I wish I had some advice for you, erika, but my complete incomprehension of how you pull off that clue thing is why I don't even think about writing mysteries. Love reading them, can't imagine writing one. Balancing how much you reveal with how much you keep hidden so that the answer doesn't come out of left field but isn't staring the reader in the face for too long, either, it's like a magic trick.

Yeah, I'm saying. David Simon says the crime story is *the* form for the 21st century. But no, if David Simon jumped off a bridge, I wouldn't go with him. His account of the way down would be so much better than mine.

snerk.

I'm sure it's been done, but it seems like there's huge potential in having a killer watch the investigation unfold, with the increasing nervousness and paranoia.

Help!

Two characters in my WIP are fighting. J has just tackled F, and they are rolling around on the ground. F draws a knife and slashes at J, scoring a minor cut or two, but then J disarms him, pins him down, and chokes him to death with his bare hands. Which sounded well and good, in a bloodthirsty way, until I tried to write it:

1. How does J disarm F? He's the younger and stronger of the two, so I think if he gets a good grip on F's knife hand, he can prevent him from doing any more damage, but how does he make him drop the knife? Should I have that happen before J knocks F down? I'd like the knife to be thrown/kicked somewhere where neither of them can reach it, because it's really important that J kills F with his bare hands--he's a soldier, so he's used to killing with musket and bayonet, and I want him shaken and shocked at himself in a way he wouldn't be if he'd used a bullet or a blade.

2. What is J going to see as F goes through his death throes? Will F turn red? Blue? How long will it take him to go limp and then to die?

Thanks!

Signed,
Discovering that Fight Scenes are Much Tougher Than Sex Scenes, Probably Because I've Had Sex but Have Never Killed a Man With My Bare Hands

How does J disarm F? He's the younger and stronger of the two, so I think if he gets a good grip on F's knife hand, he can prevent him from doing any more damage, but how does he make him drop the knife? Should I have that happen before J knocks F down?

I'm pretty sure you need to hunt ita down for exact details, but I vaguely recall a friend/instructor in the Russian martial arts class I took ages ago leading us through disarming someone with a knife or handgun, and there are a couple of fairly simple wrist-and-finger holds you can do that will not only turn the weaponed person's fingers to jelly but often drive him to his knees.

I know it's both possible and not incredibly difficult once you've got the training, but I have no clue as to exactly how it works. But ita probably knows twenty variations on it.

eta:

Discovering that Fight Scenes are Much Tougher Than Sex Scenes, Probably Because I've Had Sex but Have Never Killed a Man With My Bare Hands

Best. Signature Line. Ever.

Of course, ita would know! I'll xpost with Natter tomorrow. Am too tired now, having just wrestled my to-do list into submission, and with my bare hands, at that.

Best. Signature Line. Ever.

Heh. I try to amuse. Anyway, I figure it's probably true of most of my readership, too, so it won't be quite as obvious if I get it wrong. OTOH, if I'm going to write military fiction a la Bernard Cornwell, I'm sure I'll get readers with military training who could spot hand-to-hand combat errors a mile away and would point and laugh if I just made it all up.

Not ita, but a fair amount of practice disarming people with knives.

If you whack the center back of the knife hand with the heel of your hand (ideally same side - if he's holding the knife in his right, use your right from behind or to the side) his grip will open. If you do it hard enough the knife will go flying, but this is unlikely when the fight's gone to the ground.

Any combination of limbs can pin and twist the knife arm - if you pronate his kinfe hand sufficiently, his grip will open and you can take the knife. Most honorable (or law-fearing) people will throw the knife away at that point, rather than sticking it in their attacker.

A good technique is to make him think about something else while you isolate the knife: Stick your fingers in his carotid or eyes; hit him off the point of the jaw with your elbow; put a boot heel in his face as you put your legs over his chest (you're both lying on the ground) and crank his knife arm up over your chest (between your legs), bending it back over your chest. This can pop his elbow out of socket or break his arm, which renders the knife moot. You can capture the knife between your ribs and upper arm in this or other moves also, pinning it and turning away to remove it from his grasp.

It's usually only in fanfic porn that I have this much trouble imagining a position.

I second Raq's general recommendation of joint manipulation, but I'd also add that the blow-by-blow can be handwaved a bit once you have the general outlines of what happens solid in your own mind -- you don't want to get it wrong, because, yes, then the boring military types will come after you, but it's the kind of description where every. single. move. can get really technical and ultimately kill the action in a way that the rest of your audience may be quite happy to skip. So, our hero gets the dude's knife arm bent back and makes him drop the weapon, and then we can cut to the real point of the scene, which is the existential horror of watching the dude's eyes go dead under his very own hands. And that part, I know you can write.

(Think of the difference between a sex scene with lots of breathless suggestion, and one that's got every bit of insert tab A in slot B.)

(Also, if you're a Deadwood fan, there's a terribly brutal hand-to-hand fight in season 3 (hey, DVD's are out, and it's y'all's fault if you highlight!) episode 5 that addresses some of the same questions you're working with. Must be viewed with the commentary from the actors on their own process of getting to the place you're talking about. )

It's usually only in fanfic porn that I have this much trouble imagining a position.

Having tried and failed at both the porn and the fighty-fighty? The porn is easier.