I wrote a fight scene and looking for pointers

[Icanica]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new writer looking for some criticism. I wrote a fight scene between my main character and one of his enemies. Read these two chapters to get the idea:

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/286360-the-children-of-the-divine-limit/chapter/299362/

The Children of the Divine Limit [Inactive] - Chapter 7: The Bell Cannot Be Unrung | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

In case you don't want to know and read the entire story on your own or you just want to read the fight scene without context, the following context of the fight scene is SPOILERS for the story:
The context for this chapter is that Ajax just learned that his friend died and the three people in the room with him, a woman named Vonis, a man named Creta and a man named Kinser are badmouthing her. Ajax who is currently restrained on his bed starts to get belligerent at their disrespect. He is an MC not used to violence or the thought of killing people. His power is sort of explained in these chapter but it is the reader's first exposure to it.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I'm not a native English speaker, nor am I a good author so take my criticism with a grain of salt.

I think your paragraphs are far too small to make such a large space between them. There is also a problem, and a big one, with your usage of tenses. I also can't understand whose pov is describing the fight. Is it a third-person pov with the addition of characters' thoughts? Or your pov jump from one character to another? The way you phrase\formulate your sentences is weird.

I understood what happened. I was able to envision the fight itself, but it wasn't a pleasant experience. I don't know how to express this well enough so that you would understand. Even though your sentence structure and word choices are simple, you managed to make this hard to read. Personally, I think it's written badly.

You can use Grammarly when editing, combine it with Google documents and revise your story there as well. Hope my opinion will help you.

 

[Icanica]

I think your paragraphs are far too small to make such a large space between them. There is also a problem, and a big one, with your usage of tenses. I also can't understand whose pov is describing the fight. Is it a third-person pov with the addition of characters' thoughts? Or your pov jump from one character to another? The way you phrase\formulate your sentences is weird.

I understood what happened. I was able to envision the fight itself, but it wasn't a pleasant experience. I don't know how to express this well enough so that you would understand. Even though your sentence structure and word choices are simple, you managed to make this hard to read. Personally, I think it's written badly.

You can use Grammarly when editing, combine it with Google documents and revise your story there as well. Hope my opinion will help you.

The space between paragraphs is a personal readership choice. My theory is that it feels too daunting for new readers to have to tackle large paragraphs to get into reading the story.

Could you elaborate on the use of tenses?

The pov does shift a lot when describing the fight but only between Kinser and Ajax. Think of it like the thoughts of the subconscious. Most people have an internal monologue but there are thoughts they don't make part of their internal monologue which are still there just under the surface. The narration is kind of like that at times. Yes, it does jump from character to character. The main character Ajax to the enemy Kinser and back and forth when needed. In case it wasn't obvious, the italicized parts are thoughts that are part of an internal monologue.

You are right that I've got to improve my grammar, I might have written it too quickly on the day I released it. Perhaps it would help to read the previous chapter though in order to be familiarized with the struggle that the main character is facing. That was my mistake, I'll update the original post. My writing style is something I am working on but this current formulation which is half unreliable narrator, 1/3 subconscious monologue, 1/6 omniscient narrator is something I do like.

I can try to improve myself in the future with your suggestions, I appreciate your feedback.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

The space between paragraphs is a personal readership choice. My theory is that it feels too daunting for new readers to have to tackle large paragraphs to get into reading the story.

Could you elaborate on the use of tenses?

The pov does shift a lot when describing the fight but only between Kinser and Ajax. Think of it like the thoughts of the subconscious. Most people have an internal monologue but there are thoughts they don't make part of their internal monologue which are still there just under the surface. The narration is kind of like that at times. Yes, it does jump from character to character. The main character Ajax to the enemy Kinser and back and forth when needed. In case it wasn't obvious, the italicized parts are thoughts that are part of an internal monologue.

You are right that I've got to improve my grammar, I might have written it too quickly on the day I released it. Perhaps it would help to read the previous chapter though in order to be familiarized with the struggle that the main character is facing. That was my mistake, I'll update the original post. My writing style is something I am working on but this current formulation which is half unreliable narrator, 1/3 subconscious monologue, 1/6 omniscient narrator is something I do like.

