Fight scenes are still storytelling

Action scenes are generally a visual spectacle, but that's no excuse for poor writing. A good fight choreography is not only flashy, but is also a narratively coherent exposition.

Preamble

A fight scene is a very common element in stories. They usually serve to create a threat to the hero's life or their goals. While fights are not unusual in real life, in fiction every moment is carefully controlled by the author. Naturally, that creates a question of which moments are used more effectively. While art is subjective, we generally recognize that some fights are more well-written than others. It's a careful balance of visual exposition and the substance of conflict. If fights have no stakes, viewers will naturally question why were they shown, even if picking fights makes sense to the characters. So the main component is the the flow of logic, what characters do in a fight has to be understandable, both internally and externally.

General rules

Since most tips hit multiple aspects at once, here's a condensed version:

1. Respect viewer's time and avoid repetitive moments. Make every attack factor into victory, even if it's not immediately apparent.
2. Fighting has a cost: health, stamina, mana, ammo. Getting hit is never inconsequential. Characters should get weaker over time, not stronger.
3. Only designated reckless characters would fight without some plan. Characters use attacks because they expect a result, not to showcase abilities.
4. A hero's arsenal should be an open book. A villain's arsenal is a puzzle and has to be fair.
5. Combat is a conversation. Even when nobody is talking, tactics can reveal personality.

Assorted advice

Conservation of Detail

Avoid filler

• Every action, offensive or defensive, as well as dialogue, should matter in the long run. If an exchange of attacks doesn't tell something new or progresses the encounter, you're wasting viewer's time.
• If an attack doesn't work, it should telegraph that it's not effective against the opponent and something else should be attempted through trial-and-error. Even if an attack is ineffective, it may still hint at the opponent's strengths and weaknesses.
• How a fighter moves tells something about their personality. A cautious character keeps distance. Arrogant characters avoid inflicting fatal hits to play with the pray. An experienced swordsman will not be doing wasted swings.
• Characters don't fight without a reason, there has to be an objective. Usually the objective is incapacitating the opponent, but not always. The encounter's progresses equals the objective's progresses.
• Fights should be won with effort and strategy. Make up an abstract flowchart of which moments contributed to others and if those were founded on previous events. Consider if everything before the end has factored into victory.
• The length of combat should be proportional to the difference in skill. The more tricks a fighter has the longer they can avoid defeat. Conversely, a quick loss of side-characters can establish threat. Still, avoid dragging on, try to work within an objective time frame and restrictions.
• Fighters banter because they have something to say, like deconstructing each other's ideology, trying to intimidate or to provoke. If fighters didn't come together to chat, they wouldn't be.
• Losing a fighter should cause long-term consequences for their faction and disrupt their plans. If the villains treat their enforcers as expendable, that poses a question if they take their goals seriously. You can raise drama by implying that heroes dying would only be the opening to an even greater tragedy.
• Combat flaws are personality flaws, not a way to make fights longer, and should be addressed after a fight. If a fighter repeatedly uses inefficient moves, turn it into a weakness and a point of retrospection.

Avoid gratuitous surprises

• Don't hide the capabilities of heroes from the viewer. They are point-of-view characters, the audience should be aware of everything they are capable of as soon as possible. If a hero demonstrates a new ability that is convenient in a current situation, it's not an expanded exposition about a character, it's a cheap cop-out. Unless hiding it is a crucial plot point.
• What a villain is capable of is a puzzle, not a mystery box you can pull anything from. Their abilities should be easy to guess but hard to confirm. If they suddenly show a new ability that gives them an advantage, it's unfair to the viewers and raises a question why haven't they started with that.
• Villain's strength should match their threat level narratively. An enemy captain is not just a more powerful opponent, it's someone who already has battle experience with someone alike the heroes and has both the strategy and skill worthy of their reputation. Conversely, hired assassins have to be skilled, but visibly not skilled enough to take on other villains.
• If magic requires chanting, drawing circles, or specific materials, stick to those rules. Using magic requires expertise that needs to be demonstrated in theory instead of in practice. If one character can summon giant meteors and another can't, them being a better mage isn't a good explanation.
• Even if instinctual, fighters do some calculations and don't charge blindly. If why something has worked needs to be explained, this is a good moment for inner monologues and team communications.

Avoid some rule of cool

• Colorful attacks work well at a carnival, not in combat. If rainbow beams and explosions don't serve to blind the opponent, they would instead make it difficult for the user to see.
• A special technique is called special for a reason. If characters use special techniques regularly, don't call them special then.
• Weak characters overcoming strong characters with determination is admirable, but not realistic. Something more concrete should give them an advantage, like sacrificing their health or playing on opponent's ego.
• If a hero makes a sacrificial move, commit to it. If a technique costs an arm, no healing can help it. If a character holds off the enemy to let someone escape, they are not expected to escape in one piece.
• Flashy costumes aren't just for style. Fighters with light clothes foreshadow them being agile, armor tells their physical strength, and edgy clothes could be hinting at emotional instability.
• If a character has a weapon, it should be apparent they can use it well. A swordsman who can't cut anyone but can kick opponents is a sham.

