Folks, I\u2019ve had covid all week and today is my birthday. So I reckon I\u2019m justified in giving y\u2019all \/ youse a slightly cheaty email \u2013 because most of it is made up of text I\u2019ve already written.<\/p>\n
And it follows on from last week\u2019s email, about how sex scenes needed to be all about conversation. I said the same, in passing, about fight scenes as well, and a few people wrote back to say, in effect, \u201cAll very interesting, oh Pale Lord of the Email, but how do you actually write a fight scene when people take turns to whack each other and make interesting conversation? I don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So here\u2019s an example \u2013 from my (extremely realistic) novel, The Dead House<\/em>. This culminating scene has Fiona spend the night with a monk in a small stone cell. The monk (Anselm) is not a nice guy \u2013 he wants Fiona to spend the rest of her life praying in this cell \u2013 but their past relationship has always been warm. In the opening bit of dialogue, Anselm essentially tells Fiona that her own spiritual needs have led her to this place and this situation. There\u2019s a part of Fiona which can\u2019t easily disagree.<\/p>\n Anselm is a big, strong, fit man. Fiona is a short and slightly built woman. My fight scenes nearly always start with this kind of disparity so part of my challenge as a novelist is finding a plausible way to flip the odds.<\/p>\n The italics type is the fight scene as I wrote it (slightly edited for clarity). My comments on that scene are in bold.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n In a very gentle voice, Anselm adds, \u2018And what happened in there, in our church tonight: can you really tell me that you did not feel the Spirit of the Lord moving within you?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t answer.<\/em><\/p>\n Can\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018You chose us. It was you who chose us.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n I bow my head.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Forgive me, brother.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018You are already forgiven.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n This material feels \u2013 and is \u2013 at least partly authentic, a spiritual and loving moment between the two of them. Yes, as we\u2019ll see, Fiona is also thinking strategically, but she\u2019s both things \u2013 strategic and moved. It\u2019s a moment of loving union.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n We move to the glass and pray again.<\/em><\/p>\n Four o\u2019clock and Anselm yawns.<\/em><\/p>\n My own relationship with sleep is so impaired, so strange already, that a night spent awake hardly signifies. But Anselm is different. His monkish body-clock is all askew. Kneeling all night when he should be asleep, and these hours of prayer are hard on any bones, old or young. This isn\u2019t the first time he\u2019s yawned, but it\u2019s the biggest so far.<\/em><\/p>\n I yawn too. Ampliflying that contagion of tiredness.<\/em><\/p>\n The first whisper the reader has that Fiona\u2019s been thinking strategically all along \u2013 she was captured many pages back.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Excuse me, brother, I need to use the chamberpot.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n And do. I\u2019ve been drinking water half the night and have a whole bladderful of urine to release.<\/em><\/p>\n More insight into how her past behaviour has been strategic. As readers, we\u2019re getting a prickle of excitement \u2013 but also wondering how much of the past few pages has been a true insight into Fiona, and how much was a deliberate sham. That also means we\u2019re at the point of reconsidering the Fiona\/Anselm relationship. Perhaps we\u2019ve not been reading that right at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n I squat over the little pot and pee, as noisily as I can.<\/em><\/p>\n Use the sound to cover me, as I empty the little ewer of water out over the floor.<\/em><\/p>\n Use the sound to cover me, as I take two handfuls of finely powdered lime [there for making mortar].<\/em><\/p>\n A natural product. Beautiful when used right, and one that does all those good things to do with letting old buildings breathe, that sort of thing.<\/em><\/p>\n But also caustic. Fiercely, dangerously caustic.<\/em><\/p>\n When wet, lime is one of the most strongly alkali substances available outside a chemist\u2019s laboratory. One that will react, and react strongly, to moisture of any sort. The cornea of the eye, for example. The soft linings of the nose and mouth.