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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19621
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19621
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You're probably too close to the scene to tell. My suggestions:

1) Write the scene with whatever dialogue you think is necessary. Put it in a drawer and don't look at it for at least a month. Then pick it up and read it cold. Make notes of where you can't tell who's speaking.

2) Hand the scene to one or more friends. Ask them to tell you what they can and can't follow, or where they feel it needs more narration interspersed with dialogue.

3a) If you're still struggling, find four friends and cast them as the lords and squires and have them ad-lib the scene. Record it on your phone. Play it back and write down not just what they say, but what the actors are _doing_. How often do they stop trash-talking and just whack at each other?

3b) If that's not logistically possible, watch old swashbuckling films like _The Adventures of Robin Hood_ or _Captain Blood_ — early stuff from Errol Flynn is great — and pay attention to the sword-fighting scenes. Flynn and Basil Rathbone have a great extended sword fight at the end of _Robin Hood_. Watch how they dance around while also trading barbs. Spend some time transcribing the entire scene as if you were writing stage directions. Do the same with _Pirates of the Caribbean_, particularly when Jack Sparrow and Will are fighting in the smithy.

(Fun facts about _Robin Hood_: Rathbone was such a good sword-fighter that he had to be told to tone it _down_, because Flynn was an amateur; and that kind of swishy-swashy-swashbucking flailing around with swords for film purposes is now called "flyinning" in Errol's honor.)

Original score: 2