The amount of detail depends on the stakes in the combat scene.  If everything is on the line for the viewpoint character, then naturally more detail is expected, because instinctively readers understand that length can/should indicate the degree of importance.  On the other hand, if it's just another slog in the gladiator arena, skim over the thing.  As for the fight scene in Hamlet, the emotion and sacrifice were the thing, not every en quarte, parry, and riposte.

Another factor is taste.  Just how gruesome do you want to be?  I landed The Alien Chronicles book deal because I can write exciting action without spilling entrails all over the page.  Brutality and gore, just for the sake of it, is gratuitous and unnecessary.

DC

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