Battles

[Beth Pavell]

Well, since we don't really have an active thread on this, and also since I've been writing a lot of battles due to the Tigerlily Tourney arc in The Long Walk, I figured I may as well start one. Now to clarify I'm speaking specifically about the set-piece pokémon battle that's the standard across the franchise. I don't see myself as an expert by any means, but these are things that have come up from writing, being critiqued, reading, etc.

The main thing I've noticed, writing battles for fanfiction, is that each battle has its own internal narrative. Or at least, it should do, because without a basic story to a battle it quickly becomes a series of attacks and defences chained together, taking up space on the page but not really engaging the reader. And because of that I've also noticed that it's difficult to come up with an engaging battle narrative if the participants don't have any style or strategy. The idea that a trainer might not know how to battle with any particular strategy is all very well, but it wears thin quickly and doesn't have much staying power if the trainer is a protagonist that we're following around in the story. I don't think a strategy or style has to be especially involved to serve its purpose. Just some internal logic to give reasons as to why a trainer orders this attack and not that one is enough.

There's a tempation to give each battle narrative basically the same structure, particularly if it's supposed to be at least a moderately challenging battle that requires some effort to win. That's the one that has a steadily build in the intensity and tension of the battle, climaxing with the final duel with the last pokémon. I've found that difficult to maintain since it does tend to mean that similar situations repeat themselves. That's murder to a tournament arc, where inevitably a lot of battles are going to be pushed close together. Thinking outside the box helps a lot with that; being prepared to write battles that are won or lost down to luck or one trainer doing particularly well early on.

The way I see it, it's about not overplaying any one trope or device. It's ok to have sheer chance dictate the outcome of a battle so long as you don't have this happen in nearly every battle. It's ok to have the odd easy clean sweep, provided you put it somewhere where you don't especially need an awful lot of tension. And so on.

 

[VeniaSilente]

Now to clarify I'm speaking specifically about the set-piece pokémon battle that's the standard across the franchise.

So, as site Ars Technica once put it regarding turn-based games, the " I want to select my options and have everyone take nice civilized turns pummeling each other " kind of battle? Because barring minor niceties for viewer interest, that's what the franchise gives us, even when it is when facing the Team $EVIL Admin as he prepares to unmake the world.

Much can be said about how to build (or not) tension and or narrative with such battles. One of the things that I've been usually told when battles come into discussion is not about whether they're easy ro hard to write, but about how most of the time the plot or narrative doesn't need to have the entirely of a battle shown. There is no need to go through the narrative equivalent of a Pokémon Showdown battle log describing every decision and moment in detail. Most of the time, it suffices with some well-chosen parts of the battle - enough of them to show how the tide of it is decided. Of course that is to be contrasted with the need for screentime for the involved mons so that they are not just moving props, and by its very nature battle is one of the facets that will contribute the most to both develop your characters', well, character, and show that development to the audience.

But if you are going to show a full 6-on-6, there's got to be a really good reason to have the reader to ghrough that. "League finals" by itself doesn't cut it.

There's a tempation to give each battle narrative basically the same structure, particularly if it's supposed to be at least a moderately challenging battle that requires some effort to win. That's the one that has a steadily build in the intensity and tension of the battle, climaxing with the final duel with the last pokémon.

I think that is possibly one of the worse ways to carry out a battle, in particular if there are a lot of them.

Why? Not because the reader (or the writer, for that matter) gets tired. But simply because prolonged fighting don't work that way.If your trainer has not learnt by battle #10 that his starter, usually sent out last, packs enough of a punch to clear a difficult hurdle early, then he has no issue going out beyond the limited wilderness of his own city area to try and poke the local Evil Team in the ass. Ditto if he has not learned yet that given certain opponents, it is better to go all out from the beginning rather than start the fight with a hidden -but still realized- expectation that, ya know, 80% of your team is going to get wrecked even if the opponent has a team of six Magikarps,then materialized in planning. Because if you chose to send out the wrong mons and make them underperform so that you have to depend on your last mon landing a crit, making the battle hard for yourself despite this being your 593759326th try, well... it was your choice.

Even when it is for sport, a rational mind plans a battle not in the path to last, to waste time and resources (because your trainer does not have a game-like infinibag, right? Right?). Waste leads to tiredness, tiredness leads to mistakes, and mistakes lead to overused movie memes.

Dunno what else can I say without there being a more precise direction to speak of things in this thread, to be honest. There's too much to say, but it's all so spread. Strategy? Tactics? "Realism"? Integration? Believability? Using Surf or EQ in a public arena? Usefulness of Defog in a combat scenario? How to use a Potion, which is a spray, if your Pokémon is trapped behind a Reflect and under heavy rocks the other side of the 25m long battlefield?

 

[Kelleo]

Could we talk about any kind of battle, not just Pokemon ones? I mean, not that I don't want to discuss Pokemon battles (as I'll eventually be sorta writing them whenever I get to that Pokemon x My Little Pony fic), I'm just asking since there are definitely other kinds of battles we could be writing, even in other video game fandoms. Zelda, Fire Emblem, and Mario too.

I personally find Mario battles the hardest to write, mainly because all I have to work with here are the fists of Mario/Luigi, Luigi in this case, and whatever power-up they might have equipped. It's kinda hard to come up with unique moves there.

But with Zelda, it's easier because of the wide assortment of equipment Link (and Kelli, an original character) can use. There's room for all kinds of strategies there.

