I want to understand, cause there are so many books that do this thing:
Am I the only one who hate when there are 3-6 chapters of pure fight whenever the mc go with someone that is not an npc?
Like when the mc fight a random beast, that is the first time he can go with someone on that realm, you get an endless fight against a random ass lizard, that will get stomped 1 hit to death 3 chp later...
Not saying I don't like some good fight, but when it's every time, it get really boring and I tend to just skip them.
Curious about other opinions
So you're saying you don't like a really drawn out fight when the enemy is relatively unimportant?
Seems reasonable
Here's some free advice for all aspiring writers browsing this sub; the length of a fight should be directly proportional to the reader's emotional investment in that fight.
The protagonist finally coming face to face with that one guy who did that thing way back in chapter whatever? Yeah, make this one count. The protagonist comes across a highly territorial armadillo on his way to 7-Eleven to grab a pack of cigarettes? Wrap that shit up in a page or two and move on to something with substance.
In a power-up focused hard magic system (ie, essentially the whole genre), there's also room for having fights to demonstrate new capabilities or other forms of benchmarking. The problem comes when these are dragged out and treated as having tension they don't really hold. A fight doesn't need to be a whole scene, much less a whole (or several) chapters.
There are ways to get your audience emotionally invested in the fight I go beyond who the fight is against. A character who just got laser beam eyes rushing to find a monster to test them on is a situation the audience will care about, even if the monster is just a random gagoo.
if its only once or twice im cool, but when its repetitive and it happen a lot of times and fights last for 3-4-5 chp it get boring
Its the DBZ model if fight description
I call them "And they fought enemies" chapters. When you can replace entire series of chapters with "And they fought enemies. They were hard. They used the abilities they had to fight the enemies in the way that they used them. Though the enemies were hard they fought them. They consumed a moderate amount of resources from their healing reserves which they gained immediately prior to fighting the enemies."
Yeah a lot of these LitRPG fights are just rolls off the 5e random encounter table blown up to multiple chapters.
lmao, a filler that was intended to be relevant basically:/
Nailed description
I often just skim the shit out of those segments. I skim mostly just so I don't miss something like powerup or some interspersed dialogue that could be important.
In my opinion a fight needs to have a purpose. Whether it’s showing off a new ability, foreshadowing something else, or introducing a rival/enemy (this is an incomplete list of valid options of course.)
If a fight is just a paint by numbers fight that’s happened before, well you’re not really getting much story then.
Precisely, I try to make every fight scene bring something new to the reader. And if the big fight sequence runs for multiple chapters, then each chapter needs to also have a purpose.
exactly
I think it's all about writing. If something is well written, filler fights don't feel like filler. Well written books don't really have NPCs.
But just monster grinding is not interesting.
agree
yea this applies to mother of learning, nothing felt like filler.
You're not alone, and many readers have voiced complaints about this. I know I don't enjoy a long fight unless it's justified twice over. I can put up with a chapters-long Battle but not a single fight that long unless there's good reason for it to be so, and there are usually only a few of those.
I hate 99% of monster fights. They don't add anything, they are just filler but somehow authors still think and promote them as a big selling point
They are filler.
It's hard to put out 5 chapters a week. Each 2k-3k words.
They are easy to write for an experienced author.
3-6 chapters are half a week or a full week for the author.
Extra money. (more chapters on patreon, more pages on kindle unlimited)
As long as the majority of readers tolerate it, nothing will change. And sadly most readers would chose 5*3K a week rather than 2*3k a week with no filler.
Ironically, I find combat chapters to be the hardest ones to write. I'll blow through a discussion or deep digging into how something works, but when it comes time to fight, I drag my feet the whole way.
Yups, I also skip it lol
There's a lot to unpack here...
Expectations and the theme of the story.
It's said that there are 3 main types of conflict.
One is internal, with the MC's own doubts and such; this can be broached in many forms.
Another is against people.
Finally, it's against Nature (which can manifest as the supernatural, monsters, disasters, weather).
I guess that the vast majority of readers of fiction prefer a conflict against people, and relevant ones at that. That's fine, if it's that type of story. But it's important for readers and authors to know what they want, and don't try to force a story into something it's not.
