Sword Limbo

All right, so you are reaching a pivotal scene - whether against the Big Bad or against a friend because the Big Bad convinced you to do so. You've built up the fight, hinting at it throughout the narrative. How is it going to be end up and will it be as awesome as you think it will be?

If the story is set up such that you can justify sword play, expect the occasional bouts of Sword Limbo. Basically an opponent (not uncommonly the hero) dodges a sword swipe by bending backwards as the sword passes over him.

Obviously for this to make sense, you need to establish that swords are appropriate for the setting. RPGs tend to exploit this very commonly, for example, especially for its heroes. This happens quite often, even if the opposition and the heroic mook army resort to such weaponry as phasers and rifles. To overcome the discrepancy between blade and bullet, it is also quite common to combine a sword with artillery (RPG enthusiasts will undoubtedly find this familiar).

Which does add a dimension worth noting: be sure to know when to fall more towards accuracy or cool when deciding to run with swords. Plenty of the techniques shown in media aren't exactly truthful to reality (enough sometimes to taint the audience's expectations) and can cause massive damage, if not kill a person outright, when performed in real life if they are even possible. Anything from Hammerspace to any variety of cool weapons cause physics to shrivel up into the fetal position but work because they are cooler to watch.

This explains why good fight scenes are so cathartic: they don't break willful suspension of disbelief when accuracy falls to the wayside. Obviously this doesn't always work but then again, sometimes even failure at this can be entertaining.