Stakes and Consequences

Attack costs

• Characters need resources to fight and it is finite. A fight where nobody can run out of energy/mana is too simplistic.
• Ranged characters are required to carry ammunition with them. If wasting arrows/bullets is not an issue, you have to tell why.
• If a character misses, they've wasted a resource. If they keep missing, they should eventually be unable to use those attacks.
• Even if a character is uninjured, they can still collapse from exhaustion if they take too long.

It Should Hurt

• If a character takes any hit, they should get hurt and this should worsen their performance.
• If an opponent can brush off weak attacks, then stop using weak attacks.
• An injured character can fight through pain, but it's a conscious decision that should hurt them even more soon.
• If a barrage attack hits the target, it should hurt the same as an attack being applied many times in a row.
• The point of a forbidden technique is being dangerous, often at the cost of user's life. It's specifically a last-resort measure, the character should lose their ability to fight forever after using it.
• All-purpose healing is boring. Make some injuries more of a priority than others, like fixing broken bones to get back into a fray while having to bear with the rest.
• Poison can increase stakes by introducing a time limit, but it should be visible that it's taking increasingly more effect over time.

Mental Drain

• Fighting blunders can be caused by mental weakness. If a character is a hothead or is exhausted, they should start losing.
• Make exhaustion physically visible. Slower reflexes, heavy breathing, shaking limbs, tactical blunders.
• Taunts and failed strategies can accumulate stress.
• Villains are arrogant, but cautious. They'll pay less attention to their surrounding if they feel at an advantage and get bored or annoyed. Being disappointed in heroes can be their crucial mistake.

Variety

• Take into account different damage types. Slashing, piercing and blunt attacks have different properties and advantages. Characters can bleed, get infected, get a concussion, get deafened, have a broken bone, feel dizzy from stress. Avoid having consequences of being hit effectively be just getting more tired. A fighter will adapt dynamically depending on the opponent's weapon and own injuries.
• Actively use terrain advantage. Characters can hold position at stairs, parkour into windows, collapse a ceiling, lure enemies into slippery surface, take cover behind debris, hop onto a street lamp, and etc.
• Avoid having fights restricted to one location, make fighters move if there's nothing preventing so and change tactics accordingly.
• You can't have every fighter specialize in one thing and be weak to one thing, they're not gimmicks. Warriors should be trained with various skills and weapons and at least attempt to use everything they can carry. It's oddly specific if someone is vulnerable to one type of damage only.
• Magic should be functional. Ice makes slippery surfaces or creates spears, fire makes things burn, lightning strike can paralyze multiple opponents. If every attack is a different flavor of an impact projectile, there's no point to giving magic different visuals.
• Combos do wonders. If an opponent can be soaked in water, lightning or ice magic becomes super effective. Multiple types of attacks in sequence can be used to overwhelm opponent's defenses. Chained attacks can prevent opponent from catching a breath.

Competence

Tactical suicide

• If an attack didn't work, a character would be dumb to use it again without another plan.
• If another location can give fighters a better ground against an opponent, they should use it. Characters should avoid rushing an opponent who is prepared for them and should instead bait them out of their position.
• If a character has buff abilities, they should use them whenever's applicable, unless they are testing waters before attacking seriously.
• A trump card's purpose is being a last resort when nothing works. If a character has an ability to win a fight quickly, they shouldn't withhold it until the last moment. This isn't poker. Let characters use more desperate strategies when they are put at a disadvantage and explain why exactly these are desperate measures. Naturally, if they didn't use this strategy from the start, there has to be a reason.
• A barrage of useless ranged attacks is much worse than one missed ranged attack. In fact, it's multiple bad attacks multiplied. The purpose of a barrage attack is to do multiplied damage on slow opponents, not leaving a trail of smoke behind a running opponent.
• Multi-angle attacks serve one job: to limit opponent's ways of escape. If an opponent is attacked from every direction and they still dodge it, if their only position of escape isn't attacked immediately, it'd look pretty lame.
• Fighters should be utilizing some chess thinking and consider in advance that actions may have very different results and be prepared for each of them. If an attack doesn't work, it's more surprising if the users are surprised of that.
• There's no point at attacking an opponent with a shield, energy or magical, attacks should be aiming on bypassing or breaking shields.

Enemy stupidity

• Enemies wouldn't explain their abilities to each other, that wouldn't happen even in a sport competition.
• Characters should not be acting smug just because the opponent has disappeared after an attack. This trope is overdone to death. If an attack creates a cloud of smoke or a crater, the character should instead be expecting a sneak counterattack.
• Villains adapt too. If the heroes come up with some strategy, the opponent will actively prevent it from working or switch how they act.
• If a villain wants someone dead, they will not be leaving them to slow death they can potentially be rescued from.

