Often when I read writing tips, there is very little sense of balance. Most of them come down to a single form: “Do X, not Y”, with the small caveat that you can do Y if you do it well. The classic “Show, don’t tell” is a perfect example…except in some cases, a simple exposition deals with an info gap to get people to the next plot point. In that case, a little exposition can go a long way to avoiding stopping the action, jumping somewhere else to “show it”. Another classic used to be “Don’t use multiple points-of-view”. And then someone comes out with a fantastic book where they use multiple POV to great success. Because they did it right. Which means, often the real advice is “Do X, not Y unless you’re better than average and can actually do Y well, but know that it often doesn’t work for a lot of writers”. On the other hand, there are more advanced tomes by Lawrence Block or Stephen King that avoid that problem and give you the straight goods.

In this case, Diana Gill is an executive editor with views on how to write fight scenes (well, actually, action scenes in general).… Read the rest