Screenwriting : Fashion and Fighting – The Influence of Attire on Hand-to-hand Action – Immersive Action Writing by Till Olshausen

Hello Writers,

As the proverb says: Fine feathers make fine birds.

And we can hardly deny that also the opposite rings quite true. While judging people by their appearance may seem superficial, it’s almost all we have when we don’t know them yet. Obviously, not only the clothes but also the body type is part of the appearance and big (or small) data for our assessment.

But there’s another important clue we use to find out who that stranger is we’re dealing with - movement.

In this article, movement of course means martial arts. We’ll explore how you can reveal information about your characters and intensify your action scenes by letting them fight in different outfits. I know that wardrobe is for costume designers and not for writers (too bad). However, if it makes perfect sense to describe the outfit because it deepens your character, I daresay: Be brave! If you don’t mention every pocket, color, print and fabric but instead say something like business casual, hip-hop style outfit, gothic look… you should be quite safe from your professional reader’s harassment.

Let’s get visual, shall we?

- Queen Elizabeth, in a white dress showing Kevin of the Minions who’s boss with street-fighting and show-wrestling moves in the first Minions Movie.

- Drunken and shabby Jacky Chan vs. Ken Lo, sober and dressed in suit and tie in the final battle of Drunken Master II.

- The No Capes scene in The Incredibles. (Please watch!! :-)

You can tell the audience a lot about your character by contrasting or aligning an outfit with the fighting style. Elegant Aikido, brutal Muay Thai, fancy Teak Won Do, playful Monkey Kung Fu…

You’ll find a lot of Instagram accounts dedicated to stylish martial arts. Performing a fancy jumping kick dressed in an expensive suit is not exactly the latest in creativity but still looks awesome.

Women performing fighting moves while wearing stylish dresses sadly get a lot of hate and insecurity in the comments not only because they’re women but also because the combination has such a great - and exposing - impact on the male psyche.

From a martial arts point of view, clothing has many practical functions you may consider when writing your combat scenes:

- Clothes can conceal weapons.

The classic example is a holster serving to hide a gun under the jacket, vest, coat…

It’s also a cool trick to hide armor as a passive weapon beneath rather wide clothing. This way your character could open a gap for the opponent to land a hit where he/she only hurts him/herself.

You may also remember Rosa Klebb’s dagger-shoe from James Bond – From Russia with Love.

- Clothes can conceal attack moves, thus making them hard to block.

Think of traditional Chinese gowns slit on the front and back. You see them a lot in old Kung Fu movies. The fabric flies up when kicking and spinning and distracts the opponent.

- Clothes can be used as weapons and are especially useful to help defend against weapons.

Imagine your slender businessman character on his way home after an exhausting day having to face two thugs armed with knives… He slowly walks backward, takes off his jacket, reveals a trained body beneath a streetlamp and wraps his jacket around his arm to be ready for incoming knife attacks.

Here’s an Immersive Action exercise for you I’d like to call Dress to Kill, LITERALLY, kind of:

Just put on your favorite outfits and perform some fighting moves all by yourself. It’s a lot of fun and you’ll probably notice how your outfit influences your moves and mindset.

Please don’t forget to warm up before doing your living room Ong Bak flying knees.

For a less breathtaking exercise: Video games like Tekken 8 or Streetfighter 6 have insane editors with thousands of items to play around with. You can style up your fighter or avatar with all kinds of looks and test how the outfit goes with different fighting styles. A dangerous inspiration for your next shopping spree too, trust me on that one…

And if you are missing accessories and colors, the next articles will cover those for the complete picture.

Yours

Till