<\/em><\/p>\n Stepping up behind Anselm, I give him one handful of lime in his eyes, the other over his airways.<\/em><\/p>\n Such a violent act in the context! Here\u2019s a man she\u2019s prayed happily with and she\u2019s squashing a \u2018dangerously caustic\u2019 powder into his cornea, the soft linings of the nose and mouth.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is what I mean by \u2018conversation\u2019 in a fight. We know that Fiona\u2019s spiritual moment with Anselm was at least partly real. But here\u2019s the other part: utter fury and refusal to comply. This is the moment when Anselm realises he hasn\u2019t understood all of Fiona at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n All of a sudden, the relationship shakes into a new phase.<\/strong><\/p>\n He gasps in pain and surprise and the gasp allows me to shove a whole big handful into his open gob.<\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019s in pain. He\u2019s surprised. That\u2019s an emotional response \u2013 a new turn in the conversation. How does Fiona respond? With more violence: her response to his awakening.<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s no treatment for caustic burns, except plenty of fresh water and I\u2019ve just emptied all the water we have.<\/em><\/p>\n Stepping quickly back as Anselm roars and flails, I snatch up the chamberpot. Smash the thing over his saintly little head. Which stuns him, if only a little, and makes more of him wet. I take the bag of lime and pour it, throw it, scatter it over him.<\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019s a man powdered and, beneath the powder, burning.<\/em><\/p>\n My fight scenes need to explain how a small woman can defeat a big man, so I\u2019m careful here. He \u2018roars and flails\u2019, indicating that he still has a ton of strength and power. It\u2019s also a moment when the reader realises how Fiona has been planning this thing the entire night. She\u2019s played a long game to get to this exact point.<\/strong><\/p>\n When he opens his mouth, it\u2019s white and void inside. The same thing with his eyes. It looks like they\u2019re closed, but they\u2019re not. They\u2019re open. Just white and grey and staring.<\/em><\/p>\n He tries to clean the lime away with his robe, his hands, but he\u2019s like a fish trying to wash away the river. Whether he\u2019s permanently blind, I don\u2019t know, but he\u2019s functionally sightless.<\/em><\/p>\n He thrashes around. Cries out, I think, saying \u2018Sister! Sister!\u2019, but his mouth is full of a powder that burns and his roar is the roar of a beast.<\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019s sort of defeated now, isn\u2019t he? I mean, Fiona still needs to deal with the power of those thrashing arms, but the odds are now heavily on Fiona winning this one. That means, the reader can now consider Anselm as a victim. His mouth is \u2018white and void\u2019. He\u2019s basically blind, a fish trying to wash away the river. And he\u2019s saying \u2018Sister, sister\u2019 \u2013 how the monks referred to Fiona \u2013 which is hardly the most aggressive possible response. He\u2019s trying to call on that old relationship, trying to summon its memory to deflect Fiona from her current course. That\u2019s yet another emotional turn in the fight. A plea, a cry for mercy.<\/strong><\/p>\n I stay clear of his arms, ducking and weaving as I have to, but I don\u2019t actually think he\u2019s trying to hurt me. To restrain me, yes, but not actually to hurt me.<\/em><\/p>\n And again, this shifts our emotional understanding again. He cries \u2018sister\u2019, and seeks to restrain, but not hurt, her. This man was going to do great harm to Fiona, but there\u2019s a true godliness, or something like it, there as well. Once again, the fight makes us ever so slightly adjust our emotional calculations. Yes, he is a bad man, but no, the praying wasn\u2019t all nonsense either. There was and is something holy here as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n Choose the fight you want, not the one they want. If you can\u2019t win, don\u2019t start.<\/em><\/p>\n Any time before now, those monks would have had the fight they expected\u2014and that Brother sadist Thomas wanted. Right now, I\u2019ve got the fight I want, and one that takes place when and where and how I want.