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Helpful things for action writers to remember

Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll. 

Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast. 

Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention. 

Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them. 

Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently. 

ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face. 

Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.

Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone. 

A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way. 

If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword. 

ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters.  (CLICK ME)

If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability. 

People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot. 

Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME) 

If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)

Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here. 

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Victorian Slang for Steampunk Characters

Whether your character is a thief, sailor, noble, engineer, or average citizen in the 19th century, dialogue can be the quickest (and the funnest!) way to paint their personality and circumstances. 

Here is short list of resources I’ve found to be the most helpful, plus a compilation of 108 Victorian slang terms that happen to be my favorites.

Victorian Slang Resources

Passing English of the Victorian era: a Dictionary of Heterodox English, Slang and Phrase (1909) is a book of slang from all levels of society, categorized by origin and dates of use.

Vocabulum, or the Rogue’s Lexicon (1859) is a book of slang published in the Victorian era itself, specializing in the slang of criminals and miscreants of all sorts. 

An online list of 19th century American and Civil War era vocabulary, particularly helpful for military slang and for characters with an American background. 

And a list of equally delightful slang from the Edwardian era, technically not Victorian but with reasonable room for overlap—and besides, who’s going to do as much research as you? 

Now for my favorite slang terms, most of them compiled from Passing English. You’ll find some bias toward a roguish vocabulary, since my steampunk novella Aliferous is centered around air pirates!

108 Victorian Slang Terms

Above-board – Frank, open. From sailors’ lingo. Not between decks or in the hold, but above all the boards in the ship.

Ah, dear me!  – ejaculation of sorrow

Alexandra Limp (approx. 1872) – An affected manner of walking seen for several years amongst women. Said to have been imitated from the temporary mode in which     the then Princess of Wales walked after some trouble with a knee. (See Buxton Limp, Grecian Bend, Roman Fall.)

All his buttons on (approx. 1880 on) – Sharp, alive, active, not to be deceived. He is eighty-three years of age, but as we say hereabouts, has all his buttons on.

All a treat – Perfection of enjoyment, sometimes used satirically to depict mild catastrophe.

All over red (approx. 1840 on) – Dangerous, to be avoided.

Anti-Tox (approx. 1885) – A drug to sober a drunken person. Tox is, of course, the abbreviation of intoxication.

Balloon-juice (1883) – Soda-water; presumably suggested by its gassy nature. It’s as good as a bottle of balloon-juice after a night’s hard boozing.

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