RE: How to Write Master Martial Artists
Interesting. A really nice text and I agree with your point. One thing I would like to add is that like movie fighting is different from real fighting I think fighting in books need to be slightly different from real fighting as well. I heard this quote that i really like which says it concisely : in a stagefight everybody needs to be able to see whats going on and noone should get hurt. in a real fight noone should be able to see whats going on and at least one person needs to get hurt. However while the stagefighting is very different and must follow cinematic reality, fighting in books dont need that as much so potentially you can get much more realistic fighting in a text. I think it is important to focus on realism, simply because it makes for better fightscenes, but it should (in my opinion) be subordinated the storytelling
Indeed. Different media will have different requirements. I'd say that static visual media like manga and comics fall in between movies (and games) and written text: the reader should still be able to see what's going on, but he can study the scene at leisure.
Sotrytelling should come first, though I approach fight scenes as an integral part of the story. Then again, I write the kind of stories that demand realistic fight scenes. Stories from other genres, such as slapstick comedy, are going to demand a very different approach to fight scenes, and the fight scenes should be tailored accordingly.