Fire Emblem is...well, it depends. If I'm having the characters battle bandits again, it can easily get stale. But if I can get them up against a more unique enemy, then I find ideas quicker.

I've a feeling I won't have too much trouble with Pokemon battles though, as I'll have the Pokemon's entire moveset to work with and maybe some ideas inspired by the anime as well.

 

[CrystaI]

Battle in a more general sense, where that is not only limited to Pokemon, but every single franchise canon with combats and fights and even small struggles. Writers need to remember one thing. Battle is not just battle, it is a specific part of the story packed with actions and motions, it is the moment where physical struggle is used as the stepping stone to proceed to the next part of the story, it is a subdivision of the entire plot line that shall eat up several pages in each of your chapter.

Therefore, it is really uninteresting to write and also for the readers to read any kind of battles that existed in the story just for the mere sake of battle, as they are meaningless and skippable, hence basically it is just rubbish texts occupying several pages of the chapter which it doesn't add any value to the overall story, and it is tiresome to write and/or read it.

I shall repeat this again. Battle is part of the story narrative. Therefore some event must happen during the battle in order to link to the plot afterwards. And in here, that "some event" is not just simply win/lose/draw result of the battle itself, but more about character developments and/or providing hint or spoiler to next coming events. Do not think of battle as something separate from the plot planning, incorporate the battle into the plot planning as well. The more stories are incorporated into the battle, the more interesting it shall become for the readers in reading it, and it shall then become an inseparable part of the entire fic.

This had nothing to do with the epicness and magnificence of the battle itself. You can write the battle in the most elegant purple prose with well-designed well-constructed special light and explosion effects and supernatural superpowers with Jackie-Chan-level martial art techniques and actions, but still it will be boring in the eyes of the reader if the battle itself is skippable meaningless in the story narrative sense. Oppositely, even it is just some sit-down battle like the IMO boring chess game, it can be fun to read if the story can express the tension and uneasiness of the players, also their mental struggles and their on-the-spot wisdom in solving the problems.

 

[chaos_Leader]

I spent a long time in my writing for other fandoms making action and combat interesting. In the end, it really boiled down to choosing relevant reference/research material, and making effective use of it. Whatever kind of combat situation the story finds itself in; whether its two people and fisticuffs, weapons, firearms; whether its a formalized duel-like setting, brutal street-fighting, an assassin/hitman, or even large-scale military battles; across the board, the best scenes had something at stake involved in the fight, and a sense of uncertainty.

Also, to reinforce what クリスタル mentioned earlier about how the fight is intimately part of the narrative, it definitely pays to put effort into not just "what" happens in a fight /battle, but "how" it is done. Someone's methods in combat, how they respond under threat, are just as valuable of characterization tools as dialog and other aspects; possibly more-so since their decision-making processes are played out immediately. Watching martial-arts films for instance, fight choreography is immensely important in the internal narrative and characterization: watch the little choices each combatant makes, their reactions and displayed feelings, the little moments the filmmakers choose to focus in on that, through specific actions and reactions and the way they are presented, tell that internal narrative. The same can be applied not just to the fight scenes of a martial arts film, but to any well-executed combat/fight/conflict situation.

In the context of Pokémon battling, I would disregard game mechanics almost entirely, as I would similarly disregard game mechanics in most game-based fanfic. As an example, when I write space/air battles in the Star Fox fandom, I'm not placing random powerups on the scene or the like, I'm using actual aviation combat techniques, I'm using other combat aviation stories/films/scenes as references for how to represent it well. There's no real reason why we need to be confined by the rigid mechanics of the Pokémon games. Heck, even the super-corny anime only barely pays lip-service to the core game mechanics a lot of the time. As long as it makes sense and is believable in the context established within the story, that's where it counts.

 

[AetherX]

This is something I've had a lot of thoughts on over the past few months as I've begun brainstorming ways to write exciting battles for an Elite Four arc. I've done a lot of reading and analyzing and thinking, and I'll try to compile all that here. I should clarify that I'm defining battles as fights between Pokemon, usually with a trainer commanding them, and usually for pure competition, rather than some huge plot reason (i.e. a fight to the death with the leader of an evil team isn't what I'm talking about). To start, a "thesis statement" if you will:

Pokemon battles are, more often than not, bad. They're not as much fun to read as almost any other part of a fic, and they can be quite tedious to write. I often find myself skimming through battles, only really reading enough to get the overall gist of what's happening, and I know I'm not alone. I'm someone who really enjoys reading. If I'm skimming something, then that's a bad sign. Hell, right below where I'm typing this are five different threads (most old) about battles. One of them is literally called "Am I the only one who finds writing battles boring?" Spoiler alert: they aren't. Another one says "I honestly find battles to be the one of the most boring and dull parts of fanfiction, unless they're written exceptionally well." This clearly isn't just me, so I started to look into why battles are so dull, and how to make them better. (btw totally read all of those threads, because there's some good discussions in them, you might even find some stuff you strongly disagree with, which is always healthy)

