Tutorial Tuesday - Put Up Your Dukes 3

This is the last installment of writing violent scenes and fights.  This time around we'll look at the elements of surprise and humor in battle, two ingredients you may not have considered.

Shock and Awe
To be honest, most fights in stories are not a surprise.  If you've been building to a violent confrontation, your readers are certainly going to expect it.  In fact, if you don't deliver fisticuffs in some instances, they will be disappointed with you and your story.
What has led to readers expecting a fight?  Knowing the characters are capable of fighting for their beliefs and that they have something important to lose if they don't engage their opponents.  There's nothing wrong with your readers knowing a battle is inevitable.  They may even have a reasonable expectation of who will win the fight.  The point isn't so much to leave your readers' mouths gaping open, stunned that the hero and villain are finally fighting.  It's to dramatize the conflict that needs to be resolved.  We knew Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker would eventually have it out in the Episode III:  Revenge of the Sith in the Star Wars saga.  We had an idea of how it would end; with Anakin becoming Darth Vader and Obi-Wan going into hiding as he kept an eye on Luke.  It was wondering how this end would come to be that put our butts in theater seats.
Sometimes surprise does have a place in the great struggle however.  A weapon we didn't see coming, an amazing fighting technique that leaves us gasping, or a last second endeavor when all seems lost.  But even as your hero suddenly turns the tables on his enemy, he must employ something we can accept.  This means you must foreshadow how he will overcome impossible odds without giving any idea of his secret weapon.
Nothing illustrates this better than the show Breaking Bad, in which a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher manufactures methamphetamine.  Walt is brilliant when it comes to chemistry, but he's often backed into a corner by the brutal thugs his criminal activity puts him in contact with.  In one brilliant face-off with an armed and murderous enemy, the seemingly overwhelmed Walt outdoes the bad guy by causing a shocking explosion using a chemical compound that looks just like meth.  Because the weapon is so out of the ordinary you never see it coming, but when it does it makes all the sense in the world.

To Wit or Not to Wit?
If you want your readers to take your conflict seriously, you're better off resisting witty repartee during the fight.  In the movie Total Recall, I guess it was supposed to be funny when the hero yelled, "Screw you!" as he offed one guy with the bore of a large tool which rotated and looked like the thread of a screw.  This was a high-energy fight to the death that lost all its drama with that non-hilarious line. 
Of course if you want to make the whole fight a big joke then go for it.  But you must mean it to be utterly absurd.  For example, we are all aware of the rampant stupidity of Black Friday Wal-Mart shoppers stampeding into the store to get the deals.  Wouldn't that be the perfect backdrop for a gladiator-style battle over an X-box?  I envision a woman in a housedress and bedroom slippers, her hair bound in curlers, facing off against a Skoal-spitting, John Deere hat-wearing Nascar fan.  Extension cords become whips, shopping carts are chariots, TV trays morph into shields, and handlebars from unassembled bikes are wielded like swords as combat for the last gaming system ensues.  Make it ridiculous from the word go and keep it silly.  But if you want your readers to take your conflict seriously, then stay away from the wit.
So that's my last word (for now) on violence and fighting in writing.   Keep it real and keep it exciting to keep your readers in a thrall from the first punch thrown until the last man falls.