Block, Parry, Strike! - How to use a lightsaber

81) Thin out the crowd at your next rave.

 

Ooh, yeah--or

82) Bad blind-date ender.

(Still taken with the idea of weird "lightsaber products" being FFA fake ad material. Maybe someone with more talent than me could try?)

I made this silly picture, which could conceivably be an ad, but it didn't turn out quite the way I had in mind:

[image=http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/8339/sithturkey5ju.gif]
(Click on the image if you actually want to see a larger version of it.)

 

love that, ophelia!

okay, what are we up to now?

83) Be a clown! Entertain younglings at parties. Impress them with your lightsaber juggling skills!

84) Who needs fireworks? Just throw a bunch of igntied sabers in the air!

85) Great for helping out friends in a jam. You're buddy is stuck on Hoth and freezing to death? Just grab your handy dandy lightsaber, slice open that dead Tauntaun and stuff him inside. *ahem*

86) Create decorative ice sculptures!

87) Split a cord of wood in a jiffy!

88) Never worry about intruders again! Just mount the hilt on the wall and rig the 'on' switch to your doorknob and thieves will be stopped, dead.

89) Carves up Bantha steaks in no time at all!

90) Be a do-it-yourself fashionista! Make that 'holey, singed' look work! Tell folks you're wearing the latest thing, Jedi chic!

 

91) Fire safety equipment. It won't put out a fire, but it will let you cut your way out of a burning building.
92) Bottle opener. Especially gratifing for opening things with ******* child-proof caps.
93) Big, dangerous 4th of July sparkler.
94) Baseball bat. No one can tag you out with an incinerated ball.
95) Spray an aerosol can along the blade of one to create your own personal flamethrower


Okay, 5 more. Somebody take us home.

 

96) Having a bad hair day? Get it to stay put with a handy, dandy lightsaber! (May result in severely burned scalp)

97) Find the proverbial needle in a haystack. Hay burns. Needle doesn't.

98) Drumstick. (Warning: may puncture or incinerate drums)

99) Highly effective at shutting up the neighbor's dogs that bark loudly at two AM

100) Hang it off the ceiling, and have nifty colored light!

 

Ooh, good call! I'm remembering that next time I have to find something in a large, flammable pile.

Terrific job, guys!




Right! Next topic!

 

New topic!

Jennifer_Lyn and I were talking about where to go next with this thread, and we decided to hold off on another challenge for a bit, since there are so many going right now--plus the FFA, plus the Fanfic Trivia game.

So, I thought we'd try another favorite activity: bragging.

Pick your favorite of all the lightsaber duels you've written, and pull out about a page-and-a-half to a page-and-2/3 excerpt. Then post it here, and explain to us how you achieved your masterful effect. Edit: Okay, I'd meant to specify 500 words as the limit, since I think of 300 words as being one typrewritten page. However, with my Word settings, 500 words is well under a page. Apparently my page-and-a-half isn't everybody else's. Go figure. Anyway, think "more than 3/4 of a page, but less than 2." This is using your typical single-spaced fanfic format, with spaces between paragraphs, etc. Or to put it in practical terms, give us enough material to work with, but don't flood us.

Some focusing questions (not absolutely mandatory, but do include something that will let us replicate your success):

1) What's the context of the duel within your story?

2) What kind of effect were you aiming for? (Suspenseful and ominous? Powerful and climactic? Terror-inspiring?)

3) How did you use language, including descriptive words and prose rhythm, to create the effect you wanted?

4) How did you structure the events of your duel in order to build the feeling you wanted to convey? (Is it a deadly blitz attack in the daylight, or a slow, cat-and-mouse stalking through the dark?)

Finally: yes, you may include the story's name and a link. That's straight from Jennifer_Lyn, and it's a rare offer indeed in these "advertising"-sensitive times.

Positive feedback for the person above you and anyone else whose work struck your fancy is encouraged. Please refrain from giving constructive criticism unless the author expressly asks for it, however.

So come on and show us your work, where to find it, and why it's wonderful. Then let us know how we can be wonderful too.

--(ophelia, actually)

 

This is a short story for Ophelia's "I'll trade you this picture for a thousand words" thread located here

