First Fight scene (dragon hunter v.s. dragon)

Dragon v. dragon hunter fight. There's a lot of lore and worldbuilding I want to incorporate at some point that will give this fight more context in hindsight

Thalia crouched on the arm of a tree some twenty feet up, hood pulled up over her segmented leather helmet. She was draped in the same browns and greens as the forest. Her leather armor pressed into her skin at the joints, forming lasting indentations but she ignored it and kept her gaze focused on her target. Obscured by the trees, but still visible in the distance was an arched red form. Everything about it was long and elegant. It had a long neck with a delicate head, and a menacing row of spikes down its neck and back. Two long thin wings with claws at their joint, and two slender legs. It was young. Later in life, it would grow bearded spikes along its throat, and it’s limbs and neck would become thicker and better armored.

Silently, Thalia crossed her left arm over her right shoulder and pulled her axe out of its case on her back. It was a simple tool. The bladed side was thick and weighty, made for breaking dragon bones, although it could just as easily fell a tree or a human. Towards the shaft of the axe it became narrower, and then, on the other side, it formed a stout spike, for puncturing the tough dragon scales.

In her other hand, she gripped her hook: a long, thin wire with a hook one one end and a handle on the other.

Thalia knew her mission and she knew how she would accomplish it. She played the fight out in her head as she had been taught to. She would jump from her branch and boost herself with her combat magic, swinging her hook around a tree branch she would mirror her upward arc through the air and land swinging her spiked axe at the dragons side, where it’s armor was weakest. Of course the dragon would hear her, and would probably dodge or counter attack before she even got to it. The thunk of the hook would alert it.

The best dragon hunters could get right above their prey without being noticed. But Thalia was not the best. This would be her first battle, when she would need to return with the beast's head. Not all her battles would be this hard. Dragon hunters didn’t need to kill dragons after their first battle, just scare them away from Dolan Cities territories so they couldn’t kill humans and livestock.

She watched it lumber closer, almost elegantly. It almost seemed to be enjoying the flowering mosses, but that was impossible.

I can’t do it. 

She shook her head. This wasn’t the time for doubt. Her vision darkened around the edges. The only thing that mattered was in front of her. Thalia leapt forwards and upwards, thrusting the axe in her left hand downwards to giver a boost and swinging her hook overhanded at a branch 20 feet away. She was almost silent. But it heard her and whirled, flicking her axe sideways away from its side and embedding it into a mossy stump. 

The dragon snarled in surprise and it’s chest began to glow as it backpedaled, rearing onto its hind legs and spreading its wings for balance. Thalia dropped the hook in her right and drew her short sword from her left hip. She dropped into a crouch. The dragon and the hunter stared at each other for a moment. The moment stretched as they stared at each other, both wondering what to do next. The dragon was thin, almost emaciated.

“Leave me alone”, the creature snarled. Thalia narrowed her eyes but said nothing. “I’ve done nothing to you. I’ve eaten no livestock, harmed no humans”. It shook its head, growing more angry. Thalia stayed silent. She shrugged off her hesitation and swung the axe underhand at the dragon’s chest.

It swept its wings downward, propelling itself up just outside the circle of her swing, then swung at her with both taloned wings. Thalia jumped back, propelling herself with her combat magic into a graceful flip upwards onto a tree branch. Quickly, she propelled herself to another tree, trying to access the beast’s side or back. It spun, keeping her at its front. She had to do something different.

She sheathed her sword, jumping forward and over the dragon and bringing the spiked end of her axe doublehanded on the beast's tail. It let out a piercing scream and spun around, flipping the axe off into the woods, but Thalia was already scrambling up its back, towards its neck. It bucked wildly trying to dislodge her, but she had trained for this. She had to drop the sword in her right hand to better grip its back, but now felt the steely sureness she always felt before completing her exercises.

The dragon jumped up and backwards to impale her in between the ground and its spikes. Thalia swung around and onto its chest, right below its chin. The beast lay stunned, and in that moment she drew the knife from her boot and held it to its chin and drew her leg back to kick and looked into its eyes. They both paused for a moment. Thalia's breath caught in her throat. She willed herself to move, to do the dead, to drive the knife into the beast's skull, but she could not move.

Then a body fell in between them. 

The dragon arched its back violently, flinging Thalia backwards into a tree. She fell, weaponless, then stumbled to her feat. Her head was ringing and she was completely disoriented. By the time she looked up, only seconds later, the dragon’s head was only inches away from hers. The body that had fallen between them was constrained by the dragons tail. Heat and sulfur emanated from the beast’s mouth. She saw fear and rage in its eyes.

“If you kill me, you’ll have ten dragon hunters coming for your head”. The rage coagulated into hatred, sending a tingle down her spine. It reached one talon up and brushed it against her throat.

“I am not like you”, it snarled. It’s voice was tainted by the metallic accent all dragons had. “Take out your knives, SLOWLY, and drop them”. Thalia hesitated, then slowly drew the knife from her other boot. If it wanted her dead, it would’ve killed her by now. She slashed at the beast’s eye but it was too quick. It reared its head back and grabbed her arm in its mouth, pinning her to the tree and knocking her breath out with the knuckles of its right wing. She could feel it’s teeth pricking against her forearm. She dropped the knife. It released her arm and spit the knife out, too far for her to reach. How could she be so stupid? She'd had it. Her knife had been to its chin.