I can try to improve myself in the future with your suggestions, I appreciate your feedback.

I didn't mean to make paragraphs bigger, but the space between them shorted by one row. Open the current number one trending story, then open the latest chapter, you would understand what I mean. With the way your chapters are right now, the readers' eyes will be running all over the page. Because of all the free space between the paragraphs. It might be a personal preference, but I think when you use a lot of short paragraphs\one sentence paragraphs, it's better when they are grouped more tightly.

I understand when and why people use pov shifts. What I meant is, your writing makes it hard to understand whose pov is used. Reading previous chapters won't help me. I was talking solely about the technical aspect of your story. It's not about: "Why does he think like this?" or "Why did he do that?" It's about: "Who thought this? Due to the tense usage being messed up, I can't understand this." or "This particular sentence is viewed from the characters POVs, or is it from a narrator(third person) POV? I can't understand due to weird phrasing." Technical aspect.

Lastly, about tenses and writing style. I mess up with tenses all the time, but my advice would be to stop using present simple to describe absolutely everything that happened. I don't know what else I can say, really. I can't help you with this. Try to read a web\light novel that is praised for its good grammar. You can even go read a translated novel that has a good translation quality and look into how this or that is written. As for the writing style, try to simplify stuff. Don't use overly long sentences, don't use seemingly beautiful phrasing and stuff like that. Focus on the technical aspect. Try to convey your thoughts as clearly as you can. If you aren't good with English, don't try to make your text look fancy. And yeah, edit your text with someone's help or with the help of Grammarly\Google documents. Try not to dish out chapters without editing them.

 

[morhamza]

First off, writing a story using present tense is a tall order for even the best of authors. Besides that, I don't like reading stories written in present tense.

However, because you're writing in present tense, just like the previous post pointed out, you jump between tenses. You go from present to past to present again. It's jarring. Whatever tension was building due to you as the writer focusing my mind on the present is disrupted when you suddenly drag me away to the past.
Besides that, some of your sentences aren't well constructed.

"Creta’s long sword is standing vertically, hilt in Creta’s hands," could easily be written as Creta is holding his sword vertically. The way you wrote it randomly humanizes an object when you didn't need to.

"Ajax freezes at the shock of what Vonis had told him," I would replace at the shock with due to the shock.

This post will be longer if I go line by line. Maybe that's your style of writing, I just don't like the way some of your sentences are constructed.

Besides that, what viewpoint are you writing from? It doesn't look to be first person, and since character thoughts are written, I'm guessing it's third person omniscient. If I am right, your character thoughts needs tags like a dialogue would.

Example: No... no, she... she can't be dead Ajax thought.

 

[Icanica]

I didn't mean to make paragraphs bigger, but the space between them shorted by one row. Open the current number one trending story, then open the latest chapter, you would understand what I mean. With the way your chapters are right now, the readers' eyes will be running all over the page. Because of all the free space between the paragraphs. It might be a personal preference, but I think when you use a lot of short paragraphs\one sentence paragraphs, it's better when they are grouped more tightly.

I understand when and why people use pov shifts. What I meant is, your writing makes it hard to understand whose pov is used. Reading previous chapters won't help me. I was talking solely about the technical aspect of your story. It's not about: "Why does he think like this?" or "Why did he do that?" It's about: "Who thought this? Due to the tense usage being messed up, I can't understand this." or "This particular sentence is viewed from the characters POVs, or is it from a narrator(third person) POV? I can't understand due to weird phrasing." Technical aspect.

Lastly, about tenses and writing style. I mess up with tenses all the time, but my advice would be to stop using present simple to describe absolutely everything that happened. I don't know what else I can say, really. I can't help you with this. Try to read a web\light novel that is praised for its good grammar. You can even go read a translated novel that has a good translation quality and look into how this or that is written. As for the writing style, try to simplify stuff. Don't use overly long sentences, don't use seemingly beautiful phrasing and stuff like that. Focus on the technical aspect. Try to convey your thoughts as clearly as you can. If you aren't good with English, don't try to make your text look fancy. And yeah, edit your text with someone's help or with the help of Grammarly\Google documents. Try not to dish out chapters without editing them.