Slowly I walked between the giant fans which powered the city below. The city teeming with people, all of whom where relying on me to protect them.
There were millions of things I could be doing to help prepare the defenses for the coming onslaught. Millions of way I could be better spending my time. Instead, I was walking alone, watching Mordlan three?s moon clear the distant horizon.
A whisper.
A flicker of thought.
I whirled around, straining all my senses for a hint of whatever it was I felt.
There.
Almost lost in the background noise created by the fans, was the sound of powerful wings beating the air.
So he has come for me. That was why the Force had prompted me to leave the city. The battle for Mordlan three would be decided here, with only the silent fans to witness. Tonight, Jedi and Sith would stake everything on one final duel. The winner would walk away with Mordlan three securely under his control. And the loser. The loser wouldn?t walk anywhere.
As the sound of beating wings came nearer I pulled my lightsaber from my belt, drawing comfort from its solid weight in my palm. The cool metal calmed my thoughts and allowed me to focus on the task at hand. Protecting the people of Mordlan three.
I ducked as the Sith flew over my head, brilliant red blade slashing. He flared his huge wings, landing gently not 5 meters from me.
He turned slowly, a sadistic grin on his face, ?time to die Jedi.? He charged towards me, lightsaber swinging at my head. I raised my own blue blade to block his strike, but at the last second he took to the sky, and suddenly the blow aimed at my head was aimed at my back. Only a desperate roll forward save me from being sliced open along my spine. I quickly came up to my feet and spun back to face where he should have been. But there was nothing there. Just the base of a giant fan.
The slight glow of his lightsaber was the only warning I had. I leaped to the side, narrowly avoiding being sliced neatly in half. Even as it was his saber nicked my shoulder, leaving a bright spot of pain behind. With a suddenness that startled me he appeared right in front of me, easily deflecting my desperate stab, he slammed me with one of his massive wings, sending sailing through the air. My graceful flight ending suddenly against one of the massive fans.
I staggered to my feat, turning to face my opponent as I wiped away the blood dripping over my eyes. He advanced on me, slowly, surely. His eyes blazing with hatred. I took my last chance, one last desperate gamble. A rush of energy flowed through me, all the energy I had remaining. Like lightning my saber struck again and again, always towards the legs, forcing him to take flight, on powerful thrust from his wings lifted the Sith off the ground, a second lifted him directly into the path of an oncoming fan blade. It smashed the Sith down to the ground in a crumpled heap, where he lay, unmoving. His Force presence fading to nothing.
I leaned back on the base of the fan, recovering my breath before I headed back to the city.
Mordlan three would stand. Without their Sith to lead them the enemy would be disorganized, unfocused. I shook my head sadly. But they would never give in. The Sith?s forces would fight to the last simply to cause as much pain and death as they could.
A single tear rolled its way down my check as I walked away. The battle would be won, but would it be enough to save the Republic?


I didn't want to go deeply into the "he sliced/he parried" style of combat, and Ithink I was pretty successful in keeping it simple but still exciting (don't disillusion me if I'm wrong)
I was also trying to create the idea that the Jedi was incredibly overmatched by the Sith, and only circumstances and the Force saved him.
The ending is supposed to convey a sense of hopelessness, that the thousands of people

 

This excerpt seems strangely familiar . . .



I think avoiding the super-detailed blow-by-blow stuff was a good idea. Few things kill a fighting-for-your-life scene more effectively than turning into Howard Cosell.

I didn't quite get the sense that the Jedi was way out of his depth . . . could you show us the passages you used to create that feeling? Maybe they could be punched up a notch--or else I'm blind as a bat. This, also, could be the case.

In the original, this has a companion piece that I thought made it clearer that the setting was during the Clone Wars--although now that I re-read it I notice that it doesn't explicitly place the events at any particular point in time. There's just a Sith plot to take over the galaxy that's very similar to the one in ROTS. Anyway, with the two vigs together I definitely got the feeling we were looking at the "twilight of the Jedi," and that this Jedi's victory was a drop in the bucket compared to the Order's ultimate defeat. I don't know whether that would be as clear or not to someone who hadn't read the mirror to this piece.

I think the drop in the "hopelessness quotient" may be because the Jedi's weakness is mostly implied based on the contrast between the two vigs. To be fair, you didn't originally intend for this vig to be read by itself. If you were to make it a stand-alone, however, you might want to set it more clearly in the Clone Wars era, or otherwise strongly foreshadow that the Jedi Order will ultimately lose even though this guy won.

Incidentally, I really liked the way you used rhythm and text cues to convey a "prickling at the back of the neck" feeling:

A whisper.
A flicker of thought.
I whirled around, straining all my senses for a hint of whatever it was I felt.
There.

The short, disjointed sentence fragments mimic the way the "intellectual" brain shuts off in emergencies and the "emotional" brain takes over. You don't waste a lot of time composing soliloquies in your head when someone's trying to kill you. I liked the way you used italics, as well. The fragments you chose to highlight come across as desperate, flitting thoughts in the mind of the narrator, and which might almost be in the present tense. They have no verbs to tell us otherwise, anyway. (Using "is" vs. "was," for example.) Most of the story is the Jedi's "present day" self relating the story, but for those few lines, we get kind of a "first person shooter" effect--riding along behind the narrator's eyeballs as they story unfolds.

Very cool.

 

This is an excerpt from my currently 'on hold' story, I,Jedi/I,Sith.



Ben could now feel the anger and dark side energy emitting from the dark figure. The dark figure stared daggers at Ben then spoke. "Who am I? When this is over. When you have fallen to my blade. You'll never forget my name. I am Omega, Darth Omega. And even though you and I are connected, you are still a jedi." Darth Omega pulled out his lightsaber then activated the crimson red blade. "Don't worry the dark side is clouding the senses of your jedi friends. So no one will help you or sense my presence. Prepare to die, Benjamin."

Omega charged towards Ben ready to attack. Ben quickly thumbed on his green saber and deflected Omega's powerful strike. Omega swung his blade at Ben unleashing a flurry of quick slices and slashes which Ben easily parried with his green saber. Ben swiftly blocked another strike then launched a series of quick slices and swings at Omega. Omega with his red saber blocked each slice, then dodged Ben's next slash by side flipping to the left. Both of them charged each other and their sabers clashed with one loud hiss. Their sabers were locked for a minute, until they finally released their saber lock. The two combatanants then unleashed a series of slices, slashes, swings, and stabs at lightning speed. They both swung their sabers at such an amazing speed and grace that the sabers were like nothing but a quick blur. Their deadly, lightning quick saber dance lasted for 2 minutes until finally Omega delivered a swift kick to Ben's face which caused Ben to flip backwards. Ben gracefully landed on his feet then swung again but Omega dodged the swing by flipping over Ben's head. Omega landed on his feet then struck. Ben blocked the blow and their sabers were locked once more. They released their saber lock then backed away.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was my first attempt at writing action and it's still my favorite because it was the first. When I went to write the duel, I was trying to make it like the fights you see in the movies only instead of on film it's on paper. So I used certain words like 'slash' or 'slice' to describe the saber action. I still don't know what people think of my action sequences, but I just tried to be descriptive, understandable, and still make it exciting.
This particular fight's purpose was to help set up the complicated plot and show that Ben and Omega are sort of even when it came to fighting. Mystery, confusion, and a little hint of intensity was what I hoped the readers would feel during this entire sequence. They get the mystery from Omega's side because they have no real clue who he really is. Then they get the level confusion from Ben, whom like the reader didn't understand who Omega was, where he come from, and why he truly wanted to kill him. Then you got a level of intensity when the action starts because Ben was just an apprentice fighting a mysterious Sith warrior and was now all alone late at night with no one to help him or sense him.

