The guy from the historical fiction mail list wants action in a book to
read the way it appears in the movies. He is asking for the impossible.
Describing the action in a fight scene in a novel can take many pages
(and several minutes for a reader to read). The same scene may only take
seconds when played out on a movie screen. The experiences are
completely different for the reader/viewer.

I think the answers to the questions you pose at the end of your e-mail
are obvious.

How much violence is needed in a combat scene, and how do we describe it?

The simple answer to both questions is that the amount of violence
needed and how said violence is described depends completely on the on
the type of story you're telling. Everything depends on the response you
are trying to elicit from your reader. You need just enough violence in
a fight/attack scene to get the desired reaction from the reader and no
more.

Sometimes you can get the biggest response (physical or emotional) from
a reader by being very concise in your descriptions. Quick, cold and
brutal action often has a more chilling the effect on the reader than
overblown action that is violent simply for the sake of being violent.
The simple slicing of a character's throat is often more terrifying (and
gratifying) for a reader than an extended scene of a killer hacking a
body to bits (although a good hacking can be nice too).

The use of violence/combat in stories is an art. It looks easy, but if
it is not done well it comes off as cartoonist and amateurish. I doubt
of the guy from the history mail list has ever tried to write a combat
scene (much less a novel full of them). If he had, he would realize how
bad his suggestion is.

Myk

Kent Graham wrote:

> A member of the historical fiction mail list posed this question -- in
> part -- yesterday.  I can think of several responses, ranging from
> philosophical to technical
>
> "If there is anything in our [human] history, that is always
> present, is combat. Wars, fights, quarrels are
> something never gone. But how do you describe this
> kind of violence?"
>
> <snip, in which he complains about how few pages Tolkien uses to
> describe combat, as opposed to how many he uses to describe walking
> around and climbing mountains>
>
> " I think readers want to read about details when it
> comes to fighting. If I were to write something
> similar to The last Samurai (which is a movie, I
> know), I would describe every move, every gesture,
> every thrust of the sword. I wouldn't do something
> like Shakespeare in Hamlet: "Hamlet and Laertes
> fought."
>
> What do you think?   How much is needed?    Is it desirable to
> describe "...every move, every gesture,
> every thrust of the sword"?  And if so, how do we describe it?
>
> Scribite!
> kent