I just read a book that included a big free-for-all fight scene with which I had some issues. Thinking about it, I realized I have some very specific thoughts on what makes this kind of scene fly or flop. So, you get to read about them!

When you’ve spent a lot of page time developing a large cast, and you then have a big wacky scene in which they’re all involved, it’s natural to want to show the reader what all of them are doing. One hopes that they’re now interested in the characters and will like to see what part each of them has in this wild scene – which could be a party or other gathering, but is probably most often a fight.

The good news is that you can do this, and do it well. You can describe what everyone – or most everyone, at least – is doing. You just have to avoid the pitfall of making it seem like that’s what you’re doing.

To go broader for a moment: a common cause of problematic writing is what you might call Author Peekaboo. You’re reading along, and the story is moving based on what the characters want or need to do. You’re looking at the characters. Then – peekaboo! – a scene that belongs to the author rather than the characters. Basically, a scene is a problem if it seems to the reader like you put it in because you wanted to, whether to push the plot somewhere or, as is usually the case with free-for-all scenes, for awesomeness’ sake. Yes, some people will cynically pick out the “plot reason” for even very reasonable story developments, but if they are reasonable story developments, even these people won’t likely be bothered. And while I hope you enjoy your writing, you don’t want readers thinking, “Boy, the author sure liked this scene.” Readers should be seeing your characters, not you.

Now, to go narrower: the way to avoid this in free-for-all scenes is to make sure you describe only what your POV character would actually be paying attention to. Assuming s/he is not a complete spectator to this event – which, by the way, would be really annoying to read – then s/he simply will not be able to take in everything that is happening at once.

When an author writes a long passage of –

Celia and Derek crashed through the hall on the back of Celia’s horse, swords swinging, scattering the invaders. Emma seemed to have finally got the hang of the fireball spell, and was tossing flames in all directions from the shelter of an overturned table. Francis leapt onto another table, kicked a wineglass into an invader’s face, and ran down the tabletop, lashing out with both ends of his spear.

– usually much, much longer and more detailed, and often detailing the actions of over a dozen characters –

– this is what is in the author’s head:
“Hooray! Plot-relevant action combined with character development! Celia and Derek are sharing a horse after I’ve pushed them together for two hundred pages/three volumes of the series! Bumbling Emma makes good! Francis looks super-hot, leading nicely into his first kiss with Padma Protagonist after the battle!”

This is what is in the reader’s head, at least if the reader is me:
“What is Padma doing? Is she just standing there watching all this? How come no one is attacking her? How come she’s not helping? Why am I reading from the viewpoint of someone so useless, anyway?”

(The above passage should set off alarms regardless, because you can’t tell whose point of view it’s in at all.)

So you want to focus on what your protagonist is immediately paying attention to, and this should be related to what she is immediately doing, which should really be SOMETHING. A great way to do this and still show what all your lovely characters are up to is to make your protagonist physically move through the fight. Now being a great time to throw in this entry’s obligatory Harry Potter reference, I’ll mention the big battle at the end of Deathly Hallows. Even here, I found events a tiny bit list-y at times, but mostly, the scene works very well, and it’s because Harry has his own super-important goal. He’s moving through the battle, and we mostly glimpse only the pieces of it that get in his way or distract them by specifically endangering one of his bestest best friends. This is a good way to operate. Keep your protagonist’s focus narrow, the way it would actually be in a big crazy life-and-death struggle.

So, maybe this:

Padma drew her sword, only to leap aside at Derek’s warning shout. He and Celia thundered past on Celia’s horse, swords swinging. As the invaders scattered, Padma seized her chance, charging across the hall in her friends’ wake. Fifty feet to the barred door that led to the dungeons . . . forty feet . . . The invaders regrouped in front of her, snarling, their archers taking aim. Padma threw herself behind an overturned table.
“Oh Padma, it’s only you!” Emma crouched beside her, a sputtering ball of fire in one hand.
“I thought you couldn’t do those!” said Padma as Emma lobbed the fireball over the table.
“So did I. Oh! What is Francis doing?”
Francis! Padma risked a look around just as Francis leapt onto a table, kicking a wineglass into an invader’s face.
Padma shot a glance at the dungeon door. This diversion could be just what she needed. But what about Francis? He was now running down the tabletop, lashing out with both ends of his spear. What if something happened to him?

(You know, before Padma can get to the dungeon and release the giant monster fox that will snarf the invaders, because they’re all extremely violent fieldmice.)

The second passage has all the same info as the first one – indeed, more details. Unfortunately, the style of the first passage appears all too often. Just like any other scene, free-for-alls work best when you take the important stuff that’s happening and take your POV character and SMUSH THEM TOGETHER.

I’m back!

My recent tangles with a particular writing problem have made me rethink, to some extent, my ideas about outlining. Many authors say that they don’t like outlining because it restricts their creativity, and can make the story seem flat and boring. Professor Robbins advocates what he calls “baseball writing,” wherein the writer knows how the story begins, one or two points it will reach in the middle (“bases”), and how it ends, but then just drops the character into this frame and runs with him/her. I’ve always done some outlining, but it never covered everything – it mostly follows the baseball writing principle, though sometimes I write down some bit of dialogue I know someone will have to use at that this or that juncture, or some specific description I want to use for a person or place.