 

Two Sides of the Same coin

She pulls a rancorâ??s tooth from her belt and a lightsaber blade shoots forth from it.

She slips towards him, her blade held in a loose grip, her stance ready. She is every inch the warrior queen she was raised to be.

Their blades meet with a crackle of energy, with the soul shattering sound of hopes and dreams being dashed and sundered.

They are fairly well evenly matched. He is stronger, but she more experienced.

They are two sides of the same coin.

Male and female.

Mother and Father.

Light and Dark.

One broken in body, the other broken in spirit.

Once upon a time, they were young and in love, back before the war, before her coronation, before life became so twisted and dark.

Now, they are both bitter and heartbroken. Bitter at the life that fate has given them. Heartbroken at the loss of that love, at the loss of their innocence.

All they have left is the fight, the reward of which is the soul of an innocent five year old girl.

They twist and twirl, their sabers flashing. Neither able to get in that killing blow, ultimately neither entirely certain that they want to.

They part both slightly winded from their exertions. He sadly looks at her. â??Why does it have to be this way?â??

Her look is even sadder. â??You go to a dark place Jacen. One that I cannot allow you to take Allana.â??

â??I do this to protect her!â??

â??She does not need protection, she needs love and acceptance. What you offer is merely pain and fear.â??

He pulls his saber back into a high guard. â??You donâ??t understand.â??

She lifts hers into a matching guard. â??What is there to understand?â??

â??There is no Dark Side!â??

â??Then why are you trying to kill the mother of your child?â??

Once more he rushes into battle, allowing his frustration and anger to power his blows; while she is driven by a calm acceptance, centered in the knowledge that she defends her daughter.

Still their skills are evenly matched; the unstoppable force has met the unmovable object.

And as is so often the case in these scenarios, it is the introduction of a third player which changes the dynamic.

Each is so focused on the other; on winning this battle of ideologies that both fail to notice the arrival of the ultimate trump card.

An innocent five year old little girl. She watches the battle, her red hair pulled back into a simple braid, her brandy eyes wide at the complex chorography of her parentâ??s duel.

â??Mama?â??

Her voice cutting through the sounds of lightsabers in combat is enough to distract her mother. The unmovable object just moved.

As Jacen knocks the saber from Tenel Kaâ??s hand, and places his blade at her throat. A clear gasp is heard. Jacen finally realizes that they have an audience as she says in her clear child voice, â??Papa, are you goinâ?? to hurt Mama?â??

The story here is basically, Jacen coming after Allana, and TK trying to stop him.

What I was going for here is the fact that they are evenly matched, their battle being as much ideas and ideals as actual swordplay. As in everything I do, feel free to CC It...

 

Earthknight--I liked that you got more than one sense into your description:

Both of them charged each other and their sabers clashed with one loud hiss.

Adding in the sound helps put the reader more "in" the scene. "Clashed" is a great verb, too--the word itself kind of sounds like the noise that lightsabers make when they hit each other.

I thought it was cool that you put in some non-blade attacks and acrobatics as well:

finally Omega delivered a swift kick to Ben's face which caused Ben to flip backwards. Ben gracefully landed on his feet then swung again but Omega dodged the swing by flipping over Ben's head.

That's Nick Gillard's choreography, all right--I can tell you've studied it. It's great that you were thinking in three dimensions when you wrote this, too--the duelists can go back and forth, but they can also go *up.* In a knock-down, drag-out fight, people are going to use whatever they've got to stay alive--hands, feet, flipping over someone's head if they can manage it, etc. Obi-Wan was even driven to use a blaster in RotS , so nothing's completely off-limits.

Ben was just an apprentice fighting a mysterious Sith warrior and was now all alone late at night with no one to help him or sense him.

I like that setup. I *used* that setup. If I get a minute, I'll end up posting it. Having the audience rooting for the underdog is a proven way to create suspense, and mystery can indeed make something seem scarier and more compelling. Back when Vader was Vader (and before he was Luke's dad), he was so terrifying because everyone imagined their own personal worst nightmare under his mask. Leaving in an element of mystery allows people to fill in the blanks with the contents of their unique anxiety closets.

Kidan--That is a terrific story setup. I love how you fused the family and mythic elements in it--it's very Star Wars. I liked Jacen's echoing of the Anakin (Skywalker) "to protect you" line. Very nice. Obviously, Han and Leia named the wrong kid after Grandpa.

Your excerpt does a great job of showing that the most satisfying lightsaber duels are not, in fact, about lightsabers. They're about desperate people trying to solve deeply emotional problems in a desperate way. You managed to dig a nightmare-splinter out of society's collective mind, as well. The image of two parents and their young child is a secular version of the "holiest of holies;" it's a reassurance that the human race will continue. You've re-created that image here, only everything is wrong. The natural order of the universe is completely skewed, and this little family appears to be more about death than life. It's a fitting scenario to graft SW ideology onto. The start of the "hero's journey" usually involves some terrible cosmic misalignment that needs to be fixed, and we've sure got a misalignment here. You capture the connection between myth and family drama very well in this line: Their blades meet with a crackle of energy, with the soul shattering sound of hopes and dreams being dashed and sundered.

It's not flesh those blades are cutting--it's the ties that hold this couple together. If they represent "mother and father, light and dark" in the larger sense, then something is very, very wrong with the universe indeed.

I usually like to pretend the EU doesn't exist, but if you get around to posting this, let me know.

Since you asked for CC, I'd only mention two things--one, I'd cut the line: And as is so often the case in these scenarios, it is the introduction of a third player which changes the dynamic.

The slip into the present tense is distracting, and the section actually makes perfect sense with the line gone.

Also, I'd alter Allana's reaction. Even small kids know rage and terror when they see them, and the "fight or flight" response isn't really different in kids and adults. Imminent murder of a family member, *by* a family member, is going to trigger an "emergency" reaction in jus

 

1) What's the context of the duel within your story?

This is a duel that is Leia facing down her father and brother on the second Death Star while attempting to turn them back. It is basically ROTJ, but with two Sith Skywalkers instead and Leia as a Jedi.

2) What kind of effect were you aiming for? (Suspenseful and ominous? Powerful and climactic? Terror-inspiring?)

I was going for a balance of intense fighting and meaningful dialogue that would work towards the end result. (I swear, this is much better when you have all 6 pages of the duel just with Vader, then get to the duel with Luke, then the duel with Luke and Palpatine and Leia... It got to be very complicated.)

3) How did you use language, including descriptive words and prose rhythm, to create the effect you wanted?

I believe that the strength in this is making it a very visceral fight. It's believably intense. I used a lot of pacing and rhythm to make it work for me.

4) How did you structure the events of your duel in order to build the feeling you wanted to convey? (Is it a deadly blitz attack in the daylight, or a slow, cat-and-mouse stalking through the dark?)

The duel starts out very slowly and then gets frenzied, but there is a subtle hint that both of htem are not up to this kind of duel, which I cover with dialogue at times.
*****
The parry caught her off guard, the harsh clash of the blades bringing her back to reality.
Her eyes focused on those eyeshields and for a moment, the locked blades and mutual confusion were all that stood between them.

Had those blue eyes been visible, she was sure they would have blinked.

As the shock wore off, she realized one crucial thing. Dark or light, she had to be stronger than her opponent.

Bringing her left foot back, she pivoted counter-clockwise and sunk deeper into her stance, drawing her arms in towards her body.

Vader stepped forward, bringing the battle away from his vaunted Master. Leia allowed the advance, moving to where she could have more space.

Come and get it.

The next blow came high and she drew her saber up parallel to her left ear in a graceful arc, meeting the swing and deflecting it downward by twisting her wrists and tugging the blade forward violently.

The crossed blades sparked as they hit his shoulder and he let out a strangled yell.

First blood.

In the next moment, Leia was flying back, compelled by an unseen Force. She dampened her fall, but still had the breath knocked from her lungs.

The clang of boot on metal alerted her that Vader was descending the staircase she had just bypassed.

She pushed to her feet and snapped her saber up in the first defensive position, igniting it.

He shook his head, either disgusted or mournful. "This is futile, Leia."

"Were it futile, I would not be here," she countered.

"Are you so sure?"

He drew up short of her, his saber held in a low, one-handed guard stance.

"I did not come here to fight you," she said softly, "but if that is what it takes..."

His weight shifted back, allowing him room to bring the lightsaber around and up into the third attack position, slicing in towards her right hip.

Leia parried easily. "You do not understand. We cannot exist on opposite ends of this spectrum."

Leia dropped to one knee, ducking his next swing to stab upwards towards his solar plexus. He blocked it, but not easily, and she exploded from her crouch, using the momentum to drive him back against the stairs. He stumbled, then side-stepped, forcing her to pivot.

She expected another attack, but none came for the time being.

He seemed to be hesitating, as if unsure he could actually destroy her. Her senses fluctuated between heartfelt elation and a telepathic smirk.

She settled for the grim resolve that had been her constant companion since the moment she surrendered herself on Endor.

"That is where you have always been wrong," she stated firmly. "There must be opposition in all things. Otherwise, there can be no balance."

"Balance," he scoffe

 

Edit--Oh, Ish! Cross-post. I'll reply in a little bit.

From ?Spirit Warriors of Angharad,? chapter 8. If you want to see it, the link?s in my bio. I recommend the Word version, which doesn?t have reader replies, or the ?trailer,? which packs over 600 pages of angsty-violent goodness into just over a minute!! (It?s not for slow connections, though.) Sorry my yammering on is so long . . . it just seems to be my forte. (Note 600 page novel.) Constructive criticism welcome.

Oh--and three things: 1) the Sith in this section is on a speeder bike, 2) this is 16-year-old Anakin Skywalker, not Solo, and 3) the characters are in a forest that's on fire. The beginning makes more sense if you know that.

