Wednesday, April 25, 2012

V is for Violence

I'm not very good at writing it. So far my stories have way more dialogue in them and less on the action, especially on the violent actions. I have done a few one on one fight scenes over the years but not very many. I've never been much of a fighter myself, so that might be why some of my characters are against violence.

On the other hand, the times when the non-violent characters resort to violence can be almost more interesting than say someone who is prone to violence, at least to me.

Noah, the mutant main character from the adult novels, he is against violence. Since he tries to hide his abilities (or at least to make sure no one knows exactly how powerful he really is) in order to not become a weapon for anyone, he is not a violent character in general. Sure, he will stand up for himself or someone else when the moment calls for it but he tries to go the nonviolent route first.

Some of my characters aren't necessarily against violence, they just aren't very good at it. Feynethom, the elf, is terrible, for example. He can kind of use a bow, though not the greatest at it, but any other weapon and it's best to keep away from him cause there is no telling if he will hurt someone else or just himself.

While many of my novels don't venture into violent scenes, I'm going to have to learn how to write them because there are some stories that require those scenes to be shown.

Do your characters handle violence?
How do you write a violent scene?


2 comments:

Spanj said...

I, myself, am a total violence avoider. I hate confrontation and I'm always the first to walk away. My characters on the other hand...

I write fantasy and horror, so there's often violence. The way I tackle it (especially with the killers that enjoy killing) is slowly. Savour every moment.

People often think it has to be really, really fast moving - WAP! BAM ! POW! But your reader doesn't want to get lost in a flurry of arms and legs. Slow things down and you'll be surprised how violent it still is. And you can always edit out some of the filler later on.

Dawn Embers said...

Angeline - It's interesting how some of the writers who love writing fight scenes are very confrontation avoiding themselves. I am trying to write sword fights and such, so it is a challenge.

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