However, especially when monster-hunting is involved, I don't think we can dismiss the other factor. In fact, sometimes it may very well be the case that the struggle against a monster is far more relevant than against people (and where people actually unite against the big threat). Or, maybe adventure life simply is more filled with fighting monsters rather than people. Also, if levels and tiers are a big thing, a rabid strong monster should receive much more attention and risk-assessment and hence far more wordcount than a person of peer strength. Many nuances here.
It all depends on whether fighting monsters is a core mechanic of the story or just a simple barrier to overcome.
In progfan (and litRPG even more), monsters are an important conflict to address, and as such should receive proper wordcount. Also, fights serve the function to make the power system concrete, show it in practice, and for that we need more detailed descriptions of how fights actually occur. Again, the nature of the power system is important. If it's just as simple as 'punch harder' and release generic 'energy attack' (like DBZ), then there won't be much variety in fighting monsters (and even people later). But the more complex and creative the magic is, the more important and fun it becomes to present monsters with very different abilities and how MC will manage to deal with them with a restricted powerset.
I like videogames and the strategy and planning aspect of fighting monsters, and as such I also like seeing that in stories. But a good fight doesn't always means a long one. The fun lies much more in how it's done than how long it takes. I, for one, say there a far too few stories that have the proper focus on the struggles against monsters. Still, I also know how to properly enjoy a story that is much more narrative and the few fights actually matter (HWFWM).
All in all, I believe the crux of the problem is an author sort of artificially making a fight slower and more meandering than what's realistic. I mean... a random trade of blows a la DBZ makes no sense if one can use powerful charged attacks, magic bolts, spells, and whatever else the powerset contains. A fight that turns into random blows is deviating from a proper rational approach towards winning (again, game mentality).
Heavy choreography and martial arts have their place... but I think only very far in-between, reserved for just a few select fights across the entire story, certainly not every 10 chapters. Otherwise it just becomes old news. It's also something much more impactful in animation than what can be conveyed by text, so...
Even a battle-shounen-like story doesn't need long fights... if the magic system is portrayed with due quality and consistency.
wat
Some stories are all about the action, when you take away the fightscenes there isnt much left.
that means that the story is kinda crap, if that is all there is
Not really, its just a matter of expectations. I like to compare stories to food, sometimes you just want to mindlessly munch on some popcorn or eat a burguer. Azarinth Healer and Primal Hunter were this to me, just constant action i can entertain myself with, very little in matters of character development and mediocre worldbuilding, but its not like i was expecting diferent when i started reading them.
ok, but like in primal hunter when he fight a random panther, eagle, monkey or whatever animal he fight for 3-4 chapters each, shit get boring as hell, same stuff again and again
Yeah, its part of the reason i eventually dropped it, the realization there wasnt much more to the story than that. With that said there is definetly a target audience that eats it up when Jake fights a random animal for 3 chapters straight, so clearly things are working out for the author.
Generally speaking if there is a new level of enemy or new ability that the MC has and the author wants to showcase it you will get a long fight scene but once you've seen that fight there is no need to repeat it so it gets glossed over in the future.
This is a fairly common strategy. The Primal Hunter comes to mind as a series that heavily utilizes it.
PH fights are all the same, and after the first few all boring as hell.
problem is the books are 50% fights, ended up skipping almost all of that
The answer to every "am I the only one who hate (sic) X" question is always: no. Some people will also hate it. Others will love it. That's how things go.
ik, was just curious
My of rule of thumb when writing is that there needs to be something beyond just the fight itself in the scene. Either showing off the magic/power system, having the MC overcome some mental or emotional hurtle, reveal some important plot detail or worldbuilding element etc. Doing multiple at once makes the scene even better.
I agree. Even with challenging fights, I'll skim of they run multiple chapters. If it's a new series I might slog through a few to get a feel for it, but if the book is 600+ pages, and 25-45% of that is describing fighting... well, there are other books.
I honestly don't think I've ever heard anyone ever voice the opposite of what you're saying, especially here, so not sure about 'unpopular opinion'...
I usually don't mind long fights but it can become exzessive.