Anakin whirled, saw the dark shape coming toward him out of the firelit haze, and gauged the Sith?s weakness: his lower right quadrant, which was farthest from the blood-red blade he held over his left shoulder. Anakin dropped into a ready crouch and held his ground as the Sith sped straight toward him. He held his own blade at hip-height, angled down, almost as if he were striking from the draw. He didn?t move as the Sith was nearly upon him; instead he glared upward at the dark hollow beneath the peak of the being?s hood, waiting. He gritted out the last crucial milliseconds, and then the imaginary double-zeroes flashed in his mind. He slashed upward at the Sith?s booted foot and the processor housing that lay behind it, ready to drop and roll beneath his enemy?s overhand cut.

That?s when he realized he?d been suckered. The butt of the Sith?s blast rifle shot out of the ?vulnerable? place on his right side and struck Anakin hard in the cheek and jaw. A whirling slash of the red blade followed, and Anakin had to fling up a desperate parry as he staggered, fought to regain his balance, and tumbled to the ground.

He landed on his sore side, and couldn?t bite back a sharp cry of pain. His blade?s humming by his right ear wasn?t louder than the ringing in his head, and his hands fisted up in the ground-covering of loose soil and dead leaves. He pushed himself to his knees as the Sith pulled tightly around a stand of trees a few meters away and came back for another pass.

The being held his blade in one hand, low and off to the side, as if he intended this to be a decapitating shot. Anakin didn?t dare prepare a high-guard defense in advance, however, since he?d already been tricked once. Instead, he moved to a neutral position on one knee, with the toes of his hindmost foot pressed firmly to the ground: a ready crouch that looked like a position of surrender.

As the Sith sped to almost within striking distance, his hood blew off, revealing a long, bony gray face and a streaming topknot of coarse hair. When he turned his head a bit, his eyes flashed luminous-yellow in the firelight, like some night animal?s. He raised his blade slightly as he moved in for the kill.

The blow came fast?a murderous downstroke meant to cut Anakin straight through from shoulder to ribcage. The young Jedi punched his own weapon up and ducked low, forcing the red blade to skate along the length of the blue, throwing sparks the entire distance. Once the Sith?s weapon had passed over his head, Anakin called upon the Force and leapt straight at his enemy?s back, landing just in front of the speeder?s engines.

1) What's the context of the duel within your story? Young Anakin has been separated from his Master by a Sith named Darth Vengeance. It?s night, and they?re deep in the woods of a sparsely-inhabited planet, so nobody?s going to come along and help Anakin out. He was also thrown off his speeder bike (that?s how he hurt his side), and when the bike crashed it started a fire, which is being fanned by the winds of a coming storm. Now, Anakin?s trapped between this Sith and a spreading forest fire.

2) What kind of effect were you aiming for? I was definitely going for suspenseful and ominous here, with a lot of foreshadowing of things to come. This is actually the first of three co

 

Very good explanation of things. Oh, and to warn all, that post was written in 2001, when I was an extreme newbie and had never written a full-length duel before.

 

I really like the "mechanical" counting down until his moment in Anakin's head.

 

1) What's the context of the duel within your story?

It's basically the turning point of the entire film saga: it's the point where the established Star Wars universe ends and my alternate universe begins. It's the second meeting between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I attempted to portray what both combatants were feeling during the duel.

2) What kind of effect were you aiming for? (Suspenseful and ominous? Powerful and climactic? Terror-inspiring?)

It was odd that I wanted a climactic battle in the first chapter, but since I was effectively building on upon the film, I felt that it was OK.

3) How did you use language, including descriptive words and prose rhythm, to create the effect you wanted?

I liked to describe Vader's temperment, making references such as the rage burns up his back like the flames of Mustafar, and described how when Vader truly lost his hold on his anger, his eyes went to a flaming yellow. Obi-Wan also remembers the past in the final moments of the excerpt.

4) How did you structure the events of your duel in order to build the feeling you wanted to convey? (Is it a deadly blitz attack in the daylight, or a slow, cat-and-mouse stalking through the dark?)

Obviously, the setting was already there. I also heavily "prequelized" the duel in ANH, making Vader and Kenobi more animated than they were on the screen while still attempting to convey the limitations of Vader's cybernetics and his suit as well as Obi-Wan's limitations when it came to being a hermit on a desert planet for 20 years.

It starts out slow, with both combatants slowly testing out what their opponent can do. It eventually sped up, or the strikes became more powerful.

So without further ado: one of my first full length duels in which one of the combatants is actively attempting to kill the other one (the rest were just training duels). From the first chapter of The Surviving Light, here's a portion of the revisioned duel between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader.

 

This is the end of the long duel from the third part of a completed fic of mine, Deep Sky, starring Padawan Qui-Gon and his Master, Dooku. The actual duel/training session is considerably longer. CC welcome.

...Qui-Gon jerked away, crashing to his knees, blocking another swipe. Their blades locked, and Qui-Gon's was forced towards his face. He quenched his own blade, rolling urgently out of the way as Dooku's lightsaber flashed down to where his face was a second ago, scoring the dirt. His skin felt bruised and clammy, and his lungs felt like they were filled with soft choking liquid. He forced himself to be perfectly still as Dooku deliberately passed the tip of his blade a hairsbreadth from his throat. And then Dooku stepped back three paces.

"Again." Dooku's voice was cold.

Qui-Gon's efforts weren't working. The sickness in the air was too strong for his power to counteract. Sweat was running down his face - and then he realized it was not sweat, but tears. Once more he thumbed his lightsaber on, green in the darkness - another hum like wings to match Dooku's blade-song. He was not equal, never equal - a mayflitter to his dragonbird. He raised his blade in guard. Let Dooku come to him this time.

