Action When You Suck At It During Nanowrimo

I love a good duel in a novel… martial arts, sword fights, knife fights, bandits attacking, you name it, I'm into reading it, just not writing it. When I try to write fantasy battles I end up writing either vague emotional descriptions of how the person fighting feels as they "swing their sword" or I end up having a lot of ruptured spleens, stabbed kidneys, and skewered livers a la Homer style.

Maybe some of you out there practice fencing in your spare time, or go to weekend hang outs with the local Society for a Cultural Anachronism… but I have a life, one that largely does not involve trying to impale people with sharp objects. I've tried asking my husband and brother to beat each other up with a couple of sticks (which causes bruises) as well as using action figures to try and work out a couple of reasonable moves to make the writing better. But when push comes to shove, I just don't know enough about western sword fighting to do it. Maybe if I wrote a novel about Japan, I've seen enough samurai movies to make it work, but on the page, I want something flashier than staring down my enemy for five minutes before there's two sword slashes and someone drops dead Musashi style.

Tired this nanowrimo of my two or three sword moves, I decided something else needed to happen. I was going to have my two characters wrestle each other medieval style, and not knowing a thing about it, I googled it and discovered something wonderful. The internet is full of medieval broadsword, knife fighting, sword fighting, and wrestling instructional short videos.
The wonderful thing is that a good number of these videos are put out by medieval fencing clubs demonstrating practice moves for those interested in joining their groups. This means that they show clear moves, repeated two or three times done by their students. These are easy to watch several times, pausing when necessary to beef up good old MC "swinging his sword" when you hit a good fight scene. While if I was trying to mimic them with my actual hands, I think they're a bit fast, for writing ideas, my brain can keep up with the repeated moves.

Even better, medieval "wrestling with the sword" as they call it, is actually more like combining of fencing with kicks, punches, and lunges, making it perfect for a gritty fantasy or historical fiction novel. The exchange of a few sword strokes is hardly dynamic in print, although it looks good in the movies. Depending on the organization you can get nice clear visuals on how to twist your sword around so that you punch your opposite in the face, trip him flat, or even use two hands on your sword for an interesting set of moves that make me think of quarter staff fighting. I guess good gloves mean you can grasp your sword blade without cutting your hand open… who knew? (Not me, certainly.)

So, if you're a newbie at writing sword fights, here's some of my newly discovered videos that gave me the clearest and most helpful moves for writing my new action scenes. Some of them have annoying sound tracks of music, but a simple mute button on your computer will silence that as you play the appropriate sections over and over.

Wrestling with the sword training videos: I liked these the best. Each move is demonstrated twice quite clearly in a practice room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Pnw-9A8qQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXbZqKnwDbQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIFIn6tAI3A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y54lrNuWqw

Longsword technique videos: These have a bit more fluff, words or music, but generally show the fighting from a clear, sideways view with few film tricks. I have to keep pausing them though between moves and sometimes move back to see the move again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3DhjFUOG6Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYwdE3f5fFQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YQP6lthpLA&NR=1

Other Medieval weapon fights: These again are a bit frilly, but if you have a bit of patience they can inspire some less formal moves. They are at least all shot from one position (a large problem with lots of less useful videos) so you can get a clear and objective sense of the moves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pr16Qx1A3A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0ninIXOkWg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBPYfdL7irM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QieHjWitJKI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmfgBzLRczc