46
votes
How to write a character that knows a lot about explosives?
You don't need to be able to build homemade explosive to describe a character who does.
You just need to give the reader the impression that the character knows what he/she's up to. Most of the ...
33
votes
How to write a character that knows a lot about explosives?
"Did you know if you mixed equal parts of gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate you can make napalm?" - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
But guess what, it doesn't work. The author made that up. But ...
- 6,130
31
votes
...and then she held the gun
Have you considered doing something like skipping, then describing?
Something like (but do consider this first draft quality):
The man kept the gun pointed at her. Jane had trained for years, and ...
- 3,764
29
votes
Accepted
Where to draw the line between fantasy and reality in a story?
Be consistent
The most important thing is to keep your story consistent. A story which has the same rules throughout can be accepted even if it is not compatible with the real world. However, even a ...
24
votes
Accepted
Military plans and the rule of failing the execution
No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy:
You are making the assumption that a brilliant plan will always go as planned, and that if it doesn't, that reflects badly in the story on the stiff ...
- 13.5k
22
votes
Accepted
How to express martial arts action in fiction?
The simple answer is simply to describe the awareness of the fight. I've been doing martial arts for three years now, so I know that your mentality shifts a lot depending on what style you are using. ...
18
votes
What makes a siege story/plot interesting?
You have a lot to talk about, in theory. A city under siege could last for months, sometimes a year, without reinforcements (by the way, wikipedia has a nice list of sieges here, both real and ...
17
votes
Where to draw the line between fantasy and reality in a story?
If you're doing essentially the same thing as 90% of your genre (flying people achieve great heights immediately, people with superpowers never have issues with getting fuel for those powers, someone ...
17
votes
Accepted
How to make the POV character sit on the sidelines without the reader getting bored
You have multiple options.
You can, as @Amadeus says, rewrite, so your character can be in the battle.
You can have somebody recount the battle to your character after the fact, with your character ...
15
votes
Crossing the line between justified force and brutality
The tone of your writing will make the difference
Written out in a cold hard list like that is certainly sounds brutal. MC2 has MC1 at their mercy and yet continues to threaten and abuse them. If you ...
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15
votes
...and then she held the gun
As @Wetcircuit suggest, try shifting the focus to the gunman
Now, I have no idea how you write your story, but here's an attempt at setting up the scene:
Staring straight into the barrel, her ...
- 2,571
15
votes
Can a fight scene, component-wise, be too complex and complicated?
Let's take a look at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in the Lord of the Rings:
First, we have the Rohirrim. Among them are Theoden, Éowyn, Éomer and Merry. Then we have Minas Tirith, with its ...
14
votes
How to write a character that knows a lot about explosives?
The O.S.S. and I
My great-uncle wrote a book about his experience with the Office of Strategic Services in WWII, full of stories of espionage and clandestine acts. There is even a chapter titled "...
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14
votes
...and then she held the gun
I like your last example. Just keep the speedy action and remove the final sentence that seems out of place for your setting. If your character knows what she's doing, the action she performs will be ...
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13
votes
Crossing the line between justified force and brutality
Assuming the detainer is a police officer, in many jurisdictions this would be considered unnecessary force, i.e. illegal, and would likely result in the detainee having to be released.
Police ...
- 744
12
votes
Accepted
...and then she held the gun
I'm going to try and take the answer from "a CVn":
Have you considered doing something like skipping, then describing?
... and take it a bit further.
Jane was calm, arms up, as John held her at ...
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11
votes
Accepted
Can a scene be written to be disorienting and not be too confusing to readers?
If you want the scene to initially be confusing, go ahead! Since it's written in first person, that's just realistic.
However, keep it brief. It would probably be rather annoying to try to read ...
- 226
11
votes
How do I write a MODERN combat/violence scene without being dry?
Welcome to the SE.
In general, dry writing is 'journalistic' writing, in that it records events. Gripping writing records interior reactions to events.
Interior writing is tougher to write, in ...
- 23.8k
10
votes
Skipping the action scene
I am not convinced of your premise that people don't read books for action scenes, nor that numerous fighting scenes are "just bad writing." I'd argue that knocking a character out just to skip an ...
- 276
10
votes
Learning about hand-to-hand combat?
If you are contemplating about mediaeval warfare with longsword type weapons, try reenactors.
These people are actually researching what can, cannot be done with the means at the time. This includes ...
- 1,032
10
votes
How do I describe Newtonian physics to the reader in a way that is realistic yet not too complex?
Describe the effects, particularly where the effects in space without the presence of air resistance/friction differ from the familiar effects in an atmosphere where friction slows things down.
...
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10
votes
Military plans and the rule of failing the execution
I am not sure, if this fully in the spirit of the question, but the standard way of having both, a long exposition and an exciting perfect execution of a plan, is to have both at the same point in the ...
- 441
9
votes
How can I have a war with no "good" or "evil" side?
It's actually not an issue because "history is written by the victors", who often use their dominance to codify the evil of the vanquished. The vanquished may have been evil, but evil is a relative ...
- 351
9
votes
How can I have a war with no "good" or "evil" side?
"Good" and "Evil" are, almost always, very relative terms.
While wars are invariably (if there's some counter-example I cannot think of it right away) fought for economic reasons fighters are usually ...
- 1,003
9
votes
Accepted
What can a fight scene prove about characters?
As Totumus Maximus noted in a comment, the fact that your character loses the fight shows, right off the bat, that she is not going to be an overpowered Mary-Sue who wins everything without even ...
- 10.6k
9
votes
How to make the POV character sit on the sidelines without the reader getting bored
Rewrite.
I don't think it is a good idea to have a new POV character for one scene.
You have control of history, don't injure your hero character, or don't injure her so badly, or go back in your ...
- 97.5k
8
votes
Where to draw the line between fantasy and reality in a story?
There are a LOT of things you see all the time in fiction that are totally unrealistic. Not only do characters in stories typically get knocked out and remain unconscious for hours, but they then ...
- 25.4k
8
votes
Where to draw the line between fantasy and reality in a story?
I am afraid that if I write a scene like the one with Joe above, people might criticize it for being unrealistic, even if I was writing a fantasy.
Hang a lampshade on it.
Beefy McProtagonist had ...
- 1,372
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