<\/em><\/p>\n A strong, blind man whose instincts are for gentleness versus a petite, but seeing woman who has her entire life hanging on the outcome.<\/em><\/p>\n No contest.<\/em><\/p>\n Fiona finally places all her cards on the table. \u201cHi reader, you thought I was just going along with these horrible monkish plans, right? But of course, I wasn\u2019t. I\u2019m always smarter than you and I\u2019m always thinking ahead. You want to know what happens next? Right? Simple: I win.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n I wait until Anselm is a little off-balance\u2014skidding on china and urine\u2014and kick hard at his only standing leg. He starts to fall.<\/em><\/p>\n As he goes down, I grab his head and throw it downwards against the stone. It bounces horribly, but just once.<\/em><\/p>\n He starts to move, just a little. Not in combat mode now. Not even restraint mode. More am-I-still-alive mode. I put in a few more considered, disabling kicks and stamps, then leave it.<\/em><\/p>\n That brother ain\u2019t gonna bother this little sister no more.<\/em><\/p>\n And that\u2019s the sentence that tells the reader, yep, we\u2019re done.<\/strong><\/p>\n Except that \u2026 well, the fight is done, but isn\u2019t there some closure needed to the relationship? We\u2019d thought these guys had one kind of relationship. Now our thinking on that score has changed rather abruptly. But at the moment, we don\u2019t quite have a nice place to settle.<\/strong><\/p>\n I step up onto the bed. I can\u2019t reach the gap in the ceiling like that, but my little glass prayer-niche gives me a foothold and\u2014clumsily, clumsily\u2014I scrabble up to the roof and through it. [the only way out of this, unfinished, cell.]<\/em><\/p>\n Look down.<\/em><\/p>\n Anselm is dragging himself upright, or sort of upright. But he\u2019s not trying to stand, he\u2019s trying to kneel. My kicks were scientific enough that he\u2019s going to have problems with his ribs, knee and testicles, but he somehow accomplishes a kind of lopsided lean up against the wall.<\/em><\/p>\n His burned hands search for and find the little palm cross. The bit of glass through which a pair of seeing eyes would find the altar.<\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019s seeking to pray: final confirmation that Anselm\u2019s piety wasn\u2019t all horse-poo. Perhaps his piety was even the bigger part of things. Perhaps the bad-monk thing was just piety taken too far. But this closing snapshot gives us a somewhat kind and tender image of this complicated man.<\/strong><\/p>\n I leave him at it.<\/em><\/p>\n A basic clip-together tower scaffold provided support for the monks as they built the roof. There are stones still here. Some mortar left overnight with a square of plastic keeping it moist. I add a few more stones to the roof. My stonework is of the very crudest sort\u2014Anselm would hate it\u2014but it doesn\u2019t have to hold for long. There\u2019s still a gap here, but not one that a man could climb through.<\/em><\/p>\n That is: she effectively imprisons him, at least for as long as it takes to summon the cops.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018So long, Brother,\u2019 I call down. \u2018You were always nice to the pigs. I\u2019ll remember that.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n And this is the closure we needed: an acknowledgement from Fiona that she recognises there was a good man in with the bad. This is her talking without strategy or duplicity now, because she doesn\u2019t need them. We move, in effect, from the fake-union of the opening prayer sequence to this truer kind of friendship-voice here.<\/strong><\/p>\n And leave.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n That\u2019s it. There\u2019s dialogue before and after the fight, but nothing during it, apart from Anselm\u2019s \u2018Sister, Sister\u2019, which doesn\u2019t really count. Yet I hope the fight itself conveys the shifts in emotion and relationship that are similar to the beats you\u2019d find in a really important bit of dialogue.<\/p>\n That\u2019s it from me. Cough, cough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Folks, I\u2019ve had covid all week and today is my birthday. So I reckon I\u2019m justified in giving y\u2019all \/ youse a slightly cheaty email \u2013 because most of it is made up of text I\u2019ve already written. And it follows on from last week\u2019s email, about how sex scenes needed to be all about<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harrys-friday-email"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n