Hmm, I see, yeah that should be ok. I'll try that. I should probably edit previous chapters. I think I saw one or two people have double spaces between paragraphs, I'll try it the alternate way.

To be fair, I think it would be clearer who thought this or that if with the previous chapter. There are two character internal monologues in this chapter specifically and the Kinser monologue is established to be more apathetic, calm, collected (and later in the chapter, panicky after failing to dispatch Ajax). But I will include thought tags when necessary, that shouldn't be a problem.

I do try for beautiful phrasing when I think it works but I will stick to the technical aspect first and foremost, you're definitely right about that. Sometimes I have a tendency to make sentences longer so the chapter gets filled out. I feel like I'm mimicking ReZero prose style kind of badly.

More useful feedback! Thanks a lot.

First off, writing a story using present tense is a tall order for even the best of authors. Besides that, I don't like reading stories written in present tense.

However, because you're writing in present tense, just like the previous post pointed out, you jump between tenses. You go from present to past to present again. It's jarring. Whatever tension was building due to you as the writer focusing my mind on the present is disrupted when you suddenly drag me away to the past.
Besides that, some of your sentences aren't well constructed.

"Creta’s long sword is standing vertically, hilt in Creta’s hands," could easily be written as Creta is holding his sword vertically. The way you wrote it randomly humanizes an object when you didn't need to.

"Ajax freezes at the shock of what Vonis had told him," I would replace at the shock with due to the shock.

This post will be longer if I go line by line. Maybe that's your style of writing, I just don't like the way some of your sentences are constructed.

Besides that, what viewpoint are you writing from? It doesn't look to be first person, and since character thoughts are written, I'm guessing it's third person omniscient. If I am right, your character thoughts needs tags like a dialogue would.

Example: No... no, she... she can't be dead Ajax thought.

Yes, I will try to stick to one tense and make sure when I flip back and forth makes sense to the story especially during this fight scene.

The three sentences you used are definitely better with the improvement.

I will also try to be more clear about the point of view I'm currently using and make the flip between viewpoints less cryptic, I feel like it's too much to ask them to solve the puzzle of who is saying what where, when I just want them to enjoy a story.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Hmm, I see, yeah that should be ok. I'll try that. I should probably edit previous chapters. I think I saw one or two people have double spaces between paragraphs, I'll try it the alternate way.

To be fair, I think it would be clearer who thought this or that if with the previous chapter. There are two character internal monologues in this chapter specifically and the Kinser monologue is established to be more apathetic, calm, collected (and later in the chapter, panicky after failing to dispatch Ajax). But I will include thought tags when necessary, that shouldn't be a problem.

I do try for beautiful phrasing when I think it works but I will stick to the technical aspect first and foremost, you're definitely right about that. Sometimes I have a tendency to make sentences longer so the chapter gets filled out. I feel like I'm mimicking ReZero prose style kind of badly.

More useful feedback! Thanks a lot.

I would also add a piece of advice from my personal experience. I'm writing for almost a year now. Due to some reasons, for the whole week, I'm editing all the chapters I wrote previously. And as I'm editing it, I can't understand why anyone at all read my story. It's written horrendously. I tried to write in a different style, not as others do. I wanted to be unique. But the truth is, I failed miserably due to my writing skills being terrible. And the funny thing is that I didn't get any criticism. At all. My readers were all okay with it. No one tried to 'bash' me. Even the negative reviews mostly stated that the grammar is okay. I was thinking hard about what words I should choose. What kind of 'special' meaning this or that phrase will have. Long story short, I failed.

Don't try to be unique at the beginning. Aim for it later down in your writing career. Simple isn't synonymous with stale\boring. And don't try to overthink stuff too much. If you ain't a linguist, you won't be able to perform high-level wordplay. Japanese\chinese\korean web\light novels authors can pull this out because their language structure is vastly different from English. Instead, use this time to revise the things you write.