One of my favourite bits of writing fantasy is the action scenes. I rarely bother to plan them in advance – one sword-fighting scene in The Alchemist of Souls was described as “Big fight!” in my outline – as I find they’re more fun, and more fluid, if I just make things up as I go along. However occasionally I want to write something that involves more than a single pair of combatants, and it’s at that point I have to plan the logistics a bit more carefully. Writers have various techniques for doing this, but one I’m trying out during the writing of The Merchant of Dreams is to use Playmobil figures. They’re a handy size, come with lots of different weapons – and of course they’re fun to collect!
Note: After taking photos* of the various stages of the fight scene, I realised they were potentially massive spoilers for the ending of the book, so for the purpose of this blog I mocked up a generic fight scene as an illustration, using the same figures for my protagonists and some random pirates. I might post the real photos after the book comes out…
From left to right: Kiiren, Sandy, Ned, Coby, Gabriel and Mal take on some pirates!
The setting for this scene is a square in Venice, hence the cardboard “palazzo” in the background and the terracotta “well” in the centre. In the above photo we see a nice street-level view of all the separate combats, and having chosen the figures carefully (and swapped hair, hats, etc around as needed) it’s easy to tell who’s who. However it can be hard to get an accurate idea of distance from this angle, so you might want to take a top-down photo as well:
Birds-eye view of the same scene
Now we can see exactly who is fighting whom, lines of fire, that kind of thing, so this kind of shot is great for logistical planning.
Finally, you can use close-up shots to get an “over-the-shoulder” perspective from a single character’s viewpoint:
Close-up on Coby, looking towards Mal's fight
Not only is this rather cute, it can give you ideas for the next move in the combat. That pirate in the red bandana is looking like a good candidate for a head shot!
That’s really all there is to it – I moved the characters through the combat, taking photos at each stage, then when I came to write the scene, I used the photos as reference material. I didn’t always stick exactly to the original plan, and I dare say it may change again in the next draft, but it gets the creative juices flowing 
Do you have any favourite outside-the-box techniques to share for handling the trickier aspects of writing?
Technical note: I used a Panasonic Lumix FX-55 with no flash (it tends to create too much over-exposure) and manipulated the light levels in The GIMP.
That is a great idea, it also looked like a lot of fun to set up. I particularly enjoyed the cardboard palazzo.
I haven’t thought to use figures for fight scenes in my writing. I kind of have the scene mapped out in my head. That said I do play D&D and in the game miniatures are used to play the combats so perhaps I am drawing on that experience when I write.
I think you may well have inspired me to experiment with the minis in those scenes where it just won’t come together.
I used to have a lot of RPG miniatures, but all I have left are my boxed sets of Elfquest ones. Since they are the same scale as normal white-metal miniatures and mostly portray hobbit-sized elves, they’re a bit too small to photograph without a good macro lens!
I’ve got boxes of hand-painted D&D miniatures but I planned my fight scenes by drawing diagrams on scrap paper. Now I wish I’d used your method!
Good idea! Cute, too. Thanks for posting!
I was curious enough to figure out the link, and yes, that’s a cute idea. I’ve never used photographs, but the one time I was doing a huge battle with multiple people and events, I snuck my boys’ plastic cowboys, Indians, and army figures just to get positioning. Not as dynamic as your setup.
Brilliant idea. Thanks for sharing
I tend to choreograph in my head, but I’ve never had large fight scenes. Yet.
Fortunately, my son has tons of Playmobil stuff, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I borrowed them. And maybe a castle.
Thanks for the post!
I seem to start all my plotlines and character relationships by creating fanfic of my own characters – writing the crazy over-the-top stuff first seems to get me thinking in a free enough way that it evolves into something more complex and subtle later on!
I think I may be nicking John Ayliff’s miniatures when it comes to writing fight scenes though…
What a cute idea I love it !! Off to get the kids involved with plotting.