Battles show up in pretty much every Pokemon fic. In slice-of-life fics they tend to be the closest thing the story has to action. Yet if you look at action fics, the battles tend to be way less exciting than the bigger action scenes. I'm no exception. The gym battles in my fic are boring as hell compared to the fights against Team Rocket. Why is that? Sometimes it's because of the way that battles are written. Other people have already talked about how one should avoid being too similar to the anime or (god forbid) the games. Two trainers taking turns calling out attacks that are so bland and unexciting that the author sometimes neglects to even describe them ("Everyone knows what a Water Gun looks like") makes for a boring scene. But everyone knows that, so we ramp it up a bit. We add description, a few cool strategies or combos, and we generally try to spice it up. I'm personally a fan of クリスタル's approach of treating battles like I would an action scene. The battle is written as a one on one fight between the Pokemon, attacks be damned. Sometimes I'll add in trainers calling out strategies or attacks to help readers along, since I know some people prefer it when everything is describable as canon moves. I also try to make each battle unique in some way. Introduce a new strategy maybe, or have it take place on an interesting battleground. It's a good start, and I've been much more pleased with the quality of my battles since I started doing it, but it's not enough. Looking back, those battles still aren't as cool as the action scenes. Not by a long shot. So it's clearly not just about the execution of the battle itself. There's something more to it than that.

My theory is that the primary culprit is exactly what chaos_Leader said: the stakes. Consider a battle in your average journey fic. Our trainer protagonist, Plucky, challenges a gym. Should be pretty exciting, right? Gyms are supposed to be a big deal. They represent progress and are supposed to provide a significant challenge. Yet, as soon as the battle starts, as a reader I would realize that I don't care. Why don't I care? Think of the stakes. Outcome 1: Plucky wins, retrieves her badge, and heads on to the next city. Outcome 2: Plucky loses. Trains for a little while or maybe moves on to another city, but eventually comes back and battles again. Hopefully the second battle is more exciting than the first. See what I mean? It doesn't matter. Plucky doesn't actually lose anything by losing. Her Pokemon will get healed up back to perfect health, and Plucky will be able to continuously retry until she wins. There's nothing exciting about that.

So how do we add stakes to our example? We could make it so that Plucky won't be allowed to rematch, but that would need to be coupled with something else. Maybe she doesn't have the money to travel to another region to get eight badges. Maybe she's avoiding an original ninth gym because it's led by her estranged mother. A loss could very well mean the end of her journey entirely! I'm sure you can already tell how much more intense these things would make an otherwise simple gym battle. You don't have to ban rematches either. I wrote a rule in the rewrite of my fic about how a journeying trainer can lose their League sponsorship if they don't win a gym battle at least once every seven weeks. If I was smart, I would have done this in the first place and made that timeline even shorter, so that a loss would be a big deal.

You might notice that some of the best battles are in tournaments or Championship battles, where there is much more on the line because there's no rematch for a whole year, or maybe ever.

It's not even just gym battles or tournaments. The anime's occasional Ash vs Character-of-the-Day battles were never very exciting either, because there were rarely any stakes besides Ash's frail ego. Maybe your character's ego can be a stake, it just depends on how you write it. This gets into concepts that are equally important in other action scenes, primarily conveyance of suspense (notice how we're making battles more like these more exciting scenes).

Let's return to Plucky, who has encountered a strange man on the road who challenges her to a Pokemon battle. How could I add some stakes to this battle? Maybe I follow game rules and if she loses then she'll lose some money. But is money even really a thing that matters in the fic? Is Plucky strapped for cash? If not, then these stakes have no value. Maybe if all her Pokemon get knocked out then she'll have to journey through the woods to the next town without protection. This could be good, but if I'm not writing a fic where survival is a theme, then it might not fit in very well. If I chose this route, I'd have to have already shown my readers that surviving in the woods sans Pokemon is a big deal, and a very real obstacle that might come up at some point. But I'm a lazy writer so I don't plan ahead and never set that up. Alright, how about the strange man says that if Plucky loses then she'll have to hand over her Pokemon and never be a trainer ever again. Plucky, being an irrational and hotheaded puppet on the strings of the plot, agrees. No one is actually going to believe that Plucky will lose. This is a fic about battling, isn't it? Again, we'd have to have set it up. Maybe this is the beginning of the fic and I've hinted that the point of the story is about angsty ex-trainer Plucky trying to make her way in the world without any Pokemon at her side. Maybe this strange man has a reputation for making the same bet to others and has actually followed up on it. You probably get my point by now. The stakes have to feel real.

If you can't think of any good stakes for the battle, then it might be a good idea to ask yourself if the battle even needs to happen. If you just want to have a battle between your two favorite characters because it'd be cool, then you can do that, but if it doesn't add something to the story then it's ultimately unnecessary and could very well end up boring readers. This isn't a hard and fast rule. I've read battles that were entertaining just because they were funny, but being funny is fucking hard so let's not go into that unless you're absolutely sure. I'd recommend sticking by the rule.

I seem to have accidentally written part of an Academy article here, so I'll try to turn this around to be a bit more discussion focused. Here are some unintentionally academic-sounding questions that I'd genuinely love to hear everyone's responses to:

-Do you agree with me about the quality of the average Pokemon battle, be it in fanfic, anime, or elsewhere? Why or why not?

-Do you go out of your way to make battles a big deal, or do you write them as everyday, somewhat unimportant events?

-What is your favorite battle that you've written or (preferably) read? Most importantly: Why specifically that one? What made it good compared to others?

A reminder: I'm not talking about action scenes here. I'm talking about gym battles or tournament battles or the like.

