Writing Request any hot takes, opinions and tips on conflict sequences

[Deleted member 34529]

Hello you magnificent residents of infinite imaginariums, architects of intangible fictitious worlds, come and share your thoughts.

I was wondering if anyone would want to impart any insights they have about writing action sequences. Things such as physical fight scenes, verbal confrontation scenes or sex scenes, in a sense they are the same thing really. or maybe not quite Anyway....

From your experience what do you know of pacing?
How do you construct your sentences and paragraphs?
How do you balance your internal-external actions and descriptions?
What is important? What is not?
etc etc etc

 

[Draculus-del-Viafat]

Well, the very first tip I always use describing sex scenes is Don't go detailed. Physical details of someone having close intimacy are not considered literary kind of... things. I mean, at this point, I consentrate on the character's feelings rather than on what actually happens to them. I only mention one or two details on how they move, but I don't go any deeper than that. In literature, sex is a very beautiful process, and as a writer, you must show it to your reader. I like pathos when it comes to erotic scenes, for example, hyperbole works well, or a lot of metaphorical figures of speech.
Fight scenes are a bit different, though. When describing a fight, I rarely concentrate on feelings or emotions, but talk about action itself and never go too detailed. I wouldn't write too much about how John raised his hand and swinged it in the air, hitting Frank in the right cheek. I'd just write that John punched Frank in the face and sent him down.
Also I don't use short sebtences in both situations and always try to describe a scene in big ones, but not too big. The common construction will be something like C1's action - C2's feeling - C2's reply action - C1's feeling, and all over again, with some additional details. Both in fight and sex scenes I try to be as natural in depictioning as possible and always try to avoid repetitions, so each new action is actually NEW. I divide scenes into paragraphs, each paragraph is a change in the scene, for example the change in characters' dominance over each other, getting into another position, or using new weapons that wasn't used before.
Speaking of verbal confrontations, I let a dialogue take over the scene and only add details on how characters feel after some phrases, what they do, how they look at each other etc. This is where I actually do go detailed, because verbal confrontations and dialogues at all are the most interesting for me to describe. The common sentences scheme goes absolutely chaotic in dialogues

 

[Deleted member 44974]

Hello you magnificent residents of infinite imaginariums, architects of intangible fictitious worlds, come and share your thoughts.

I was wondering if anyone would want to impart any insights they have about writing action sequences. Things such as physical fight scenes, verbal confrontation scenes or sex scenes, in a sense they are the same thing really. or maybe not quite Anyway....

From your experience what do you know of pacing?
How do you construct your sentences and paragraphs?
How do you balance your internal-external actions and descriptions?
What is important? What is not?
etc etc etc

Recently, I have been enjoying a patterned way of doing fights scenes, to have sentences be short, short, long. short, short, long. Actively forcing a rhythms in the scene...

result... varies.. .but was an interesting exercise.