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Skipping the action scene

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My novel has a lot of fighting scenes. It's natural since its about a war. The problem is that people don't read books for fighting scenes. Numerous fighting scenes is just bad writing. J.R.R. Tolkien decided to knock Bilbo Baggins unconscious rather than to write a single one (although I did read the abridged version of The Hobbit.)

What is a good way to skip over the action scenes? I don't plan to write too many of them.

What I have right now is basically this: The monsters attacked Maeken. He slew the primitive beasts with the several tricks up his sleeve that he had learned over the years. Blah blah backstory. Maeken beheaded the final monster and surveyed the field of corpses.

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This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/16331. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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As to a good way to skip the action scenes - what you have seems fine. It's basically just that - skipping the action scenes. Say 'he slew the monsters,' and you can technically stop there.

However, I think you're going about this wrong. Fighting scenes can be tedious in a book. Does this mean you should skip them? No, it means you need to know how to write them correctly. A book with no action will not bore the reader if it is written correctly, but it will certainly make the job a lot harder for you. Action is a useful device for maintaining reader interest (note: useful, not necessary to certain types of books).

The way to relate action scenes, from my own experience, is not to focus on the action. Focus on the emotions. Focus on the inner action, not the outer action. By all means, detail the scene with every move made. But show why every move was made, and what they meant. Follow the PoV's thoughts as he performs the action.

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