I'd also like to add that I'm not targeting anyone in particular with this rant. It's targeted at everyone, since I'm not sure I've read a single fic that didn't have at least one boring battle, including mine. Especially mine. This was as much meant as a way of collecting my thoughts as offering advice to others, so take it or leave it as you will.

phew

 

[AceTrainer14]

I will take what seems to be an opposite tone of voice here: I like battles. I think I write decent enough battles (I haven't exactly been told that they are terrible - I am sure it has been said in the past most likely on this site since your all judgey mofo's jkjkjkjk but I can't remember any specific examples). I do agree with the points here: I don't think battles that have minimal stakes are that interesting to read. I have written a few, particularly in my earlier days (unedited 8ES and Galactic being prime examples - Vanessa battled a lot of randoms in the first dozen chapters), and I think that there have been some good points raised. However, I don't think battles are quite as dire as people make them out to be. Battles can easily be great and sometimes can be the best parts of stories, particularly when used in a climactic context.

I think the reason I enjoy my battles so much in the recent arcs of Eight Easy Steps is that I restrain my 'traditional' battles (one or two Pokemon fighting each other for the benefit of their trainers winning) to gym battles. I don't think battling random trainers for the sake of battling them is necessary unless you are trying to achieve something with that battle. With gym battles, while the stakes may not be huge (the main character can only lose to the same gym leader so many times before it becomes moronic - they kind of have to win for the story to progress), there is a reason for them to exist, and if you write them properly and have developed your characters enough, the personal stakes are generally there. I tend to tie the gym battles towards progressing the story or Alaska's character development, or at least laying seeds for future storylines. If you only write a battle to do so and move on, there's not point, while at the same time I think the reader needs to be emotionally invested in the battle as well: you could lay that on the author, but if the reader looks at the battle and goes "here we go again *sigh*", I don't think you are really fairly reading into it.

I disagree though that action scenes are better. I think general action scenes in Pokemon fan-fic are trickier to master, and I can't think of anyone I've read anyone on here who does them outstandingly well. I have read a lot of stories that have mixes of people/Pokemon fighting each other, generally in the context of trainer and friends battling the big bads, and a lot of the time those scenes can be a huge fat mess. Someone recently told me they thought the action scenes in Galactic are good, but there are plenty of those scenes that reading back I find boring or confusing or both, and they ultimately are a slog to write - when I get around to it, I am going to cut basically every action scene out of The Eye of the Storm because they are all terrible and poorly written. That got highlighted for me in the Vanessa vs Criss Crossover Battle which I couldn't understand or follow at all and I think that was mostly because my style was getting copied, and seeing other people write in a similar way made it clear that it doesn't really work (soz to those who wrote it, but I take the blame for that). On the flipside, I prefered reading the more straight-laced battle between Alaska and Eve as I thought it was a better display of both character's personalities.

Pokemon battles generally can be a lot smoother to write: you have just two - four characters fighting each other, it is much neater and contained and you can play off each other. I am not saying my battles are perfect examples (I don't read enough to really come out with great examples on my own - I will say that @AetherX is not as bad as he makes himself out to be. I think @kintsugi did some great work with Tuppy vs Silver in some rise by sin), but I do think my traditional battles are much better than my action scenes. Alaska's last three gym battles in Eight Easy Steps, (including the one I'm currently writing) and Kris and Gold's championship battle in Kris vs Gold are amongst my favourite pieces of work, not only because the battles were fun to lay out and write, but the emotional context behind them made them each so satisfying to write. My favourite action scenes from are the ones that feel the most personal (Vanessa/Spiritomb vs Jaki/Giratina, the climax of Dawn of Darkness, the FFA in The Cave and the Spring) - and I think that is the key to making any scene good in general.

Apologies that that was very me me me, but I find it easier to refer to myself then tear anyone else down.

 

[CrystaI]

I don't quite understand the mentality of "Pokemon Battle is something different from normal fighting, thus need to approach it differently". Just the question: In precise exact context in terms of literature writing and choreography planning, how is writing a Pokemon Battle differs significantly from writing a human fighting scene, specifically of humans with supernatural powers?

Pokemons may not be human beings, nor they may not even be in human-shaped, hence we may need to account some motions and movement specification and limitation, and also may act more like animals as they are not human beings (according to the IQ level of pokemons in one's fic). But still, in terms of role according to the situation, they are still the actors to perform the actions, they are the ones to kick and punch and attack the opponents. May be they need some advice and instruction from their trainer, but still at the end of the day, they are the main actors performing on the stage called battlefield. So, just because pokemons are not human nor human-shaped, thus that means the adjectives and descriptive expressions and the writing techniques we normally used for human characters combat, become completely unusable?

Also, when I referred to "Action Scene", I never ever implied it is equal to "Fighting scenes between human characters". No, absolutely incorrect. Even in other threads when actions and battles are discussed, I always referred Action Scenes to be the part where motions of the characters speaks more than the verbal dialogues. The gestures of the characters, the movements of the body, the combination of different body motions, also the interactions with the actions of other characters and with the surrounding, shall be the main narrator at that moment.

Thus, it is not only limited to fighting and combat using barehands/weapons/superpowers. Action scenes also included escaping and running, the act of exploration and traveling, sport activities, dancing and performing, or to the more extreme case, the sexual activities. Actions not only can convey messages and telling story, it also tells the emotions and thinking pattern of the respective character at a certain situation, thus earning the name "body language". Therefore, how characters react physically speaks louder than his/her verbal words about one's characteristics and personalities. Action choreographic planning without considering the gracefulness of body motions, will just result in uninteresting action scenes.