Dooku just looked at him with that damnable half-smile - not even in a ready stance. Qui-Gon read contempt in it and felt an anger rising in him that he wasn't sure he understood.

"Again."

The word seemed to wrap around Qui-Gon's mind, drawing out his resentment and fear and other emotions that he rarely acknowledged. They sparked into a sudden, unthinking fury and he launched himself aerially, feeling the thick and choking air bear him up. His saber flashed towards Dooku's neck, but Dooku was swifter and moved to block. Yet Qui-Gon's momentum was too much, and he felt his Master give for a moment, saw through tears and madness the half step Dooku took away after the second blow. Qui-Gon landed at the base of one of the great scorched trees. He centered himself there, feeling the life and power pumped up from deep roots flow through him.

Dooku struck back. The tip of his blade reached out to score Qui-Gon, but Qui-Gon was ready. He took into himself the steadiness of the tree, the life of the forest, and all his own anger and terror and frustration. Stepping inside his Master's guard, he attacked. Their blades slammed together - and Qui-Gon won this lock. Yet Dooku effortlessly whirled away, and Qui-Gon snarled in frustration. This wasn't a dance. This was war. Qui-Gon struck again and again, faster than he thought he could - faster than rational thought or conscience could follow. Instinct and insight fueled him.

Dooku missed one block, and though his reflexes served to avoid the blow, Qui-Gon saw an odd hesitancy in his Master's movements as Dooku flowed back into stance. And with that, Qui-Gon realized he was winning. The joy of that buoyed him up as he made even the madness in the air serve him, weaving imagination into a true future.

He reached for possibilities, seeking weakness. There. An opening.

Qui-Gon went for the kill. His lightsaber seared a line of green fire through the air, past his Master's inner guard, towards his throat. He saw Dooku turn, saw his eyes widen slightly--

Then Dooku flicked his wrist inward, thumbing a control on his hilt. His lightsaber somehow flowed through Qui-Gon's own before solidifying again to deflect the blow. Qui-Gon felt a tearing pain in his scalp, and his neck jerked back as Dooku seized his braid and hurled him to the ground. He hit hard and flopped on his back.

Before his eyes, the point of Dooku's glowing blade swung down and halted in front of him. Behind it, his Master stood like a statue -- unmoved and unmoving.

Finally, after what seemed like years, Dooku spoke. "Every man has his breaking point. Know this."

1) What's the context of the duel within your story?
This is set far before the movie

 

whiskers The back-references to past duels work pretty well, sort of establishing that what came before isn't irrelevant to what's happening now. Vader's scream was startling, but dramatically seems to work

 

Saberte: I can see from that excerpt the steadily increasing creulty of Dooku as the piece goes on. I especially liked:
Qui-Gon's efforts weren't working. The sickness in the air was too strong for his power to counteract. Sweat was running down his face - and then he realized it was not sweat, but tears. Once more he thumbed his lightsaber on, green in the darkness - another hum like wings to match Dooku's blade-song. He was not equal, never equal - a mayflitter to his dragonbird. He raised his blade in guard. Let Dooku come to him this time.

Dooku just looked at him with that damnable half-smile - not even in a ready stance. Qui-Gon read contempt in it and felt an anger rising in him that he wasn't sure he understood.

"Again."
- you can clearly see that Qui-Gon is stuck constantly comparing himself to his master, who is making no attempt to soften up.



Here's one of mine.

This bit of info is necessary to read before the story: Context: Takes place only a few centuries after the formation of the Old Republic. Lightsabers have not yet been invented. Jedi use swords. Not exactly the topic of the thread, no, but the spirit is the same. Plus, it's the only duel I've written for Star Wars. (whole thing clocks in at 580 words. Figured that was close enough)

---

The city folds its hazy acidic nebula down upon two black pegs, poised directly opposite each other. The buildings grow slowly and unstoppably as the ground comes near, until those same towers become far-seeing monolithic sentinels. They surround the two tiny pegs as an imposing dark mass. A mass comprised of complex twisting labyrinths, of dark iron pillars and rotten brick boundaries. Tangled roads walled in by the unknown, ceilinged by gloom, and paved in empty confusion, fall away toward every direction like a starburst. Their black starry spires impale the sky and their foundations devour the landscape.

The two hazy pegs take it all in. Allowing nothing but their eyes to move, they scan this mechanical blight. These are the creatures of the first metropolis, sprawling outward to engorge itself on all other life. It starts as the towering forest of the depraved and the indifferent, and it stretches and dwindles until it becomes the cottages of the gluttonous, and further still it strains those tendrils of steel to become the shanties of the lecherous and misfortunate. The entire thing is a shiny glittered parasite pulsing on the skin of the planet, too deeply rooted to pull off and too strongly encrusted to scratch away. Left as it is, the thing would ultimately spread like a cancer until it suffocated the ground of the entire world. But for now, it would be tolerated and accepted.

Within the tangle, still, stand the two black pegs. Their coverings flap in the wind, providing the only visible movement. Above them the scarlet, light polluted sky projects those few stars strong enough to pass through the glare. And the wind dies down.

All is quiet. Slowly, the air empties of haze and the world clears up once again. The two pegs become human figures as the darkness, just slightly, pulls back its circle. Their cloaks, the left one a dark white and the right one a bright black, hang upon them like shells. Each one has an unwavering face. The old man?s, cut from wood; the young warrior?s, cut from marble. Their eyes too are motionless. Dry and unblinking, dark and devoid of life, it is through their stares that the harsh formality of the confrontation radiates.

