them's fighting words

I hate writing battle scenes. H. A. T. E.

When the action is unfolding at a mile a minute in my mind, like there's an action movie being projected in my brain, it's especially difficult to find the words to relate exactly what's going on. If there are four things happening simultaneously, or even just two, I need to take the time to explain each one in enough detail that the reader gets a sense of it; but those explanations take time to read, which slows down the action and makes everything seem slower than it is. Even with all the practice attempts I've made, writing battle scenes is still that elusive skill.

So now I'm trying to write a battle scene in Thistleswitch. They're fighting a dragon, for goodness' sake. There needs to be action.

But then, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. This whole chapter has that rank, icky feeling of wrongness that usually means I'm trying to force something that just isn't supposed to happen. Which probably means I should ditch this particular plan and figure out what the story actually wants to happen. Which means finishing up the end isn't going to be quite as easy as I expected. Sigh.