Both their heads turned at a blinding flash of light. The person wrapped in the beast's tail had light pouring from his eyes. It grew until Thalia could see nothing, coalescing around the dragon. When the light subsided, the dragon was gone, replaced by a girl cradled by the mossy ground.

Author's Note

This is my first fight scene. I tried to focus on where I put detail and make it somewhat character-driven. Feedback welcome!

Also, I haven't totally decided on character names and genders, lmk if you have an opinion

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask…

The problem that hit me, immediately, was that this is a transcription of you telling the story aloud. But that can’t work on the page because verbal storytelling is a performance art, where HOW you tell the story—your personal performance—matters as much as what you say, because that's where the emotional content lies.

In person, an audience can hear all the emotion you place in your voice—the changes in cadence, in intensity, and more. Added to that are the gestures with which you visually punctuate, plus your changes of expression and eye movements, and, body language. But, how much of that makes the page? None. And the reader has no performance notes to go with the storyteller's script you provide.

The problem is that when you read it back to edit, it will work perfectly. The emotion IS there in your voice—as are the expression changes, gestures, and the rest of your performance. Moreover, you begin reading already knowing the characters, their motivation and backstory, and the situation. So the reader's ack of context and confusion won't be visible to you. And can we address a problem we don’t see as being one? Of course not.

That being the case, I thought you'd want to know, because talent or how well you write don’t enter into it. And, the problem is fixable.

The “problem behind the problem,” is that we spend more than a decade, in school, honing a skill we call writing. And our teachers never mentioned that all those reports they gave us to practice on made us good at writing reports, not stories—or that he goal of nonfiction writing is to provide an informational experience, by reporting and explaining, as you do here. And as part of how such information is provided, we slowly build a picture.

But… We learn that she’s 20’ up in a tree. Would it matter if it was 15, or 35? Would that change the story? No. So why specify? We learn that she’s wearing segmented armor. What’s segmented armor? Does your reader know? We learn what color she wearing in a medium that doesn’t show us a picture. Were her clothes another color would that really change the story?

My point? The lady is our avatar, our protagonist. And while you’re going on and on about things like creases in her skin, the reader doesn’t know what really matters: Who are we, where are we, and what’s going on?

For example, she’s looking at a dragon. In her viewpoint it’s a dragon, and she's thinking about what to do next. For the reader? It’s an “arched red form.” What in the pluperfect hells is an arched red form? She’s looking at a dragon. Shouldn’t we be seeing what she does, knowing it as-she-does? Instead of telling the reader that someone unknown is perched in a tree for unknown purpose in an unknown location, put THEM in the tree. Make them know the situation as she does, moment by-moment.

Explaining in the style of a chronicle, or history, lacks all immediacy, because there’s no uncertainty. Fact follows fact, providing information ABOUT the events second-hand.

But…place the reader on the scene, knowing what she knows, AS-SHE-KNOWS-IT, and the reader will care. Place them into that fleeting moment she calls “now,” feeling what she feels, and making decisions in parallel with her, and it’s a whole new game. As E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” Make it so real to the reader that if someone tosses a rock at your protagonist the reader will duck. There's the joy of reading, not in learning about things she's ignoring.

Problem is…. Did any teacher, in all your years of school spend even one second on what the elements of a scene on the page are, and why it’s not like one on the screen or stage? How about the basic knowledge, like the three issues we must address quickly on entering any scene, so the reader has context to understand why the protagonist takes action? After all, if we come to writing not truly understanding the function of a scene, can we write one?

So it’s not your fault, or some failing in you. We all leave school not realizing that we are precisely as trained to write fiction as to successfully perform an appendectomy.

So the solution is dead simple: add the tricks the pros take for granted to those you already own. Of course, simple and easy aren’t interchangeable words, so there is a fair amount of study and practice involved. But that’s true of any field. And since you already want to write fiction, it’s work but not labor. And, you’ll find it a lot like going backstage at the professional theater for the first time: filled with, “So THAT’S how they do it."

And when you do master those tricks, you’ll find that the act of writing becomes a LOT more fun.

A good place to begin is in the library’s fiction-writing section. You work when you have time, at your own pace. There’s no pressure, and no tests. What’s not to love? Personally? I’d suggest Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found to date at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

So…given the work you’ve done, and your emotional connection to the story, something like this can be really hard to take. I know because I’ve been there more than once. But the first step toward fixing any problem is to learn that it exists, and why it’s a problem. And certainly, every successful writer faced it, too. So don’t let it throw you. That book I recommended is the one that changed things for me, and got me my first contract. Maybe it can do that for you.

For what it’s worth, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are based on the kind of thing you’ll find in that book, and meant as an overview of the major issues.

And here’s the thing: That book, or one like it, won’t make a pro of you. It will, though, give you the knowledge and tools necessary. And like the proverbial chicken soup for a cold, it might not help. But it sure can’t hurt.

So...give it a try. And while you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Dragon17]

Thank you! I will work on incorporating this into my scene. I think I misunderstood "story" as a category because this was not meant to be spoken, just FYI.

Thanks a lot for your feedback!