May be I derailed a little bit as this seems to be more about screenplay writing than fictional writing. However, they are not something exclusively separate from each other, especially when the fiction is action-heavy.
Why? Because the mentality and thinking pattern of screenplay writing is what one needs in writing good actional scenes in fictional writing. If you can't even imagine the actions scenes in a meaningful manner where every motions speaks something, how you can write an interesting action scene?

OK, getting your imagination in the appropriate mindset is only the first basic step. Next is obviously the choreographic planning.
But I won't go into detail in here, because this is actually something very situational which varies according to circumstances, and also changes according style of the writers. Whether you wanted to implant intelligent strategies, powerful attacks, game mechanics, direct involvement of trainers, usage of items, etc. Or narrative factors like story plot and twist, spoiler and/or hints to future events, or what AetherX suggested: the stakes aka challenge risk in to the Pokemon Battle, it shall be your choice and decision, I'll leave that according to the need of one's story.

More than often, what writers failed the most is transferring those scenes into expressive words which shall faithfully represents the scenes within your head.
Unfortunately, I have no good advice within this part. Not even I deemed myself extremely experienced in this department. But, what I can advise is the way to improve. Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to the experience of writers in writing exposition about the body language of characters, without considering the verbal words said by the characters.
What I would suggest is trying to write some pantomime story, whether it is long or short or just a scene. Or, trying to write a detailed description of a part of movie/anime/TV show where characters doesn't speak a single word. This shall trains you to using adjectives and expression to describe the characters' body language, where such experience shall then help you in writing action scene of all sorts.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I think general action scenes in Pokemon fan-fic are trickier to master

I reckon the reason for that is that the dynamics of a pokémon battle are usually rather different. At the most basic level you have four entities to keep track of. Assuming for the sake of argument that the humans are characters in their own right and the pokémon at the level of bright animals, that's still more than the equivalent duel between two people. Getting orders, strategies and reactions to flow smoothly in that context is trickier just as a matter of balance and pacing. That situation only gets more complex when you factor in spectators or more complex pokémon personalities.

When you get right down to it, yes, the skills you use in writing a pokémon battle and, say, a shootout are transferable. They're both action sequences and so a lot of the theory of one will apply to the other. That's the broad strokes - the finer detail is a different mixed metaphor kettle of fish.

I think it's possible overstate any one rule of thumb when it comes to pokémon battles. It occurs to me that this is something of an obvious point, since otherwise writing them wouldn't be an art. However, I'm going to steam ahead with it. The battle should be written to suit the plot. If the point of the battle in the plot isn't about who wins or loses - for example, if it's intended to showcase an evolution - then it's perfectly appropriate for it to be written without any particularly great tension or drama. Likewise, you can overdo the drama and end up exhausting the reader with the stakes in every single battle, or get too zealous with avoiding game mechanics and end up with a stodgy and/or confusing narrative.

 

[Juliko]

I have to admit, I'm not exactly the best at writing Pokemon battles, or battles in general, mostly because no matter what I do, it's usually "Character does X, character thwarts it with Y, character does Z in retaliation, etc etc." I've been trying to spice them up as of late, seeing that I'm reading novels that involve battles and armies and things of the like, but it's not exactly going well. Basically, I suck at battles. They usually don't come out good unless a big bout of inspiration hits me like a lightning bolt. Plus, I usually write stories that are more character-driven and involve character relationships and interactions rather than large scale battles or action, and I don't like to drag battles out, as I don't really find them to be the meat of my stories, nor the driving force.

 

[AceTrainer14]

@クリスタル: as usual, I am not sure how exactly you got to that point from what I said, as I never once mentioned anything about Pokemon or human battles having to be separate from one another. I was refering solely to the general 'action scene' in Pokemon fan-fiction alone, which usually revolves around humans and Pokemon fighting alongside one another and against each other. Solely human-v-human fight sequences are something extremely different, IMO: unless you are writing from the perspective of the Pokemon when writing battles, normally we view them as a spectator. If you have humans fighting each other, you bring their perspectives into it, their feelings and emotions become the driving factor: you have to have them react to every single part of the fight and suffer through the pain or strain of it, whereas in Pokemon battles your trainer can be shocked/pleased/angry by what's going on, but they are not the ones being set on fire, electrocuted, drowned, buried under rocks, poisoned, bitten, etc.

I can say plainly from a lot of experience writing different types of Pokemon and human action scenes across multiple stories and over a million words that there is definitely a very different dynamic between two/four Pokemon punching each other in the face in a contained area and two humans having a sword fight, or multiple Pokemon and armed humans having a showdown in the middle of a crowded city. A traditional Pokemon battles has it's own rhythm and pace, and comparing them to a FFA/open action scene is I think dramatically oversimplifiying the issue. However, I do agree that in an action scene the reaction and writing it in a meainginful manner is important and key to a good battle: it's just Pokemon battles are not the same as the type of action scenes I was refering to at all.

I think @Beth Pavell has basically summed this entire conversation and comparison up best.

@Juliko: I think the key thing is if you don't like writing battles, you probably should avoid them. It shows in a story when the writer is trying to get them over with as quickly as possible. It's good to try new things, but from reading your story I think the main focus tends to be character-oriented and that's not a bad thing at all.

 

[CrystaI]

May be it is just me, but I do not find planning the battles of Pokemon being difficult. Not more difficult than planning a combative fighting between human characters using bare hands and/or weapons. Sometimes, I think the latter is oppositely more difficult.

