Why Don't Trek Writers Like "writing battle scenes"?

[Rush Limborg]

I've heard it many times from the writers of Star Trek novels:

"I don't like writing battle scenes".

Why?

Speaking for myself, I froze just before I wrote my first true slam-bang fist fight scene. I had to take a deep breath and do some "plexing" before I could continue.

From what I've heard, many writers (usually rookies) thoroughly enjoy doing super-tense build up, but when it comes to delivering on the promise of super-explosive fight conflict, they just can't bring themselves to do it.

I think it has something to do with how they think they should deliver. Someone posted here that they found fight scenes boring. This is sad, but true. Many fight scenes come across as dry and blah, and writers are afraid of that happening to them.

It's interesting... after I wrote the scene (and a few more later in the book), I was stunned at how much it gripped me --and I was the writer!

It may have had something to do with my style --I kinda write like Peter David, with a taut, lean style; complete with super short paragraphs.

That, and I try to write the scenes with a focus on the central character's mental reactions to the action.

 

[Dayton3]

This probably belongs in Trek Tech, but I also assumed that what we see powering consoles and internal equipment on starships are NOT simple electrical cables but some kind of small power transfer conduits.

So the issue of circuit breakers might be completely irrelevant.

 

[Mike Bratton]

My only request is to see in battle sequences (whether on the written page or on screen) evidence of the development of Starfleet circuit breakers.

I actually addressed that in Orion's Hounds, I think it was. In real life, even with circuit breakers, a high enough voltage (from a lightning strike, say) can cause a current arc to jump over the gap in the breaker. The resistivity of air is about 30,000 volts per centimeter, so if your circuit breaker has a gap of, say, two centimeters, then anything over 60,000 volts is gonna get through unless the gap is in vacuum. And presumably 24th-century energy weapons are powerful enough to fit the bill.

Very cool--I'll have to go back and read that. It's a pet peeve, though, and has been for, well, over forty years now. (You'd think I'd let it go by now.) I still hope for some sort of Starfleet subspace circuit breaker...

Try saying that three times fast...

--Mike

 

[Therin of Andor]

That isn't what has been indicated onscreen

What version of ST do you get in your part of the world?

And then I noticed this:

 

[Therin of Andor]

The end result is that there is ample conflicting evidence for both positions, and a person who subscribes to one opinion or the other is almost never swayed to change his/her mind.
To one and all who visit this thread, I beseech thee: In the interest of going forward with all of our lives, let's not re-open that can of gagh, please.

Hehehe.

 

[Divine]

because it's boring to watch or read about people or ships shooting at each other and getting killed or blown up.

As a reader, I find them boring. I love to read about the characters. My favorite books tend to be heavy on character development and light on space battles e.g. Andor: Paradigm

 

[TerriO]

And I kind of agree with Terri (had to happen someday).

You'll get used to it.

 

[JD]

I don't mind an occaisonal space battle, as long as it doensn't take away from the rest of the story, and also make sense. I want there to actually be a need for the battle, I don't want there to just be battles for the sake of battle, because that gets real boring real fast.

 

[TGTheodore]

Well, writing battle scenes in Trek fiction (to me) is the same as writing and composing large chorus numbers in stage musicals.

It's really, really, really hard to do well, and integrate successfully into the rest of the story.

If done poorly, it can actually stop the flow of the work rather than enhance it.

It's very hard not to come off cliched or regurgitated. (It can be as boring or stock as "Spock arched an eyebrow.")

It's so intensely detail-oriented it can be extremely daunting to write.

It's very hard to maintain a visual rhythm and build within a battle with prose. (Onscreen you can smash cut. In prose, not as easy to convey. That's why it's a very admirable skill among those who write battles well.)

It must serve a purpose for being there other than window dressing or because it might be "cool".

--Ted

 

[Rush Limborg]

Well, writing battle scenes in Trek fiction (to me) is the same as writing and composing large chorus numbers in stage musicals.

It's really, really, really hard to do well, and integrate successfully into the rest of the story.

If done poorly, it can actually stop the flow of the work rather than enhance it.

It's very hard not to come off cliched or regurgitated. (It can be as boring or stock as "Spock arched an eyebrow.")

It's so intensely detail-oriented it can be extremely daunting to write.

It's very hard to maintain a visual rhythm and build within a battle with prose. (Onscreen you can smash cut. In prose, not as easy to convey. That's why it's a very admirable skill among those who write battles well.)

It must serve a purpose for being there other than window dressing or because it might be "cool".

--Ted

Ted, you are right on.

I find that a book "action scene", in order to be thrilling, must: 1) have a purpose in the story; and 2) have an emotion to it.

When I write space battles, I make absolutely certain that the action is interpereted through the POV. Rather than "the ship rocked", see if you can write "Kirk felt the ship rock around him".

Seen through the character's perspective, the action gets a tight, gripping, personal intensity which it doesn't have when it's discribed objectively, through the all-seeing-eye of the "camera".

 

[ronny]

When I think about all my favorite scenes in televised ST, I don't think any of them involve space battles. In fact that only one that even stands out for is the DS9 episode where the Breen break out the energy dampening field and the Defiant is destroyed. That was actually an unexpected event in a space battle.