Backing up to the beginning, my recent problem did not actually come from overzealous outlining as such. While editing Rabbit and Cougar, I reached a chapter that needed serious rewriting now that Cougar has a new source of motivation. The basic outcome of the chapter, in terms of where the characters travel next, needed to be the same. It made sense, as far as the characters were concerned, but I was having a heck of a time getting them to that conclusion. If some other plan had arisen organically, I might have gone with it, but the characters just sort of floundered slowly in the right direction.

I sometimes wonder how people who don’t write fiction feel about those vaguely mystical statements: “The character ran away with me,” “She said something I didn’t expect,” and so on. I used to think it sounded a little silly, but it does happen. And this is exactly where outlining comes in: With novels, at least (in short stories there’s less room), I tend to get a basic plot idea, then try to craft a character who will react in about the right way to situations. Once I drop the character into the story, though, it’s like letting go of an arrow and hoping it was well aimed. The story may have to change if your protagonist runs up against something that would have been good for the plot but simply wouldn’t work for the character.

This, I suppose, is where writers differ. Some people do long and detailed outlines. Some people, too, will change the character rather than the plot – I just finished a book on writing fantasy that included one author’s statement that she doesn’t change her plots for anything, and will adjust characters’ backstories instead to change their motivations until their actions make sense. The important thing is that something gets changed so that the pieces fit together. Again, it may sound mystical when someone says “the story was dead on the page” or “it just wasn’t working,” but I think the basic fact is that a writer senses when his or her own work has become inconsistent. Inconsistency bothers us on a deep level – thus the human problem of cognitive dissonance – and can make a writer want to stop working.

Outlines, if too detailed, can also present the problem of making the story seem finished. It’s often difficult to work on something you feel like you’ve already done. Rewriting isn’t the same, because it’s an improvement; writing from a detailed outline is an expansion, and may even seem artificial, like you’re just padding the story you’ve already written in the outline.

Happily, I got through the problem bit in Rabbit and Cougar. Some editing should get it sorted out. The story will need some more editing anyway, after the rewritten parts and the integration of new conflicts.

Four of my graduate school applications are finished and submitted! That leaves, um, only seven more . . .

A lot can be said of rewriting. By definition, it’s much more like actual writing than editing is, but it still follows the guideline of the original work to some degree. This is great, because it helps you decide which parts of the original work are worth using as guidelines. You can determine for each part of the work – each chapter, scene, conversation, or whatever – what exactly is accomplished, then decide whether that even needs to be accomplished and, if so, how best to make it happen.

In case it wasn’t abundantly obvious, I’m rewriting at the moment. It’s somewhat frustrating just because I’d been halfway through Rabbit and Cougar – and ready, in terms of line-editing, to use the first three chapters as my grad school writing sample – when I realized that oops, one of the two protagonists lacks real motivation. I’d been coming to this realization for some time, and when my friend (read: writer roommate Becky from college) read the first three chapters for me and pointed out the same problem. Not only does the lack of motivation leave poor Cougar a weaker character – less understandable and believable – but it means very low tension for the work overall. Cougar can’t be thwarted from his goal if he doesn’t have a goal. The large-scale aimlessness also doesn’t fit given that Cougar is usually a very practical character.

Rabbit and Cougar is a journey story, and Rabbit’s motivation for traveling was explained, but Cougar’s not so much. Given that Cougar starts the trip first and Rabbit joins him, it was pretty important that there be a reason to depart in the first place. I was musing aloud about possibilities when Becky half-jokingly said “He’s being chased.” We both laughed, but it gave me an idea. Over the next couple of days, I worked it into a coherent shape. Step One completed.

Step Two is the rewriting, which is more complicated than any I’ve done before, because I’m having to insert a whole new plotline. It is, I must say, great for tension. I’ve often heard it said that you should always be thinking about how to raise the odds against your protagonist(s), but that’s not the kind of thought I consciously have during first drafts. However, since this rewrite is basically the “Now With Tension!” edition, it’s a great time to think about that. Yesterday, I entirely rewrote a chapter in which astoundingly little happened before, but which now has its fair share of action and danger – probably more than any of the preceding chapters. This is what spurred the thoughts in the first paragraph of this entry: The original draft of this chapter had a lot of exposition. In my editing, I made a list of all the important things accomplished in each chapters. The new draft of the chapter accomplishes all but two of the things the old one did, and I should be able to accomplish those in the next two chapters. In fact, I expect them to come across better; both are facts that I originally established through dialogue, but will now have the opportunity to simply show.

The addition of a new plotline is not without difficulties. A few conflicts arise with the original plot, and I’ll have to address those. And then, of course, there will be Step Three: another line edit, for which I can hardly hope to have a fresh eye anytime soon. Somewhat frustrating, because I’d thought I was on my last edit now, but the work should be stronger for it.