Black,Genderfluid,Pan, Anti-Kyriarchy,They/Them

Hey! I hate to be making this post, but I don’t have a lot of other options. My name is Kay. I’m an artist and theatre professional in Portland. I haven’t had consistent dental insurance since I was 18 and I desperately need some dental work. I need a root canal, two new crowns, replacements for two crowns that were poorly done when I was younger, and several fillings. I try to take good care of my teeth, but a combination of bad genetics, bad dentists, and bad insurance have resulted in a lot of problems. Although I’m employed at a theatre full-time, they only offer insurance to employees who meet a certain threshold, and the state insurance I can afford will only cover a small amount of the work I need done.

Most of these cavities are years old, and have been slowly getting worse to the point where I can no longer ignore them. It’s starting to cause significant disruption to my life. I’m in pain from day to day, I’m filling holes with dental wax to minimize irritation, I can only chew out of one corner of my mouth, I’m starting to lose weight because it’s too hard to eat, the dentist I consulted said it’s just a matter of time before he has to start pulling teeth instead of repairing them. I’m even starting to feel embarrassed about smiling.

My new dentist is great and has already offered me the biggest discounts they have available. But after insurance I’m still looking at $7800 out of pocket. I work at a nonprofit and my husband is underemployed—there’s no way we can come up with a fraction of that over the next year, let alone all of it. My parents live on a fixed income and can’t help me out. They require payment upfront, so I can’t just get them done and pay them back over time. I’m running out of options and I’d like to be able to eat again. Anything you can contribute will make a huge difference in my daily quality of life, not to mention my peace of mind. Thanks for reading. ♥️

It can be a "we" problem

Or why ART no longer lets Three out without a chaperone.

Example of an Effective Fight Scene: A Brief Breakdown

Hey Story Crafters!

It’s been a while! Last time, I mentioned I would be participating as a speaker at Flights of Foundry, a free, virtual convention for science-fiction/fantasy/speculative fiction creators. (If you weren’t able to attend this year, I highly recommend doing so next year.)

I’ve never been on the speaker side of a convention before, and I tend to do my best “speaking” through the written word. Still, it was an interesting and worthwhile experience, and I would be interested in being a speaker at other events, too.

For Flights of Foundry, I was on three panels—two on editing, and one on writing fight scenes. On the writing fight scenes panel, I mentioned a fight scene I thought was effective, and wanted to share my thoughts with you as well. :)

The fight scene is from Barbara Lund’s short story, “Sixers.” (The version I’m referencing is published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 37, edited by David Farland, the fifth scene in the story on pages 57-61.)

Book trailer below.

Context:

The setting is a devastated city divided into different “zones,” with checkpoints monitored by armed guards. The protagonist is an older woman traveling from her home outside the city to her son’s house in an inner zone. In addition to the guards at each zone checkpoint, survivors and scavengers within the zones are possible threats the protagonist faces on her journey.

The protagonist is portrayed as a competent survivalist. As an individual with a paranormal ability—a “sixth sense” or “sixer” ability—she’s been trained, or has learned, to use her ability, and to survive the challenges of her environment.

The specific fight scene I’m addressing here is an ambush scene. The protagonist’s group—consisting of herself and three kids who also have sixer abilities—needs to travel through a street that is clearly set up for an ambush.

Fight Scene Breakdown

Before entering the fight scene, the protagonist can tell her group is heading into an ambush, and prepares accordingly. She tells the kids to get ready to drive her truck through the ambush, while she gets ready to fight and serve as a distraction.

Entering the fight scene: The protagonist is outnumbered by her opponents. She speaks to the attackers, even though she knows a fight is inevitable. She pretends to be a defenseless older woman until she gets close to one of the aggressors, and then strikes.

During the fight scene: She shows her fighting skills by observing the attackers’ movements and weapons, and by describing her physical and psychic responses to efficiently and effectively take them down. She has no wasted movements, moves within her capabilities, and fights to permanently take down her opponents so they aren’t able to be a future threat.

Exiting the fight scene: There’s a standstill after the protagonist takes down the first wave of attackers, where the opposing side tries to regroup. The kids use that as an opportunity to drive through the ambush site, and the protagonist, after picking up some weapons from the attackers she killed, hops onto the bumper of the truck as it drives by.