(I'm paraphrasing a brilliant line I read in a Blake's 7 forum years ago here) For the most part space battles break down into two classes, those where the good guys win and those where the bad guys win but our heroes manage to escape, and which ever one happens is what the plot requires. It's just not the interesting part of the show or book for me.

Meaning to disrespect for the writers here but the only space battle I even remember reading, well besides the one in GttS which I just read a couple a weeks ago so who knows if it will stick with me, is the opening chapters in The Art of the Impossible, great stuff. I'll take intelligent dialog over phasers blasting through space any day. And fortunately that's what our authors deliver

 

[KRAD]

^ Aw, thanks!

The space-battle bit I'm actually happiest with of all of them (and thanks to writing all that Klingon fiction, I've written many) is in Honor Bound, specifically Kornan's final scene.

 

[flandry84]

Well,when battle scenes (on the small screen at least)are so poorly executed.....jiggle/shake/"shields down to 30%",it is interesting to see the various crews tested under battle conditions.When unknown crewmen from "guest appearance" vessels are used as an intro/plot device...well yo just know that they're going to buy the farm.

Although it's not strictly a battle scene,the prolonged action sequences in "Wildfire" are amongst the most exciting and cinematic in Trek fiction IMHO.

 

[David Mack]

Although it's not strictly a battle scene,the prolonged action sequences in "Wildfire" are amongst the most exciting and cinematic in Trek fiction IMHO.

Gracias, sir.

 

[MajRichter]

Is Starfleet a military organization? Yes, when it needs to be.

Is Starfleet a research organization? Yes, the rest of the time.

Okay?

Quite well put. Do Starfleet vessels carry heavy armament? Yes. But there's an obvious reason for that. If you send out your research vessels with no armament whatsoever, then Romulans, Borg, or whatever nasties you bump into out there will pick off the research vessels one by one. One needs to have defensive capabilities to keep from losing ship after ship after ship.

I believe it's also quite telling of how "non-warlike" Starfleet is by the fact that, as we have seen on multiple occassions, Starfleet vessels reserve opening fire on another vessel as a last resort when they are actually under fire. And even in the situations where a Starfleet vessel has elected to fire on another vessel, you will notice in most cases they elect to disable...not destroy.

Even in one of the most battle-driven Trek movies, Wrath of Khan, they disabled Reliant...not destroyed. And in the end, they requested surrender so they could board her...presumably to take back Genesis and at the same time place Khan and his crew under arrest. Kirk could very easily have continually fired on Reliant until she blew up.

Just my two-cents worth

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Even in one of the most battle-driven Trek movies, Wrath of Khan, they disabled Reliant...not destroyed. And in the end, they requested surrender so they could board her...presumably to take back Genesis and at the same time place Khan and his crew under arrest. Kirk could very easily have continually fired on Reliant until she blew up.

Carp.

See, now I wonder. If, when it became obvious that Khan had started the Genesis countdown and David Marcus said, "You can't beam over there and stop it," why didn't Kirk destroy the Reliant, and by extension the Genesis torpedo, before the countdown ran down. Rather than run away, unload a photon torp or two. Or, just to be more certain, beam an ounce of antimatter into the Reliant's transporter room. The resulting explosion would destroy the Genesis device before it detonated, and no need for an heroic sacrifice by Spock.

I'll never be able to look at the film in the same way again.

 

[Turbo]

I've wondered that too, and come up with a couple of explanations:
1) The damaged Enterprise wouldn't have been able to withstand the blast from Reliant's warp core going up, and impulse power wouldn't have gotten them out of the way in time. The Ent-D's saucer wasn't able to escape a warp core breach, even on nearly a minute of full impulse.
2) Blowing up Reliant would have caused a premature detonation of the Genesis Device, still with enough power and range to destroy Enterprise.
3) The Mutara Nebula interfered with the transporter, and David was reminding Kirk of that fact.

 

[MajRichter]

My belief was always that the destruction of the Reliant would have also detonated the Genesis torpedo and Kirk knew that the Enterprise would never be able to withstand it. I mean, be honest, if you were in Kirk's shoes, would you have destroyed Reliant right away without thinking about what the possible consequences would be of the destruction of the active Genesis device?

I think that David's statement "You can't" was less meaning that the transport wouldn't work and more along the lines of "Once it's started, you can't just turn it off.".

With that information in front of him, the only thing Kirk was left with was to run.

 

[Turbo]

Yes, that makes the most sense, but Trek being Trek, there are always...possibilites.

 

[Jack Bauer]

I can't speak as to why the writers don't like writing them, but I know why I don't like reading them-- they tend to bore the snot out of me.

I enjoyed Michael Stackpole's Rogue Squadron novels, but would tend to skim the battle scenes lest I fall asleep with the book in my lap.

I do that with a lot of the Star Wars books. The space battles tend to put me asleep. There's only so much of Jaina Solo juking and jinking that I can put up with before it gets tiresome. Those scenes work better on the screen than they do on paper. I have a hard time visualizing them while reading.