Nov 09 2009
Keeping Maneuvers Fresh
Here’s a question for the particularly visually oriented in the audience: have you ever read a fight scene, or participated in a game where description mattered, and see the same move over, and over, and over? If you’re like many of the people I know, you get a bit bored by that—or possibly you lose your suspension of disbelief, as you’d think by this time somebody would know how to counter. If you’re dealing with a situation in which it’s expected that one side is going to win and the tension isn’t over whether but how, it’s even worse having to see the same swing over and over, like stock footage only without the necessary budget constraints. And the alternative makes for far better imagery anyway.
It’s easy to think that there’s no point in trying. Everyone at some point runs into the issue that there are only so many ways to swing a sword, or throw a dagger; even multi-use or easily adaptable weapons like polearms or whips get boring after a while. But that’s focusing on the action; to keep maneuvers fresh, there’s a lot to vary up. How can we keep it different?
Adjust your angle, at the very least. Sure, only someone whose writer doesn’t understand weaponry slashes with a rapier or stabs with a mace, and there are only so many ways to loose an arrow or throw a knife. But if you can vary where on the opponent is being targeted, what sorts of feints the character uses to set herself up, even which sequence of the standard swings she uses, it’s going to make it look more visually different. Similarly, try to vary up your metaphors; new imagery may not be a perfect solution for the problem of making all the swings look different, but it’s close.
Remember that everything can be a weapon: utilize the character’s surroundings to her best advantage. The terrain, the light angles, the contrast between the character and the world around her, the weather; the enemy’s weapon, clothing, hair. Work in other characters; let her execute a tricky maneuver with her teammates, or notice of an enemy’s favorite tactic and counter or exploit it directly. (Yes, that reason why it’s important to vary up maneuvers.)
Slip in some additional characterization. Sure, it’s not realistic for people to be able to deliver long monologues, or even sentences that aren’t broken up by panting, in the middle of a fight, but most settings throw that aside because of the dramatic uses of being able to hold a conversation in the middle of a fight. The character might be delivering an “and this is why I fight” riff, or coordinating strategy; might be trying to convince another character to leave the fight, or even talk the enemy into quitting. There’s a lot people can do to change the outcome that isn’t just weaponry, and most of that will say something about the character. What kinds of taunts do they use? What kinds do they respond particularly strongly to?
Play with the conventions of your medium or sneak in jokes about other concepts, if your medium allows for it. Symbolism, for instance, can tie in well with the idea of changing up metaphors, particularly if the character herself is trying just as much to make an impression as to hit the other guy, and when the laws of physics are more fluid sometimes you can use it as not-quite-in-world logic to justify an action that might otherwise be improbable. This is one of the things I play with on a regular basis, to try to keep my own maneuvers fresh. I once began a stunt by re-introducing the character in grand fashion with every title that had been foisted off on her throughout the half year or so the game had been in action, ending this with “…and at the moment trying to rival a [honking big mecha] for most obvious thing on the battlefield” before getting to the meat of the action; during the dreamscape fight I referenced not long ago, the one with the kangaroo rat-things, one of my main survival tactics was adding jokes about everything from other people’s magic to concepts from physics class into my description of the attacks’ resolutions.
In short, don’t make your fights be about the weapon, or even about the physique of the character doing the fighting. Let character, personality, environment, dialogue, and even standard writers’ tricks into the equation, and the end result will be a lot more fun for your audience to visualize.
