IT'S SWORD FIGHT TIME!!! That's right, folks, yesterday/today I called upon my incredibly nerdly knowledge of these weapons (which I acumulate all of the time because swords are absolutely fabulous) and killed some random people in my book! Why? Because I was bored.
I feel that a good rule of thumb is that if I'm am just bloody bored writing it, my reader is probably going to get tired of reading it. Admittedly, reading often goes a bit faster than writing, at least in my experience (after all, I read most books in one day if I'm really into them) but I think that this is still a good rule of thumb, especially as you get further into the book. It's important to keep good pacing in the plot, and to build up to some sort of final climax. I personally hate it when I get to the end of a book and feel that nothing has really been resolved, so I definitely wouldn't want to do that to my readers.
Don't get me wrong, sword fights aren't the only thing that you can throw into a story to liven up the plot (in fact, in some stories a sword fight might kill your whole premise, and no one wants that.) Some other things I've occasionally thrown in as added spice include: romantic encounters, murders or other similar unfortunateness, and humorous instances. My first book, being a little lighter, emphasized a lot of humorous dialogue and romantic tension - though I did dip into a fight in a back alley for fun.
Anyway, what I'm getting at here is that I wrote a sword fight, and whenever that happens life feels better. Or, in a more general and writerly context - and no, writerly is not, in fact, a word; you can, however, steal it - these are some things you could try if your story is eddying around in circles, as, unfortunately, happens from time to time. Now, assuming I've used quite enough commas in this post, I will be signing out after the following brief plug.
Anyone interested in reading a swordfight? Sorry, I'm stuck on this for right now. Let me know if so, and I'll post one!
Fight scenes are tough to pull off. Since they are so fun and visceral, it's easy to lose track of the character physically. So that is a yes on posting your sword fight scene.
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