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Most of us, thankfully, have no personal experience with violence, but many of us write it in our books. In today's podcast, I discuss our attraction to violence and how to write convincing fight scenes with Jarrah Loh. If you prefer video, you can watch the discussion on YouTube here.
- How Jarrah got started writing young but then thought it could never be a job. He got into some trouble in his youth but later developed self-esteem and confidence through achieving his goals. He went back to University to do professional writing and editing and ended up getting a job with Blitz Publishing, Australia's premier sports publisher. Jarrah talks about being focused and driven, doing anything it takes to succeed. Martial arts have helped him with discipline over time.
- Jarrah's first book was Ultimate: The Complete Guide to UFC and Mixed Martial Arts. UFC is the fastest growing spectator sport in the world and is basically two fighters in a cage with no extra gear. After writing articles about it, Jarrah was approached by a publisher to write the book. He turned the outline around in 24 hours and got the publishing deal based on his platform and expertise.
- We discuss the attraction of violence in UFC. There's no purer competition so it is more of a vicarious experience, the excitement and physicality of the fight. It's not a big over-the-top show like boxing and some of the other sports. It's more realistic. Humanity has always had an aspect of violence so we are drawn to it, especially since we don't live a very physical life anymore and most of us experience little physical danger. Jarrah explains there's a difference between fighting and violence, two people in competition vs rage driven aggression.
Tips for writing realistic fight scenes
- (1) Watch some fights, not just movies. Jarrah does recommend UFC as the closest to a street fight
- (2) Go get in a fight – but in a controlled environment, for example, a martial arts class. You will be shocked by how you feel. I mention that I went to a Krav Maga class (as Morgan Sierra, my protagonist, is ex-Israeli military). They kicked my ass and it took me days to recover!
- (3) Don't explain the fight too much, but describe the heat and fury and emotion of a fight rather than the exact physical movements. Keep the pace moving.
- Gender differences in fighting. UFC are just introducing a women's division and there are women fighters. Jarrah explains that the female fighters he knows have a lot of self confidence, for example, Bec ‘Rowdy' Hyatt, has 2 children and went from overweight to a champion fighter who turned her life around with martial arts.
- Jarrah is writing Cageside Chronicles, aimed at the YA market. A young man grows up in Mexico, lacking in confidence and beaten up, but over time finds confidence through martial arts. We discuss the potential controversy around fighting books aimed at the YA market, in the context of The Hunger Games and how a fighting life is a good metaphor for any kind of struggle. Jarrah says The Karate Kid was an influence on him and actually the feedback has been great on the book in terms of teachers able to give boys something to read.
- On self-publishing and why Jarrah turned down a publishing deal to do it himself. How an author is just another number to a large publishing house and on balance, the money is better as an indie and you have to do the marketing work anyway. As an editor and knowing graphic designers, he had the team in place to create a professional package. We talk about empowerment of the author, which is also a key part of Jarrah's life.
- On being in Australia and selling primarily to the US and the UK. Jarrah mentions that the Kindle isn't so popular in Australia but the iPad is much bigger there.
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy: How to write fight scenes with dark fantasy author and martial artist Alan Baxter
What do you think about violence in books? Please do leave any questions or comments below.
View Comments (7)
Hello Jarrah and Joanna,
Thank you very much for this interesting post. I appreciate your emphasis on the difference between fighting as a sport and pure violence. Can I please ask how you feel about some people's claims, that America has a violent culture that is demonstrated much in literature and movies, and that it contributes to some of the most horrible crimes in recent years, e.g. mass shooting? Do you agree with these people's claims that artists, particularly those who write thrillers and crime novels, should reduce the use of guns and violene (i.e. not fighting but violence) in their works?
Cheers,
Christine Sun
Hi Christine,
I think reducing the number of guns in the US is a great idea, but I really don't think that violence in literature has much to do with the horrific gun crime over there. Also, most of us who write fight scenes and violence are actually writing about the deeper side of it, the ramifications for people and the emotions involved. We're not writing action movies or torture porn here, and I really don't think that most of the people who are committing those crimes are great readers.
Hello Joanna,
Thank you for this valuable view, which I agree. I do think some people cannot tell the difference between reality and fiction, and when they see a fictional character lets out his or her rage through the use of violence, they think it is the right way to do it "just because the book says so".
Cheers,
Christine Sun
As I mentioned in the podcast, I truly believe there is a vast difference between sporting combat and true violence. I find it extremely hypocritical that often the same people that criticize my magazine don’t seem to have a problem with what is shown every single night on prime time television. I see these CSI-type shows with the most gruesome murders and deprived stories, with extreme graphic detail, and the adverts are always screaming: You won’t believe how shocking the next case is!
I’m not having a shot at people who love that stuff, but I personally find it disturbing. I also find many video games disturbing, in that almost every title involves killing on a mass level.
But saying all this, I don’t really believe there is a connection to film, video game or sporting violence, with that in the street.
Obviously, ‘cage fighting’ has a certain ring to it that brings back images of things like Fight Club, but in reality, we are talking about 20,000+ people packing a stadium under lights and screens, broadcast to millions around the world to watch two athletes that train seven days a week. And when it’s all over, they hug at the end, and maybe even shed a tear.
Sure, I have no doubt it encourages some isolated incidents at times, but I think there is a much larger issue. I could talk about it for days, but if you analyse it closely, the kind of violence we are seeing seems to have much more to do with the psychological constraints and pressures of modern society, than something that is learned from media.
Art will always reflect the society of the time, not the other way around.
And in the end, you could simply ask — when wasn’t it like this? When was this magical time when the world wasn’t full of violence?
A really interesting take on violence in the media and guns in general can be found in a 30 page 'short' that Stephen King (yep, that Stephen King) wrote called 'GUNS.' You should be able to buy it for either £0.99 UK or $0.99 in the US. It's about 30 pages long and well worth reading IMO.
I don't think that we have a violent culture. I've had the chance to live in two other very different cultures (China and Russia), and I felt no more or less safe there. My wife is Chinese, so I hear every news story about shocking assaults and whatnot that happens over there. Believe it or not, in communist China, occasionally there are bank robberies by people armed with fully-automatic assault rifles. The state-controlled media just doesn't let word get around.
It's true that our media in the US is full of violence... it's also true that we produce a heck of a lot more media than anyone else. I could be wrong, but if you compare what we produce to what others produce, it's not so different by proportion. Chinese dynasty stories are full of fighting and killing and dying, though perhaps it's not so visceral. They're currently more sensitive to that kind of thing. There's an awful lot more suicide in SE Asian media, though, so sometimes the violence takes a different form.
I don't feel that movies or video games contributed much to the massacres over here. Those people were all completely nuts, and that was by far the dominant factor. If they hadn't had guns, they had the brainpower to learn how to build bombs and would have done so. I do think we have a gang subculture that is super violent. The violent gang-related media rises from that subculture, though, so I don't know if we can say it also causes the violence. I'll leave it at that since I'm not an expert on the origin and causes.
The movies you see coming from the US are only movies, not real life. Everyone knows this intellectually (usually) yet a lot of people seem to think that you hear gunshots in a normal neighborhood here. Not at all. My wife was afraid of being shot when she first came. Now she knows how silly that was. On the other hand, when I lived in China, I felt unsafe at first because I kept hearing gunshots everywhere... turned out it was just fireworks. :D
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