Consistency

While the protagonist’s physical limitations aren’t addressed during the fight scene, she acknowledges that, if not for the adrenaline, she would be feeling certain physical limitations, or the effects of the injuries she sustains. She also isn’t performing extremely athletic feats that aren’t consistent with the natural limitations of her body, or suddenly (and conveniently) having weapons appear on her person mid-fight. Similarly, her sixer ability was established prior to this scene, and she uses it effectively to enhance her physical fighting skills. She doesn’t suddenly become overpowered in either a physical or psychic sense.

In summary:

Going back to the 3 main functions of a fight scene, this scene from “Sixers”:

Gives the reader insight into the character(s) in the scene by affirming that the protagonist truly is a competent survivalist and a skilled fighter, as established earlier in the story. She has no wasted movements in this scene (e.g. flips or fancy, physically taxing moves that wouldn’t suit her), she uses items she has on her person as weapons, and aims to incapacitate her opponents as quickly as possible. That she is able to know her group is about to drive into an ambush implies she has experienced similar situations before, and knows how to handle it. She isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, knows how to handle herself, and doesn’t hesitate to gather resources that are available (i.e. pick up the weapons of her dead opponents).

Gives the reader insight into the world the character(s) inhabit by demonstrating the culture and mindset of individuals who live within “zones.” The armed guards are only concerned with maintaining order by monitoring travel between zones, not with providing safety for and protecting the individuals unable (or unwilling) to fight within the zones. The protagonist’s behavior suggests that ambushes like the fight scene mentioned above are common when one group of individuals wants to take resources from others, and that it isn’t unusual for the aggressors to have firearms.

Moves the story forward by providing a situation where the protagonist and the kids she’s decided to help can demonstrate some of their skills, and develop trust. This fight scene also gives a sense of progression—that, in overcoming the ambush (or “obstacle”) she is one step closer to her goal of reaching her son.

Additional note on mood and pacing for internal dialogue in a fight scene

I’d like to clarify my suggestion from the previous fight scene post on using internal dialogue to adjust the scene’s pacing. Internal dialogue slows down the pacing of a scene because the reader is getting direct access into the POV character’s head—and the passing of time doesn’t necessarily have to be “in real time.” As a result, internal dialogue can sometimes give the impression of time slowing down, or even standing still.

The effectiveness of this technique will vary based on the purpose of the fight scene in question, and the mood it’s meant to convey. For example, internal dialogue wouldn’t be an effective technique to use during a fast-paced, high-stakes, intense fight scene. The characters involved in this kind of fight scene would, or should, be more focused on getting out of this fight with as little injury as possible (or, if it’s a life-or-death situation, their focus would be survival), and won’t dedicate much thought beyond acting and reacting to achieve that goal.

Less intense fights, say a sparring session between friends or the kind of romanticized fight scenes that look more like a dance (think Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, when Shang-Chi’s parents first meet), might allow for a slower-paced scene, and provide opportunities for internal dialogue because the characters have a chance to process their movements and their emotions.

Other limitations that can work against characters in a fight scene

In addition to physical limitations, there are mental/emotional ones that exist as well. To name a couple:

A character’s moral code or code of ethics. This kind of limitation seems to appear more obviously in anime/manga than in books, but it’s a detail worth considering, if your story has a prominent warrior or fighting culture. (e.g. Sanji from One Piece refusing to fight women.)

Character flaws (e.g. arrogance, pride, greed) that the POV character might not see as a flaw, but that the reader recognizes as one and can classify as a “limitation.” A flaw might influence a character to make unwise decisions during a fight, and have potentially fatal results.

Fight scenes I’m currently obsessed with…

The three fight scenes I’m currently obsessed with are from Volume 9 of the dark fantasy manga Jujutsu Kaisen (JJK), which occur in quick succession, story-wise. These fight scenes take place in a story arc set a decade before the main storyline of JJK, and help set up a lot of the main storyline’s world-building and plot. It’s the backstory arc for the protagonist’s (Yuuji’s) teacher, Satoru Gojo (or Gojo Satoru), and how he became the god-like character he is in the main storyline. This story arc is known as the Star Plasma Vessel/Hidden Inventory Arc, or Gojo’s Past Arc.

I won’t go into detail about it here, or this post will become much longer than it already is. I’m also aware not everyone finds manga an enjoyable reading experience. I may eventually get around to writing an appreciation post that I’ll post elsewhere (e.g. Tumblr) and link to this post. 😊

Until next time!

Best,

Leah

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