'Realistic' violence in books

[Mirai Gen]

Yet again, I call upon the powers of NPF to help me with a writing dillema!

I've been writing typical fantasy and fanfiction for years. It's no problem for me to slip myself into the world and start tinkering around with characters and conflicts and combat, and midevil violence is a second nature to me. But now I was hoping to do something a little more...unusual.

What I was going to do is make a quasi-post-apocalyptic (I love the dash!) world, set a few thousand years later. Because of a virus that was engineered to attempt to win a war, 80% of the metal in the world that was used for guns and weapons was destroyed, infecting by transmitting through the air. So, with that problem, people have again reverted back to archaic weapons such as martial arts, swords, knives, maces, and the like. I'll spare you the details, because this is only an idea I came up with a few days ago.

Now the problem I have, is that I was hoping to make the violence a little more unrealistic. I'm thinking kind of like Final Fantasy - Advent Children; Peope get knocked around, but its not really a 'big deal' until the hits start accumulating after a long fight. And with that is some of the more insane jumping height, and the like.

My problem is twofold - I'm worried about turning off the reader once they find out my story is Dragon Ball Z without the Kamehameha.

My other problem is a logical explanation behind how they can deliver blows that send the other person crashing into a wall, only to cause the recipient of the punch to continue the fight. I was thinking some sort of evolution of human beings, but it sounds like a deus ex machinae in my head.

Thoughts?

[Nikose Tyris]

80% of the metal in the world is gone.

What's your weapons made of? I mean, I'd think having a blunted plastic 'knife' would still work, but probably be more of a bashing weapon then it's not gonna do much. ((Your virus infected metal, would that be all metal, right?))

Also, unrealistic violence is a STAPLE of enhanced vigor of survival. maybe not to that point, but there are people alive today that can take a cannonball to the abdomen and live, stay standing, and attempt to laugh it off.

[Fifthfiend]

Yeah, it can sort of be a problem to convey the spirit of comic-book violence without the aid of it being a comic book.

Economy and immediacy of diction is important here, you want language that isn't going to get in between the reader and the experience you're trying to create.

If you're trying to invoke a sense of the awesome describing the action from a point somewhere outside of itself might help, instead of a blow-by-blow, try and show the thing as it would be experienced by an ordinary human eye. By comparison, if you're trying to portray this as a commonplace facet of the world you've created, then try to work at it from behind the eyeballs of the fighter, long since jaded with the spectacle in which he finds himself embroiled.

Of course this is all much easier said than done.

[Nikose Tyris]

And the NPF crowd watched in horror and shock, as Fifth went on to demonstrate his meaning, by taking ahold of Nikose by the hair atop his head, and casually spinning and tossing him violently into a nearby wall, the force of which caused cracks to visibly show all across the bricks. Nikose fell to the ground, and the crowd watched as he rubbed his neck, and stood up.
"Geez, not so rough next time!"

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Nikose

And the NPF crowd watched in horror and shock, as Fifth went on to demonstrate his meaning, by taking ahold of Nikose by the hair atop his head, and casually spinning and tossing him violently into a nearby wall, the force of which caused cracks to visibly show all across the bricks. Nikose fell to the ground, and the crowd watched as he rubbed his neck, and stood up.
"Geez, not so rough next time!"

You know that's actually an excellent demonstration, of the meaning of

much easier said than done.

[Nikose Tyris]

Yup, exactly. (can I take that as, "Nikose, that sucked."?)

It is difficult; but for your actual story, I am interested about the weapons; wood and plastic, or is that remaining 20% metal what makes up archaic weapons?

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Nikose

It is difficult; but for your actual story, I am interested about the weapons; wood and plastic, or is that remaining 20% metal what makes up archaic weapons?

It's still my idea at this point, but a majority of people are going for fist-fighting. Since metals are rare, most being used for housing and protection, there's going to be some archaic weapons. When I say "Metal is rare," I don't mean that the world relies on shitty alternatives, I simply mean there's not enough metal to craft nearly limitless supplies of bullets, thereby rendering guns overly expensive and almost useless. It's just a textbook reason to have a sword in a world that used to have guns.

If you're trying to invoke a sense of the awesome describing the action from a point somewhere outside of itself might help, instead of a blow-by-blow, try and show the thing as it would be experienced by an ordinary human eye. By comparison, if you're trying to portray this as a commonplace facet of the world you've created, then try to work at it from behind the eyeballs of the fighter, long since jaded with the spectacle in which he finds himself embroiled.

Of course this is all much easier said than done.

True, and I was somewhat anticipating doing that. I just wanted to make things clear from the get-go - to the reader more than anyone - that this world is very unrealistic in it's brawling, and this was very intentional.

I'm saving myself from turning off some of my readers who look at the book and say, "Hey, what the fuck? That would have killed him! What the fuck is he, a Goddamn Jedi Knight?"

[Elbodo]

Originally posted by Mirai Gen:
I was thinking some sort of evolution of human beings, but it sounds like a deus ex machinae in my head.

I will refer you to my own favorite writer Stephen King, who says in his book On Writing that everything in a novel is deus ex machina. Nothing exists in the story that the author did not put there. The only thing that makes it good or bad is how well the author suspends the reader's disbelief.

King refers to a theater adage that says, "If there is a gun on the mantle in Act I it must go off in Act III." He says that in writing the reverse is true: If the gun will go off in Act III it must be on the mantle in Act I.

So go ahead and use your evolution explanation for the fights. Just make sure to use it earlier in the story as well as a piece of seemingly inoccuous texture.

So early on you'll need something like this:

7000 years after the War of Decay humanity is finally struggling back out of the pit it hurled itself into. The anti-ferrous virus that had rid the world of its weapons had also destroyed the tools with which humanity had overcome its environment. While human evolution was forced to accelerate to allow the species to survive man's tools of hearth and home and hell underwent a forced devolution. The implements of an older era were pressed back into man's service: to plow his fields, to shelter him from the storm, and to wage his wars.

See how I did that? It's an expositional paragraph that introduces the idea of a war in which most of the metal was destroyed and older technology has come back into use. In passing it also mentions that human evolution has accelerated, foreshadowing the moment when you show a fight and we see that, whoa, evolution is a bitch!

To really sell it you'll want to plant some other subtle hints about the nature of that evolution. Maybe show a farmer who has evolved better traits for withstanding the heat of the day or the stresses of heavy labor (that one especially can translate into your fighters' ability to deliver and receive massive hits).

So yeah, that evolution is deus ex machina. But since you need it just put it on the mantlepiece earlier on and your audience will accept it. It'll just look wierd to you because you know the secret.

[Demetrius]

Make it a side effect of the virus, or part of the virus. Along the lines of creating a way to make superhumans (soldiers to win the war), combining the organic with the inorganic (metal) it got outta hand and before anyone could do anything about it people were changed forever by the metal they were in contact with when the virus struck them. They absorbed the metal or something and now they jump high, hit hard and are slightly magnetic :P.

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Elbodo

I will refer you to my own favorite writer Stephen King, who says in his book On Writing that everything in a novel is deus ex machina. Nothing exists in the story that the author did not put there. The only thing that makes it good or bad is how well the author suspends the reader's disbelief.

What's really funny, is that I've read that book six times, and when it came down to it, I couldn't remember it for the life of me. Thanks, I needed that reminder. Away I go!