Human characters also have personalities and characteristics, one may also incorporate strategies during the fight, and also include responding and reactions when there exist a commander of superior position always giving instructions and order the subordinates in how to perform. So at the end, planning fighting scene between human characters is not more complicated than Pokemon Battle.

What makes Pokemon Battle difficult, IMO is rather the freedom in the actional performance. When the human is not superhuman like Saiyan or ones with supernatural abilities like many of the Marvel Heroes, we expected the fighting action is bound by the limitation of physiology and biodynamics of human body. You can only had a normal human being doing so much, so the action limitation is low. Even if we expand that further by giving them weapons and specific fighting skills, still a human being is not expected to fight in a style that exceeds the limitation of the weapon itself.

Pokemons are however, comes in many different body shapes and with high potential to learn many different moves. The ones in human-shaped can basically fight in the same manner like a normal human, if not it is often much more versatile then a normal human being due to having supernatural ability, if it can learn how to use weapon it may even perform a better fighting act than human being. And for the ones in non-human shape, their limbs may not be skillful like human being, but still can perform actions that cannot be done by normal human being, so on a note it is not necessarily possessing less acting capability than human being. So, with pokemon characters, the fighting action limitation is much more lesser, possessing much higher freedom which allows one's imagination expand indefinitely.

But, to some people, freedom is a double-edge sword. Because the imagination boundary is expanded, one can get lost easily, so oppositely doesn't know how to do it rightly. Hence, some decided to incorporate some "rules" to use as guidance to direct one's imagination when planning the Pokemon Battles, whether you do this consciously or unconsciously. The "rules" may be game mechanics, self-imposed 'reality', or something else.

But remember, rules are also a double-edge sword, because it limits the imagination. So in order to find a balance, writers need to learn to become open-minded.


And, just for the ones who keep on saying Pokemon Battle is difficult, I would oppositely like to ask, how difficult it is for you to plan a fighting scene between two human characters? Do not just tell me it is much easier than Pokemon Battle, imagine it in practice, two characters from whatever canon you choose (I shall give a little choice expansion, not just human characters, but all non-pokemon characters, so robot is also fine), whether it may be movie/anime/manga/game/novel/Real-Life, for whatever reason they are fighting against each other. How you are going to have them fighting against each other? And how you will plan the scene and process in order to lead to the result of your choice?

If by actual practice you say that is difficult, then Pokemon Battle is by no mean easier than that.


Also, I would like to answer AetherX's question. That shall tells my POV towards Pokemon Battle in general.

-Do you agree with me about the quality of the average Pokemon battle, be it in fanfic, anime, or elsewhere? Why or why not?

To tell the truth, I dislike the anime's portrayal of Pokemon Battle very much. From the execution itself where trainers just stand and instruct, the presentation of game mechanics, the visual graphics regarding on motions of pokemons and attack effects, the over-exaggerated attack strength yet being "harmless" to pokemons, and down to the choreographic planning which includes the choice of attacks and performance of moves, the camera angles and video techniques, the actions and reactions of pokemons and trainers, the lack of tension and seriousness, the overall light-hearted atmosphere, and then to the story-telling part which is the meaningfulness of the battles, and the forceful overdramatizing of minor details. So basically you can just say it is everything. The anime Pokemon Battle just fail itself in the sense of "combative fight".

Because, it is named Pokemon "Battle", it may be a sport, but it is combat, it is fighting, it is warfare in another sense. But when I watch the anime Pokemon Battle, I absolutely don't get the feeling of this is something that is called "battle". In a better expression of mine, I would just describe that as "messing around kittenishly with the supernatural abilities of pokemons". --also the alternative description of Tripokalon.

-Do you go out of your way to make battles a big deal, or do you write them as everyday, somewhat unimportant events?

Of course make it a VERY BIG deal, because just simply, this is some sport activity that has the potential to be VERY dangerous. But yet, it is part of the everyday life, at least, it is part of the everyday life for Pokemon Trainer. So to speak in another sense, Pokemon Trainer is living an abnormal life, as they are constantly putting themselves in danger and most importantly in an indifferent manner.

-What is your favorite battle that you've written or (preferably) read? Most importantly: Why specifically that one? What made it good compared to others?

My favourite Pokemon Battle is unfortunately not in writing, but in a fan manga in Pixiv called 王者の祭典. It is so difficult to explain explicitly what is so good about it, it was like just about EVERYTHING is good. Seeing is believing. Just go see it yourself.


Edited: I do not understand why Pokemon should be treated as spectators. They are the ones to perform the fighting actions, so they are rather the center of the battles. And don't forget, they are living creature as well.
And also, yes, I do write in perspective of pokemons. I'm writing in 1st person perspective for my second upcoming fic, where focus character changes for every chapter, and there sometimes pokemon characters shall also become focusing character. So I thinking of Pokemon Battles not only from trainer perspective, but from pokemon perspective as well.

 

[AetherX]

If the point of the battle in the plot isn't about who wins or loses - for example, if it's intended to showcase an evolution - then it's perfectly appropriate for it to be written without any particularly great tension or drama. Likewise, you can overdo the drama and end up exhausting the reader with the stakes in every single battle, or get too zealous with avoiding game mechanics and end up with a stodgy and/or confusing narrative.

