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Sooner or later your hero and villain will square off and utter those immortal words, "This town/galaxy/boardroom ain't big enough for the two of us."
What happens then?
If you're new to writing fight scenes for a screenplay, one of two things is likely to occur:
1. You'll describe every single step, feint, punch, bob, weave, and even include the trajectory of splashed blood and the precise number of teeth that get knocked out.
2. You'll type: "They fight for about 20 minutes or so."
The problem with the first scenario is that copious detail not only eats up a lot of space on the page but suggests to a prospective director that you don't think he/she knows how to choreograph an intense scene that involves a lot of physicality. The more that you try to "direct on paper" and dictate every move, the longer it takes to read the script. This, in turn, can slow the momentum of the plot.
The second approach ignores the fact that 1 page=1 minute and secretly pads extra length in the final product. It's also the equivalent of writing obscure instruction such as, "The actors ad lib for awhile". At a minimum we need to be able to visualize whether the opponents are evenly matched, what their respective advantages are, and whether any props are being employed. Simply saying "they fight" doesn't show us how.
Always remember that a good fight scene is minimalist in its written description, relating only those elements that are pertinent to the outcome or to subsequent scenes.
The description of fight scenes varies from one genre to the next. The writing is influenced as well by whether the film was written for a specific star with specific physical skills (i.e., the comedic styling of martial arts expert Jackie Chan). The following films are great examples for study:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Die Hard
Rocky
The Princess Bride
Gladiator
Rush Hour
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Avengers
The Matrix
12 Monkeys
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