I’m planning out some extended action scenes at the moment, and I’m having so much fun doing it. Laying out an action sequence feels a bit like carefully diverting water flows to maximise their velocity and volume. Small streams and currents can be folded into each other, tributaries grafted onto rivers, all growing in weight and water and crashing onwards, seawards – an elemental juggernaut, ocean-bound.
Each action scene is a dance, and must be choreographed accordingly. This is especially the case in the shonen battle genre that Breaking Hell fits into. It’s all physicality and physics: bodies and blades and blunt force weapons weaving patterns as they collide and evade.
And concatenating these scenes is akin to a conductor pulling a sequence of sound out of an orchestra. Well, a conductor who is also a composer. The aim is to create energy and sustain it, direct it and increase it. And make sure the tuba doesn’t parp at an ill-timed, deflating moment.
Anyway, all that is to say it brings me real joy, writing fights and balletics. Breaking Hell is unashamedly pulpy, in both its inspirations and its aspirations, but it stems from a real love of classic shonen fare that has stayed with me since I was a young teen. There is a peculiar romance to a fist on fire punching its way through a storm. I really want to capture that, and everything I love about spectacular fantasy theatrics, in Breaking Hell. I hope at least some of that comes across in the telling.
so long for now
David Whitechapel 