Channelknight Fadran

"Then I suppose you ought to get started on figuring out if my idea works already. Seriously, that kind of power could really throw some of even the best warriors off their game."

"Well, it'd take some time, but..." Vance glanced over at the pesky vine friend, "if you can establish a more efficient form of communication, then Eej could act as your eyes while you fight blindfolded: but feed you false information here and there in order to let your powers work."

"I believe Eej could help with that, actually."

"I actually think that might not be the worst idea," Vance said, moving forward to examine the shifted tree. "See, what this kind of power can do is force the area around you to shift directly in your favor. It doesn't have to be a massive change or anything particularly noticeable; after all, you only need to move a root a couple inches upwards to trip someone. What's more, this barely took up any of your energy because your changes were so subtle, so you could be constantly improving the terrain for yourself in combat."

"So it does. But." Vance pointed at the tree she'd touched. "That used to be almost a foot farther that way, and the rock you touched was a few inches to the left before. It all shifted in real time as you were walking around."

He was smiling. "It's what did happen. Take a look around."

Quendi picked up her staff, just in case.

Fight Scenes We’ve all been there. You just came out of the Hinokami Kagura scene in Demon Slayer and your mind has been completely and utterly blown. You’re in shock. You’re in awe. It was so incredible. You think to yourself: Man, that’s what all fight scenes should be like. This is the new standard. This is the new pinnacle. I am absolutely certain that every single one of you has redeveloped their love for fight scenes and the desire to make them incredible because of that one scene. I’m sure of it. Every human being on the planet is this way. If, for some reason, you don’t have any clue as to what the scud I’m talking about, then go watch Demon Slayer! That should be a no-brainer for you. It’s an incredible show and totally worth your time. Don’t listen to the jerks who call it “mid” and “a bad anime”; they all watch One Piece and Naruto, which are boring and uneventful. Their opinions are incorrect. But enough plugging: you want to learn how to make such incredible fight scenes in your own works of art. What part of Tanjiro rushing down Rui with his sun breathing technique makes it so incredible? How did this scene among every other anime battle I had ever watched make me grin my face off like a fool? That, of course, is what I’m going to teach y’all today. So, without further ado… - RightingWrite: How to Git Gud at Action Scenes - Part one: The broad I’m not going to spend too long on this one because there’s a million other people who could tell you exactly what I mean by “your action needs context.” We all know that fight scenes are the highlight of any action/adventure (suck it, plot), but at the same time you have movies chock-full of explosions and bullets that are completely boring! How is it that easily the most captivating forms of scene sequences can also be the most useless? The answer, of course, is context and pacing. We all know that every good action scene needs to have a big space of story and characters and other stuff between the one before and the one coming next, and that’s because you have to be treating them like you would a plate of brownies. If you have, say, five brownies, then you could eat them all at the same time. Certainly. It would be tasty and a good time (and probably leave you with a stomachache). But more likely than not, you’re going to wait between eating each one. You’ll have one to begin with once they’re done baking, then put the rest on the counter and let them sit. Then as you go about your day working, reading, studying, etc., you can always reward yourself with having waited and being productive by getting another brownie, and in a way this even makes the experience of eating the brownies even better. This is for two reasons: Reason one: you’re rewarding yourself for being productive (hooray!) Reason two: you’re letting the anticipation build, waiting for each second for the brownies to look better and better. The taste of the last one still resides in your mouth, begging for more, but you wait. Soon all you can think about is the next brownie. Then as the hours pass by and you keep going about your day, you finally cave in and get another one… and it’s even more delicious. And it’s the same for fight scenes! The thing about action is that it should be savored. It’s an occasion to be relished. They are your brownies, and the story in between each one is the time your reader waits to eat the next. You buildup to the next one using other types of scenes and such, so that when they do pop up they feel extra special. However, you have to be careful about this. Obviously, you can’t just have [filler], [filler], [filler], [fight scene]; repeat. That’s what Michael Bay does and that’s why nobody cares about Transformers anymore. This makes the fight scenes stale and repetitive; like if instead of brownies you’re interspersing your time with cabbage leaves. This brings us to the next important facet: context. A fight scene is only as good as the tension you use to build up to it. You have to establish what the conflict really entails, how dangerous it is, what’s at stake. Avoid what I like to call the Battle Droid Problem: that is, you have to establish that an enemy is worth taking seriously if you want someone to actually stay engaged in the action. Having a bunch of jedi take on a bunch of battle droids is never going to be very engaging because we all know that battle droids are rubbish and jedi are practically indestructible. I’m struggling to put this into words. Lemme give you an example. You’ve read Skyward, right? I’m going to use the first battle in Skyward as my example. I really wanted to use the [redacted] scene from Wax n Wayne 4, but obviously that’s a big no-no so I’ll restrain myself. Skyward as a standalone novel is probably one of my favorite Sanderson books ever (which is saying a lot), so I’m choosing it as my champion here out of sheer bias. In this first battle, all the itty bitty cadet children are unexpectedly thrown into the airspace to blow up some krell and try not to die. It’s pretty short - just a few pages long - and honestly not that much happens in it. Jerkface attacks with his cronies, Spensa follows behind against orders (to the surprise of absolutely no one), they almost all crash into each other a few times, then the flaq blows out the krell’s shield and Kimmalyn snipes it like the gigachad they are. Only Rig takes some damage to his shield, and overall everyone is fine. However, those pitiful few pages are incredibly memorable, and the reason for that is because of all Sanderson did to build up to it. Of course he developed the characters (Spensa the crazy woman, Jerkface the definitely-not-a-love-interest, Rig the best, etc.) to respond to the situation properly (spontaneity, level-headedness, and puking; respectively), but he also developed the setting and situation. Using Spensa’s loss he established the danger of being a pilot; with the holographic pod chamber doohickeys he established the intricacies of flying a poco; with literally nothing but sheer prose he established just how awesome plasma/laser spaceship cannons are. If Sanderson had started the story with this flight scene, it would’ve been a boring, pointless mess. It took worldbuilding, character development, tone establishment, and all that jazz to give this scene the perfect feel and flow. It’s hard to explain, guys. Just… if you have questions, ask. It’s a situational thing. But frick all that broad scud. Let’s move along to the fight scenes themselves and how to make them awesome.

"Then I suggest we do not go in that direction."

Aha. I see. Wizard

I suppose it isn’t, seeing as how I have yet to post a recap after several weeks

Wizard

Nooooooooooooo Matttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt :sobbing:

"He might not be in that limo specifically. As it approaches important holidays they often have decoys to keep him safe." Kris stared into it with a pair of binoculars, but the windows were heavily tinted and he couldn't see a thing on the inside. "Still. It's a start."

Hrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm FINE Wizard; Matrim After all this he finally managed to push me to the dark side

Vance didn't say anything. "Take it off when you want."

MAT NO IT'S NOT ME I SWEAR

"Just go with it."

Vance then tied the blindfold around her eyes. "Cool. Now walk around."

.... .... ...A part of me says "switch to Mat to prevent manips" ... ... ...but the other part of me really doesn't want Mat to be the elim

Indeed, I suppose. What’s the count at?

Does that mean you’ll lynch me if Mat winds up elim? Oh boy.

Kris shudders. “Mariah Carey… these elves mean business.”

“I see.”