Team dynamics

• Team formations matter. Melee in the front, ranged in the back, supports on the sides or in the center. An archer or healer has no place where a melee opponent can reach them.
• Segregate party roles dynamically, like distractions and flanking. An archer/sniper can limit opponent's movement or provide back cover.
• If you have teams, have them fight as teams. Don't split group fights into 1v1's.
• Each member of a team counts, so losing just one should drop the overall performance dramatically.
• Miscommunication or difference of opinion can highlight desynchronization and flaws in team dynamics.
• Villain's army have roles. Generals have their position because they are good commanders, not because they are good fighters.
• If team relies on communication, disrupting it is can be advantageous.

Notable examples

• Jackie Chan: Most of the movies focus on a pacifist kung fu practitioner, who relies on wits and improvised modifications to martial to escape danger. Jackie Chan's characters jump on furniture to create distance from opponents and turn practically anything that isn't glued in into shields, making fight scenes creative and entertaining.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Characters fight with a combination of elemental magic and martial arts. Earth benders rely on their connection to the ground, while water benders require the presence of water. Villains take these into account and prevent their opponents of using their abilities to the fullest. As the heroes go stronger, villains rely more on traps, weapons, an enforcers who are skilled in close-range combat.
• Attack on Titan: Survey Corps has to take down hundreds of opponents each of which are larger than them and can kill them instantly. They rely on military chain of command, are cautious of the limited gas supply, and jump from blind spots. As the team manages to get to Titans' weak spots more reliably, the story introduces more intelligent Titans who bait them into a vulnerable positions, avoid having their weak spots exposed in the open, and steal siege equipment.
• Dragon Ball: The narrative emphasizes the value of self-improvement over talent, but the fights rely on visual flairs and taking sweet time for opponents to reflect and take a break so they can fight at full potential. Even deaths can be undone and Goku is a very forgiving figure. Characters can spam extreme energy attacks that still fail to end fights decisively. However, characters often engage in close-ranged combat to exhaust their opponents and display a variety of mid-air acrobatics, which are more clear in the manga and videogame versions.
• Fairy Tail: Fights generally don't matter and follow a predictable pattern, the new villain group drags heroes into 1v1s who each put them into peril, then no matter how injured the heroes are, after a friendship speech they learn a new ability that is just a flashier version of their signature move, and turn the tables in a single strike.
• Star Wars: The original trilogy used choreography closer to fencing due to technical limits, lightsaber duels were inspired by Kenpo and rely on every swing reaching the opponent and minding the limits of enclosed space. The prequel heavily rely on spinning motions, that while visually impressive, aren't practical, while Force is used inconsistently to create sudden advantage. The saber duels also utilize Flynning, aiming on the weapon and not the opponent to make the filming safer, but it is noticeable. The sequel trilogy lack both the combat choreography and spatial awareness, while the Force becomes a fix-all magic.
• Naruto: Chakra limits and sign seals established early become progressively neglected over time, to the point where any ninja worth their salt can effectively use whatever magic they can come up with by a single hand gesture. Characters often rely on illusions or substitution clones that aren't shown being created in advance to suddenly escape injuries. Early in the story, interrupting the opponents from chanting long spells was crucial and ninjas could barely stand after defending from attacks.
• Pretty Cure: The characters often utilize acrobatics, close-range combat and flanking monsters with ranged weapons, but while impressive-looking, the monsters are always defeated by cutting off to a stock footage finisher and all damage gets undone like nothing happened.

Deus Ex Machina

The person who'd win in a fight is the person that the scriptwriter wants to win!
— Stan Lee

Ultimately, how the fight goes is a writer's choice.

A fight's conclusion serves the narratives message, be it about optimism or pessimism, about perseverance, hope, friendship or maturity. Victories impact the overall story. The writer is privileged to make an argument that, despite all odds, noble traits make characters stronger and wrap it up in theatrics.

If the character needs to be written off for production reasons, they die, if they still have some character arc, they survive with recoverable injuries.

Be cautious that some may be expecting a more constructed argument in favor of the work's themes. At the same time, excessive realism would get in the way of story arcs.

You can also make it clear that who wins isn't the point. A lot of works make the fights themselves the selling point. If viewers are expecting a showcase of crazy abilities, then make it clear that stakes aren't the focus.

It's also not an Out of Jail Free card, it's very noticeable when the only way the fight has concluded the way it is writer's hand. People want immersion and don't like when victories aren't paid off by the setup.

By grounding fights in a cause-and-effect structure based on advantage-driven choices, and avoiding spectacular skills that aren't practical in-story, you'll create choreography that feels strategic, fair, and memorable.

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