MAYHEM, INC.- 2008 March 15

Cheryl: Who did you learn your fighting skills from?

Milton: I grew up in East Saint Louis Illinois, one of the toughest cities in the USA. Although I did not fine-tune my fighting skills on those streets, I quickly learned what worked in a real knockdown fight. By the time I did receive formal fight training, I already possessed one quality most fight instructors liked to see in a trainee. It's a quality they called focused viciousness, or put another way, the ability to take advantage of a rage-provoked adrenaline surge, to keep that ferocity under control without fighting haphazardly or with reckless abandon. Ultimately, I fine-tuned my fighting skills at a military training camp in the USA and in Israel.

Cheryl: What kind of fighting do you think you're best at?

Milton: That's a tough question, only because, with my training and background, it would be hard to nail it down to a specific style or type of fighting. I'm skilled and have trained in Muay-Tai kickboxing. I've also practiced Krav-Maga, which is an Israeli-bred style of fighting. But the focus of my fight training has never been the conventional-type Martial Arts, by which I mean the standard kickboxing, karate or other Martial Arts where you have rules, judges, five-minute rounds and doctors standing by. I was taught to eliminate a target as quickly as possible and with any means necessary. I won't go into details here, because the purpose of my answer is not to shock or appall anyone. Still, I want to answer the question with as much clarity as possible. I was trained specifically to fight with very bad intentions. Only one rule -- to win.

Cheryl: Where did you use your fighting skills?

Milton: The type of fighting skills I am speaking about above are usually lethal. I've never used these skills in a typical squabble, or even a somewhat serious fight here at home in the USA. When leading a typical life, I always made it a point to walk away from a fight, or even run away, unless the threat was to my family or something of that nature. For one [thing], seriously maiming or killing someone will get you sent to prison quickly. The people I did use such deadly tactics on were usually militaristic combative types who presented a clear threat to innocent people or to certain societies. These types of tactics are nothing to be proud of or brag about, only to understand they are sometimes necessary.

Cheryl: How can a writer use a fight scene to further the plot in their story?

Milton: Early on, when I first started to write, and after reading some less than interesting plot development techniques, I made a promise to myself: That no matter how much I attempted to develop a character or advance a plot, I would always do it in a way that was exciting and interesting. Now, that is quite a promise. But fight or action scenes can help accomplish this. I didn't want to subscribe to the view that the very nature of a fight scene was exciting; therefore, I could have people kicking the crap out of each other in every chapter. That will not work. But fight scenes, in the appropriate place, can be exciting and, more importantly, they can show character development and move the story along. An example is the way each character responds to the fight. What goes through their mind(s) at that time? Why would a normally vicious antagonist, who finally gets the upper hand in a knife fight, suddenly stop, smile at the heroine, slip the knife back into his pocket and leave? And what does the heroine think about that? Is the heroine completely baffled? Or does it reveal to the heroine something very important about the situation? Now, where did the fight take place? Is this particular place to be of interest later? Was the heroine lured there? What was the fight about? Was it over some priceless item? Was the antagonist dispatched as an act of revenge, or sent as a serious warning to the heroine by an enemy? All these things can further the plot and can do it in an exciting way. Still, there are reasons for using fight scenes other than advancing the plot. We shall talk about them later.

Cheryl: Why should writers care where body parts go when they're writing about someone fist-fighting or shooting or chasing someone?

Milton: One reason is the rule of action/reaction. This is something else we'll talk about more thoroughly later, but for now we'll see how it applies to the question, pertaining to the visualization of body parts, and where they are, or where they go: When John delivers a crushing blow to Mr. Nasty's face, the situation demands that we (the reader) see the result of such action. That result is necessary for the scene to continue. What happens to Mr. Nasty's face, where it was hit, and how he reacted will determine how the scene continues. If the blow knocked out all of Mr. Nasty's front teeth, then we understand Mr. Nasty will have to respond to such a blow in an alarming manner, or he must respond in a different way if the blow barely glanced off his face. We also need to know where body parts go in order to keep continuity in the scene. When John delivered the blow, was he sitting, standing, or down on his back with Mr. Nasty sitting on him and trying to pin his shoulders? Now, after Mr. Nasty responds to the hard blow to his teeth, what does John do next? That will be determined partly by the position of John's body. Each of these motions will affect what follows, to keep your fight scene moving smoothly to the conclusion you envision.

Thank you, Milton!
Cheryl Wyatt

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