A flash. Starlight on steel, an instant of bouncing reflection that mugs the other?s vision, leaving only a strobing negative. Then the sound: Chung. ChungChingChungChungChung. It is a collision of fabric and razor thin, flickering starlight. Then there?s a whoosing, flapping of robes catching wind at speed, and the two become smears of arms and legs and faces as the deul picks up. Nobody watching can keep track. Even the quick can barely keep up with the sparks, appearing like rain on the ground between th

 

I'm hardly an expert in this field, but I thought I'd throw my two credits in, if you don't mind. Don't want Ophelia hogging all the fun!

I think I'll start with yours, Fanficfan, if you don't mind. If this goes over like a lead weight, I'll shut up after this. Since you asked for CC, I thought I'd go with the good, the not-so-good, and the good again.

The good

Your opening sequence did a good job of setting the stage and generating a sense of foreboding. I got a good sense that the narrator here knew that the battle was coming. To quote Sun Tzu--"The anticipation of death is worse than death itself." In writing, anticipation generates great dramatic tension and you did a good job generating it.

Like Ophelia, I liked this part:

A whisper.
A flicker of thought.
I whirled around, straining all my senses for a hint of whatever it was I felt.
There.

Nice work in generating a sense of speed as well as disjointedness.


The not-so-good

Format is huge in action sequences and the fact that everything kind of runs together makes it all muddled. I know this is a cut and paste issue and it probably looks better in the original, but you'd be amazed what a little formatting can do for a piece. I'll show you what I mean by pulling one paragraph apart (changing nothing else):

Almost lost in the background noise created by the fans, was the sound of powerful wings beating the air.

So he has come for me.

That was why the Force had prompted me to leave the city. The battle for Mordlan three would be decided here, with only the silent fans to witness. Tonight, Jedi and Sith would stake everything on one final duel. The winner would walk away with Mordlan three securely under his control. And the loser.

The loser wouldn?t walk anywhere.

Another thing that would have improved this piece would be if you allowed the narrator to gage his opponent. This goes back to the anticipation thing. Once he showed up, spending a few sentences in quiet dread would have ratcheted up the tension quite a bit.

Finally, there were some minor spelling and grammatical errors here and there. Normally I wouldn't bring that up, but those errors make the reader stop and reread. It's crucial in an action sequence that the reader be able to race ahead, get his/her figurative heartrate going. One error here or there might be ok. But when you have more than that, the reader stumbles instead of dashes and it weakens the whole sequence.

The good again

Writing action is hard and most people tend to drag action sequences out (myself included). In general, real fights last two or three minutes at most. Your fight came off realistic in that sense (well, as realistic as anything in SW can be ). Your fight had a clear beginning, middle and end (believe it or not, that's not as common as you might think).

I also enjoyed your choice not to do a blow-by-blow. Those types of fight sequences are boring to read.

Finally, and most importantly, you made the fight mean something. It was for something. What a fight is about is easily the most important thing that will make it good. Whether it's a fight for pride, for a planet, for your soul, or for the galaxy itself, it must mean something or the reader will never be engaged.


I hope that's helpful to you.

I'll try to do more when I can! *waves*

 

I actually had the beginnings of replies to everyone I hadn't replied to, but then my computer crashed, and I lost the whole thing.

I'm not ignoring you guys--I just need a little time to rebuild. That, and I seem to have picked up a cold, which means I'm losing a lot of time to sleep.

I'll edit in replies as I'm able to make them.

My apologies if I'm more incoherant than usual.

Ish: I liked how you punctuated your battle scene with short, punchy paraphrases of what Leia is thinking, similar to what Fanficfan did.

For example:

Vader stepped forward, bringing the battle away from his vaunted Master. Leia allowed the advance, moving to where she could have more space.

Come and get it.

There's something very in-character about Leia forcing Vader to come to her. Psychologically, she's taking control of the fight. Your dialogue makes it clear that the section is more about a battle of wills than a battle with lightsaber blades. I can imagine it would come down to that between Leia and Vader--in fact, it does in ANH: "Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable." The canon battles between Vader and Luke were about other things--Luke's need to prove himself, and then his desire to destroy Vader while redeeming Anakin. The fight between Vader and Leia appears to be all about who's in control. Balance, indeed! She always was daddy's little girl.

Leia dropped to one knee, ducking his next swing to stab upwards towards his solar plexus. He blocked it, but not easily, and she exploded from her crouch, using the momentum to drive him back against the stairs. He stumbled, then side-stepped, forcing her to pivot.

I liked the detail about how Vader blocked her blow, but not easily. Adding something besides, "He blocked her blow" brought the fight into sharper focus, and again returned our attention to the fragile balance of power, which apparently could go either way here. I also like your verbs: "exploded, drive, stumbled, side-stepped, pivot." All of them are very active and specific. No dreadful, vague, "Then she attacked among the tall spiky rocks" here. The moves connect in an action/reaction way: Vader side-steps, (presumably) forcing himself into a position that leaves Leia more vulnerable, so she has to pivot, using the least amount of movement possible to change the angle at which she faces him. At some point, I should ramble on about how a duel is like dialogue, and how every move has a collection of logical answers. But not today. Enough to say that I suspect you choreographed this fight in your living room.

 

Don't worry, dear, we'll eventually forgive you and in the meantime, we'll just have to write you into a lightsaber duel...

 

Why do I . . . *not* find that reassuring? Especially since you've got just 1 day left until you can kill people again . . .

whiskers wrote: It was odd that I wanted a climactic battle in the first chapter, but since I was effectively building on upon the film, I felt that it was OK.

