So, how would you approach writing Wuxia combat scenes specifically? It's seem that Wuxia would be harder in written form, since with Xianxia, just write some crazy lazer-beam type skill and boom! Fight started, and maybe ended. Not so with Wuxia.
OK, for wuxia you need three basic things:
jianghu, a conflict, and atmospherics.
Xianxia conflicts often have characters suddenly gain power or use tremendous secret techniques to turn the fight and gain momentum. Xianxia characters gain power rapidly and change worlds when they outlevel their surroundings.
In wuxia, you want steady progress and fierce struggles. If your character grows too strong, he cannot leave for another world, after all. So your character cannot pull out a secret technique in every fight. He cannot take some mythical pill or call over his magical beast.
The jianghu is a complicated world where everyone is striving for themselves. You can use this to break up a fight that is too dangerous or too easy. There is always a third party ready to interfere. It is very important to keep your fights
lively and
dynamic.
Here are some stereotypical fight categories:
- Righteous Duel: Opponents exchange move after move. There is no backstabbing and poison. You can imagine this like a turn-based strategy game. It is very possible one of the parties will step back and admit defeat. It can also be that a party gives the other party a certain number of moves, i.e. three, before attacking.
- Seemingly Righteous Duel: Opponents pretend they are righteous. They will use mockery to rile up their opponent and they will use poison and hidden weapons. They may also fake losing control and "accidentally" attacking out-of-turn.
- Duel: It's still a duel, but the parties hate each other and do not pretend they are being righteous. This is a fast exchange of moves with poison and throwing knives, but there is no outside interference. This usually ends with someone's death or at least an arm being cut off.
- Fight: It starts with two people, but a third appears to backstab one of the two, and then another one, ... The craftiest and sneakiest usually ends up being the last one standing above a mountain of corpses, with barely any blood on his own hands.
- Brawl: These are my favorite fight scenes. You get these at martial conferences or in inns. It's chaotic, there are no rules, and everyone is swinging swords and fists at their enemies. They are the most enjoyable if you write from a third person perspective.
Of course, there are other match-ups, i.e., one righteous and one seemingly righteous, and so forth. But I am sure you get the picture.
Now, how to write the attacks? I recommend watching fight scenes from HK movies for inspiration.
Generally, people practice one martial art and this art influences the nature of their attacks.
These arts are inspired by nature.
So you can have tiger arts or dragon arts. Then you should describe the moves like a dragon sweeping down from above or a tiger circling its prey. It is important to invoke vivid images.
To paraphrase a great movie, "Be water, my friend. Running water never goes stale. You've got to just keep on moving."
When you hear this, it evokes the image of someone fighting with very fluid motions. They will not use sharp punches, but they are ever moving. They do not halt their movements, each attack flows into the other. Picture it.
If your character is less proficient, he may slip up by
going against the nature of his martial art. For example, he may plan to thrust at the opponent and then leap back, but be surprised by his opponent possessing more force than anticipated. When the opponent parries the blow, the martial artist freezes instead of leaping back. Since his arts are one of water and flow, this is a very bad mistake.
But for someone who uses a lightning technique it would not be since this is characterized by bursts of strength rather than flow.
If you think of it like that, you will be able to give each character a distinctive style and make the fights interesting.
