Uncanny Vale

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of Erin Wilcox

National Novel Writing Month: Day 28

Oh my God, the end is almost here, and today I got to write a really cool fight scene! Before I wrote this novel I don’t believe I had written a single fight scene in my whole writing life—one of the many detriments of focusing on literary fiction. Anyway, I’m at 47,376 words. I’ll be very happy to drag my ass across the finish line in a couple of days. Or maybe I’ll skip or shimmy or something. I’m pretty tired, but honestly, it’s not the very most tired I’ve been in my life. Or even this year. (Odyssey Workshop, I’m looking at you.)

susanedits (not verified) said:

Very cool. What kind of research do you do to make the fights realistic when you haven’t written them before (or, presumably, been in any)?

Erin said:

I’ve read some guidelines about writing them. In particular, one post emphasized how quickly a real fight happens. That’s why you typically slow the pacing for a fight scene. It’s pretty much like the rest of this beast in that I’ll be going back over it later. But I might just take a few martial arts classes, too, for research.