I can see why you chose to open with this one. It begs the reader to ask, "What if . . .?" You end on an evil cliffie, btw . . . could we have the name of the story, and preferably a link?

I know it runs against the grain of classic board etiquette to do that, but this thread *is* a discussion and index thread. I just edited the title so I could write silly things there. You're supposed to tell us where to find your lightsaber-centric stories. Unless, of course, they're not on the net or you'd rather we didn't read them for some reason.

I also heavily "prequelized" the duel in ANH, making Vader and Kenobi more animated than they were on the screen while still attempting to convey the limitations of Vader's cybernetics and his suit as well as Obi-Wan's limitations when it came to being a hermit on a desert planet for 20 years.

Ah, I appreciate that. I have a copy of the original, not-special-one-bit edition of ANH, and while I love parts of it to death--that lightsaber duel. Hoo, boy.

It looked so cool back in the day, though.

Before Darth Vader could turn around, two quick slices ripped into the fabric of his cape, sending the pieces floating to the floor of the Death Star.

Nice visual. Vader's cape is almost as symbolic as his mask, and having Obi-Wan shred it is nice foreshadowing. This bit does a good job of showing how you can make quite an impact with a saber cut (no pun intended) without ever having the blade touch someone.

Vader felt his limbs throb in his mind, the phantom pain he had felt before confronting Dooku for the second time.

This was just cool. It had never occurred to me that Vader would feel phantom pain in his missing limbs, but I don't see why he wouldn't. I know people who've had amputations often feel pain from the nerves leading from the severed skin. I'm not sure if it would be different if someone's limb had been cauterized, or if they had a metal prosthesis, but in my total ignorance, I believe it.

The fire inside of him ran up his spine, slowly and cruelly mimicking his immolation beside that river of fire on Mustafar. It ran up his neck and into the base of his brain, and with an unnatural sounding scream of rage the line was crossed. Beneath his mask, eyes blazed yellow as the anger consumed him completely.

Ah, you mentioned your connection of Vader's rage to the fire that burned him on Mustafar. A nice metaphor for dehumanization--whatever's left of Anakin Skywalker (if anything) is burned away by this all-consuming rage. Ironic that Vader's fury does him more harm than it does his target.

Obi-Wan saw Luke stop in his tracks and watch the duel out of the corner of his eye. He smiled to himself as he deflected several of Vader?s angry strikes. It was time to fulfill his destiny, it was time to put the knowledge he had learned from Qui-Gon to the test. He readied himself to become one with the Force, then he saw it. A vital opening in Vader?s defenses, a chance to end the battle. It was Vader?s fateful leap, Maul?s overconfidence all over again. With the Force all but controlling his actions, Obi-Wan exploited the weakness.

You've got another example of how you don't have to go into elaborate detail to write an affecting duel scene. We especially don't need a blow-by-blow here because we've seen the film--even if this is an AU. I liked your turning of "history" on a dime as well. We get little foreshadowing that Obi-Wan might win this one, even if it's a Pyrrhic victory. It's just that all of a sudden, there's this tiny little change in the course of events, and that alters everything.

Under the circumstances, you really didn't need to go into exactly what Vader's ta

 

Ish: I liked how you punctuated your battle scene with short, punchy paraphrases of what Leia is thinking, similar to what Fanficfan did.

A lot of my narrative pacing is based on my own character and I'm punchy like that.

For example:

Vader stepped forward, bringing the battle away from his vaunted Master. Leia allowed the advance, moving to where she could have more space.

Come and get it.

There's something very in-character about Leia forcing Vader to come to her. Psychologically, she's taking control of the fight. Your dialogue makes it clear that the section is more about a battle of wills than a battle with lightsaber blades. I can imagine it would come down to that between Leia and Vader--in fact, it does in ANH: "Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable." The canon battles between Vader and Luke were about other things--Luke's need to prove himself, and then his desire to destroy Vader while redeeming Anakin. The fight between Vader and Leia appears to be all about who's in control. Balance, indeed! She always was daddy's little girl.

Yes, the main point has to do with the battle of wills and the duel itself is a lure. It is very much based on Leia's ability to interact or resist Vader's mind in ANH and later, I suspect. Leia does have to have control, but not out of ambition.

Leia dropped to one knee, ducking his next swing to stab upwards towards his solar plexus. He blocked it, but not easily, and she exploded from her crouch, using the momentum to drive him back against the stairs. He stumbled, then side-stepped, forcing her to pivot.

I liked the detail about how Vader blocked her blow, but not easily. Adding something besides, "He blocked her blow" brought the fight into sharper focus, and again returned our attention to the fragile balance of power, which apparently could go either way here. I also like your verbs: "exploded, drive, stumbled, side-stepped, pivot." All of them are very active and specific. No dreadful, vague, "Then she attacked among the tall spiky rocks" here. The moves connect in an action/reaction way: Vader side-steps, (presumably) forcing himself into a position that leaves Leia more vulnerable, so she has to pivot, using the least amount of movement possible to change the angle at which she faces him. At some point, I should ramble on about how a duel is like dialogue, and how every move has a collection of logical answers. But not today. Enough to say that I suspect you choreographed this fight in your living room.

Is the comment about my living room a compliment or insult? Actually, this entire duel was written in an internet cafe in Belgium because my train broke down and I didn't know when it would be repaired, so I had to hang out around the train station. Anyway, that's beside the point. Glad you liked the more specific verbs for this. I am anal about using physical description in these sorts of situations. The balance of power could definitely go either way, but we see both their vulnerabilities.