I've lead a life devoid of physical violence, which I'm very thankful for, but it does make writing violent characters and action scenes rather difficult. How-to-write books haven't worked very well for me, but I found Rory Miller's Violence: A Writer's Guide very helpful.
Instead of a typical structure/grammar/sentence length/beat type of discussion, this book simply offers some insights about what it's like to live in a violent world. One of my favorite, must useful quotes:
This is a lot to cover, but the big point of this is to try to establish a line between what you actually know about violence, and what you have been told.
- People use violence because it works
- There are levels of violence and the level you are comfortable with does not register as violence to you
- Going down levels is easy, going up levels is hard
- Violence has both direct and indirect goals
- Professionals focus on the direct goals, amateurs on the indirect
Th point isn't whether or not I agree with this. The point is that it's a very different discussion of violence than the usual "it's always wrong/only cowards and/or idiots resort to it". It's a discussion that frames violence the way a violent person, or a person with direct experience with violence, might frame it.
The book has links to videos, forum and blog posts, and other resources that discuss violence and its effects. It was great starting point for research.
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