You bring up a good point. Sometimes the battle isn't supposed to be an action scene. Sometimes they're about character development or interaction. In that case, however, I would argue that the battle itself shouldn't be terribly in depth. If the focus is supposed to be on the characters, don't bother yourself with a half-assed battle for the sole purpose of setting the stage. Let the battle take the background and focus on the internal monologue or the interaction between trainers or whatever the actual purpose of the scene is. If the battle isn't supposed to be an action scene where the outcome is the purpose, then use it only to supplement the real purpose and don't be afraid to skip or gloss over some parts of it.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I'm reading novels that involve battles and armies and things of the like, but it's not exactly going well

I did that, too. In will say that I found I had to really study the battles, because otherwise I just didn't absorb the techniques. My own guru in this is Dan Abnett - the man can't write an ending worth a damn, but there's no field of science fiction warfare he can't tackle

 

[Persephone]

To be fair, Criss v. Vanessa kind of got mired in production hell for so long that I'm surprised it ever got out. And both characters fought with a small army of Pokemon at any given time, which at least I and dp were not used to dealing with. And... I'm actually kind of scared to read that thing again now.

Anyway, since writing, reading and analyzing battles is now like 80% of what I do in fan fiction, I feel like I should comment here. In short, I tend to agree with Aether that stakes make or break a fight (and on just about everything else). I don't care if you can write well. If I don't care about the match, and I keep not caring about matches, I will start skipping them. That tends to be a weakness of journey fics in particular, particularly those that want to end in a reasonable number of chapters. When there's a battle every 4-8k words due to the plot, it's hard to set up a full emotional arc with each of them. Because, from a narrative perspective, battles are just another expression of conflict. And it's just hard to imagine a story that set the protagonist in conflict with 20+ people over 100 chapters and made each conflict interesting.

My other problem with Pokemon battles is that in many cases there just isn't a logical reason that people choose to resolve a fight through them. And writers, particularly newer writers, tend to make it so that every dispute is resolved through a Pokemon battle. Even when that makes no sense. It just bogs down the story and distracts from real character development.

Now, as with everything, I am generalizing. There could be exceptions or deconstructions. But in general after reading a ton of stories with at least some action for Crossover Battles, that's what I've walked away thinking. The best examples I've seen had every fight make sense and every fight that wasn't skimmed over carry some personal stakes for the protagonist or otherwise contribute to their personal growth. In many cases, it was possible the protagonist could lose.

As far as specific examples, on site I admired Striking Back: Memoirs of a Clone. There are a lot of battles in the story, but most get quickly skimmed over, only last a paragraph or so, are only mentioned or get lumped in with others. Thinking back on it there are only ~3 battles in the story with any length, and it's a fairly long story. The first establishes a major plot point and starts one of Mewtwo's character arcs. The second fundamentally alters the plot and ends the arc. And the third brings the story to an end and essentially resolves the plot. Almost every battle that gets focused upon changes either the protagonist or his situation in a meaningful way, and it's usually clear that this is going to be the case going in. And as a result of going light on battles, Dai could save his tricks for the big ones.

Which is another problem in Pokemon battles. There are only so many things you can do with the same set of moves. And if there are 20 battles in a story, you're going to slowly run out of new things to do. And eventually fights get less impressive. It also means that the most important, biggest battles end up no more interesting than the small ones. As a Crossover Battle writer when we have a character with a lot of fights I can just throw together their actual responses to just about every situation and call it a day. When we get a character who has battled less, it's much more fun to think about how they would handle a new situation and figure out moves for them. As a reader, it works the same way. If I've seen a Pokemon fight a dozen before I know how they'll handle the situation, roughly, and I start skimming. If I don't know how the trainer or Pokemon will handle things, I'm more interested.

In short, I think most Pokemon stories have too many action scenes. This burdens the narrative and makes the really big ones have less weight.

 

[AceTrainer14]

To be fair, Criss v. Vanessa kind of got mired in production hell for so long that I'm surprised it ever got out. And both characters fought with a small army of Pokemon at any given time, which at least I and dp were not used to dealing with. And... I'm actually kind of scared to read that thing again now.

I didn't mean to sound mean! It was an ambitious thing you guys had to do and I think you did it as best as anyone possibly could. I'm also slightly afraid of it

In terms of putting a number on it, what would you call a good amount of action scenes per Pokemon stories? You mention every 4-8k words being too much, so what is a per-1000 words amount?

 

[CrystaI]

In short, I think most Pokemon stories have too many action scenes. This burdens the narrative and makes the really big ones have less weight.

It should be the quantity and length of Pokemon Battles, rather than action scenes itself is adding burden to the overall story. Pokemon Battle is a kind of action scene, but vice versa is not necessarily true.
Though, by overall, I agree with your post.

Planning an action scenes doesn't mean to drag an action longer to last like forever, it means the actions and motions rather than the verbal words of the characters are narrating the story. Also, the combative choreographic composition where that is the most important thing for action scenes, is about meaningfulness of the actions yet artistic aesthetics of the motions. So, any actions/motions that are meaningless not narrating the story nor adding any value to the characters' characteristics or overworld's inner narratives, you don't put in. Action scenes doesn't need to be long, but the actions and motions of characters must be meaningful yet aesthetically appreciable.

As I had mentioned in my first post, battle is also part of the narrative. So obviously, driving the plot forward and/or giving spoiler and/or setting foundation for character development IMO shall be the meaningfulness of the action scene. When something is important to the plot or the characters, put it in, when something is unimportant that adds no value to the overall story, dump it. Needlessly dragging the battle to be longer than needed is not adding meaningfulness to the battle, but simply adding nonsense and rubbish texts to the battle. When a battle being elongated to length of 10 pages is at the end of the day nothing different from a battle of paragraph length of 10 lines long, it might as well choose to just write the 10 lines long battle than the 10 pages long battle. And when the occurrence of one battle is nothing different from the non-occurrence of one battle, then choose rather not having the battle occurring at all.

