Fighting with writing...
Been wrestling with my first-ever battle scene today.
This is something that has been an ongoing project for two or three months now and unfortunately I can put it off no longer. Nor can I write round it - it's essential to my plot!
Hand-to-hand combat appears to be outside the scope of Mr. Braine's novel-writing book so he's not helping me much, although he does have some good tips on pub brawls...
My problem is (well, alright, one of my problems is) that a full-scale battle requires that a lot of balls be kept in the air at once, if I can put it like that. And not having a very spatially competent brain, I find it very difficult to keep everything else running in the background while focusing on one or a few details.
Plus winning a battle requires at least a half-decent battle plan and mine is frankly pants.
And people will keep running about and turning round and I'm finding it very hard to keep track of who can see what and when...
I need to read LOTS more Bernard Cornwell to figure out how he does it!
(Meanwhile I am very grateful to my endlessly patient beta reader....)