Writing Sword-Fighting?

[Zero Angel]

This topic has made me curious -- can anyone suggest a published author(s) who writes a good sword fight (or hand to hand combat in general)?

For all that I don't like reading Salvatore any more, he does a nice treatment of the fighting scenes and I think he captures the mentality of the fighter in the fight quite well. Anything with Drizz't, especially the middle to pre-Orc King material is very good for action.

 

[wordwalker]

Steven Barnes, the acknowledged grandmaster of martial arts in fiction. Especially his hand-to-hand scenes, but his weapon fights ain't bad either.

Salvatore, agreed. For a cinematic, lots-of-magic-mixed-with-the-footwork style that still makes sense.

Brandon Sanderson even moreso, not for the fighting exactly but for always knowing how to mix in his magic systems with them (and if there's a wrinkle in his magic that can help a character, you can bet he's just waiting for the moment to spring it).

Guy Gavriel Kay isn't too technically precise either, but he comes close enough and he always knows how to make a fight feel awesome.

 

[Devora]

Back to the original question: How do I write a sword fighting scene without being overly descriptive, and to do it accurately?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

If you're not going to be overly descriptive, I suspect it would be hard to do it inaccurately.

Although he's got flaws as an author (and apparently some real quirks as a human being), I've always loved the way John Norman did some of his battle scenes in the Gor novels. Something on the order of:

The soldiers shifted in front of me, watching my blade. "I will bring glory to Ar!" screamed a fellow. He was wrong. I stepped back and waited for the next.

He did more detailed fights as well but sometimes those little one or two line fights really did the job.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Back to the original question: How do I write a sword fighting scene without being overly descriptive, and to do it accurately?

You'd probably get farther by writing a fight scene & posting it on the showcase forum for people to critique. If you can keep it under 1,000 words I'd be happy to offer some advice.

These types of scenes can be handled in many different ways so it can be hard to point you in a direction that will work for your writing. It's much simpler, and more effective in my opinion, to work with something you've already written...in your vision & voice.