Problem of many of the fanfic Pokemon Battle, is like what suggested by Athena, the needlessly high quantity and frequency, and elongated time span and length. To many new writers, it feels like an obligation to fill a journey fic with Pokemon Battles in each chapter, regardless of is it truly needed in the story situation of respective chapters. It is like equivalent to writing a conversation scene, you let the characters talking bunch of nonsense gossips worth of 10 pages, but the most important "serious business" is merely 10 lines long, how can the reader be interested to read such long conversation and search for the scarce important dialogues in the sea of gibberish? And when one know such scenes shall occurs in every chapter, some may be even more than once, how it may arouse the reader to continue reading the fic?

So, it is important to have an understanding in distinguishing the battles that are needed and the battles that are not needed to process the story, and within one battle, which specific action is needed and which specific action is unneeded, then it is how you plan the fighting steps arrangement to be performed by the battling pokemons (the usage of moves, the "dodging" if has it, the strategies, the usage of items, etc et cetera). Pokemon Battle doesn't need to be long, as that shall depends on the importance of the battle itself which depicted by your story plot needs. But, the actions and motions performed by the battling pokemons shall be elegant and cool, not necessarily over-exaggerating in the destruction power, but need to be able to arouse a fascinating image in the reader's brain when they read the texts and battle descriptions. Where that, shall depends on the writing skill level of the writers.

 

[Persephone]

I think the answer to "how many battles" is "as many as the plot/character development really need." If it's the best way to do something, fine. But if a plot point or character development can be made without a fight, it's probably best to do it without a fight. This is where gyms get tricky because they almost need to be in the narrative by convention, but they tend to be almost certain wins against a character with little development. I'm not entirely sure how to handle those in a journey fic, to be honest, since I've never seen an example I was absolutely enamored with.

I guess I'd be inclined to go with more puzzle based gyms if I were to do a journey fic in the future, where the puzzle of the gym forces the protagonist to deal with some personal shortcoming. The Sabrina battle in 8ES might be a decent example I've seen on site. Off-site I enjoyed a story that only had one gym match. It was against an established character of about equal power, so there was a real chance of loss, and winning was the only thing standing between the protagonist and one of their major goals. But that almost goes back to the "do a few good fights rather than a lot of increasingly burdensome ones" mantra.

 

[Beth Pavell]

When there's a battle every 4-8k words due to the plot, it's hard to set up a full emotional arc with each of them. Because, from a narrative perspective, battles are just another expression of conflict.

The more I think about this, the more apt I think it is. With one or two caveats, perhaps.

It kinda got me thinking about my favourite authors, and how they handle fights and battles. It occurs to me that most of them use this kind of thing very sparingly. Thinking about A Song of Ice and Fire, not what you'd call a peaceful story, but there aren't that many narrated fights that happen blow-by-blow. And actually, even when the writing of the battle itself isn't great it can be propped up by the rest of the story. I'm thinking of the Battle of Pelennor Fields arc from The Return of the King here. Tolkien, bless him, was never really all that good at writing what you'd think of as the fantasy mainstay, the swordfight. But Pelennor Fields makes me cry, consistently drags me right into the heart of it, because it's really the climax of a steadily building story from the beginning of the book (I still maintain that it is a masterpiece of plotting).

I suppose the battle is as good an example of how the medium affects writing as you can get. It's a lot easier to get away with elongated action on screen than it is on the page. Over the years I've seen people play down the idea of battle a lot in reference to journey fics in particular. I can see why, though I can't say I'm a huge fan of pushing them too far into the background. For one thing, I have noticed that readers will generally be more likely to want to read something if they care about the characters, even if that thing itself is apparently completely dull.

 

[Xel Yel]

I think action scenes, in general, may be the hardest parts to write in any story. It has mostly to do with the fact that fights are really fast paced compared to everything else, so the risk is making a list of moves, rather than proper storytelling.

As some of you have already said, there should always be stakes during a battle, because the reader needs to be cheering for one side; otherwise he/she would just skip the entire thing. Unfortunately, within the canon series pokémon faint without big repercussions, which is a big problem, because there's nothing the reader will worry about.

But even if you solve this problem and manage to create tension through rivalry, a challenge or other means, you're far from safe. Action scenes are indeed part of the narration, thus they need to match the kind of story you're writing; in any case, though, they need to be focused on the psychological aspects of the battle, unless it's a four-line scene. This means that once you have established the power and the moves of the two (or more) opponents, you need to start getting inside their heads and thoughts. Briefly show their powers and what they can do, then immediately discuss the strategies the fighters have in mind, or at least the one you're siding for. Alternating between simple, short sentences which describe movement and longer, more complex ones is a very effective way to keep a reader interested: what matters is not the fight per se, but how a character reacts to a certain attack at a certain point of the fight.

It is theoretically possible to write a book with almost only fighting scenes in my opinion, as long as a scheme like this one is followed. The problem most writers have (me included) is that we tend to speed up the pace during action scenes, while most of the times it's better to do the opposite and slow down. (Which, interestingly, also makes a lot more sense if you consider that when people are in a fight or flight situation, their perception of time is slowed down, as adrenaline rushes their bodies.)