Boginka...
Seems I forgot to mention - I usually use what You'd call limited third person. I refer to all characters as he/she/it/whatever and use verbs in third person but at the same time my narrator notices directly (not in dialog) only those things the current "central character" would. It's the worst possible choice of perspective but the only one I can write well enough for a longer time and feel it's fine. Whenever I adapt first person I feel strange - the word "I" belongs only to me (author) not to them (the characters). On the other hand I almost despise standard third person - I can actually see the narrator standing in the middle of a battlefield and...well just standing making speeches. A sudden urge starts to develop in my head at that point and I feel like making one of the fighters hit the narrator with anything heavy they have within reach.
From what you tell me of your preferred writing method, I do not think limited third person suits it very well. You really do need to be writing first person if you want to be mainly concentrating on your character(s) thoughts and feelings with a near total lack of description.
The main strength of limited third person is that it allows the strengths of both first person and third person to be utilised (Though to a more limited degree than the 'pure' forms, of course). The main weakness is that you
have to use those strengths in order to avoid the fact that the style also compounds the inherent weaknesses of both styles.
As I've noted elsewhere, limited third person is
very hard to do well, which is why I don't tend to use it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Not always - if the protagonist does not believe his/her rival to be a real danger they might actually have time for that.
Nothing gets someone killed faster than underestimating their enemy or taking their eyes off of a fight. Forget Hollywood - their fight scenes are about drama not skill. Too often their heroes win because they are the heroes, not because they are actually any good. A real enemy who is genuinely trying to kill you doesn't mess about <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
The only time you can really get away with your character taking their eye off the ball, as it were, is during a lull in fighting in a mass melee or if they have managed to get some major obstruction between them and the enemy. Failing that, have them run! They can do desperate eye searching whilst fleeing for their lives <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Especially is the enemy is drunk/blind with rage and tends to run into walls. Someone might ask: Why should anyone write a combat scene with an unskilled drunk? Well who said he/she is really drunk? He/she might be pretending...
I'd be wondering why the hero didn't nail him PDQ <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> That's not a fight scene - it's a massacre <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
In writing, everything is a plot contivance. The trick is making it look as if it isn't.
In my case when the stories and characters start to have a life of their own paying little attention to me shouting at them to get back in place some stuff is just plain plot
inconvenience <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
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Heh. I think every writer knows that one <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> A good character always takes on a life of their own, and tries to boss the writer into letting them do what they want <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> It usually does make for a better story if we let them have their way at least a bit. The trick is not letting them get away with it
too much <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />