Tips on writing a battle scene - Writers Forum

Haruka · 06-05-2006, 01:11 AM

How do you do it? And I don't just mean battles as in the White Knight's army against the Black King, what about scenes in WWII or in outer-space or pre-historic civilizations?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

blademasterzzz · 06-05-2006, 01:46 AM

Depends what kind of battle scenes, what kind of POV you're using, how big the battle scene is, and whether it's from an omnipotent or character POV.

Haruka · 06-05-2006, 01:51 AM

well, I have two stories with a battle scene, one is from the main character's point of view and the other is from a third-person-view.

How big? Well, they're both on field, could you be more specific?

voicesinmyhead · 06-05-2006, 02:14 AM

My best advice would be to read some really good war narratives. First person accounts by soldiers or really good authors.

Other thing would be to limit your detail to very immediate things. A soldier fighting isn't going to know the strategy and the moves and ebbs and tides of the battle- it's going to be grit in his face and shells over his head and barbed wire beneath his feet. Or a sword in his hand and a hundred people all hacking at each other's throats with wounded horses screaming around him. Or trying not to black out with vertigo as he steers his small plane through missiles and explosions and tries to be a little faster than the dozen guys trying to kill him. Or whatever. Get personal, get gritty, get into his head instead of knowing anything that he doesn't. You can make him brave, cowardly, confused, detached, exuberant, whatever. Depends on who he is. But let him tell the story through his eyes.

As for the third person view, that's a bit trickier. Is this just meant to kind of summarize things for plot purposes? If so, read a history book or something like that and model the style. We may not have to know too much detail.

Haruka · 06-05-2006, 02:21 AM

Thanks for the advice, I'll try it out and see if it works. Thanks a lot. ^^

Slugfly · 06-05-2006, 07:36 AM

it's a little different, but not a lot different... in my work there are quite a few fight scenes and I always try to say as little about the fight as possible. You don't want to turn the narrative into commentary.

FrankBlissett · 06-05-2006, 02:17 PM

Read "August 1914" - it gives both "big picture" accounts of the strategics involved plus some good descriptions of the trenches. The novel takes a little while to get started though, as AS takes a few chapters to introduce characters for the series.

Also WWI themed, there's "All Quiet On The Western Front", which has some descriptions of life on the front lines.

-Frank

Non Serviam · 06-05-2006, 03:16 PM

Use short words. Use short sentences. Stay in the active voice. No adverbs at all. Plenty of paragraph breaks.

Everything that happens must increase the pressure on an important character. If the protagonist picks up a knife, the antagonist must pick up a gun.

Two cheap tricks:

(1) Focus on the wounds or casualties rather than on the tactical moves, individual shots or swordstrokes. ("Bullets spattered the ground in front of him" -vs- "With a sick crunch, the bone snapped in a greenstick fracture". Which is more vivid?)

(2) If possible, pick a character on the losing side and tell the story from his POV.

Haruka · 06-05-2006, 07:38 PM

Woah, thanks a lot to everyone, Slugfly, Frank and Non Serviam.

I think my dad bought "August 1914" some time ago, I'll ask him, thank you.

ghent96 · 06-06-2006, 04:15 PM

Good advice so far. Also would agree on:
- short sentences
- vivid yet not wordy, simply descriptive
- pick a point of view, and try to keep it consistent

I think the 3rd person point of view is better for a recount of a battle, or getting through a battle scene quickly with regard to strategy and what's going on between the two groups.

A first person point of view is probably going to be more interesting. Your heart races with the character. Emotions fly along with the character. The reader reads faster, especially if you keep the sentences short, simple, fast to read.

Be sure to keep the descriptions vivid, as mentioned above. Simple, fast to read, yet vivid. Don't just write, "Bob shot the enemy. He ran fast. He was afraid, and he ducked for cover under a tank." I'm not saying you would %) just saying... avoid that. When you catch yourself writing like that, revise and turn it into this:

"Bob frantically wiped away droplets of sweat falling, aiming, and finally squeezing the trigger. Thunder filled his ears and turned into a muddy ringing. 'Run... RUN!' He didn't know where, he just ran, compelled by fear and adrenaline. Through the smoke of gunfire and airborne earth, he caught a glance of an overturned tank. He threw himself towards it, rolling underneath..."

Ground combat is going to be 2D mostly, perhaps objects airborne or aircraft overhead. Space combat is going to be entirely 3D, and you will find it much harder to visualise and describe. I like it; however, and really like writing space combat scenes. It's a challenge, but very rewarding to go back and read it afterwards.

There's a danger in using too much detail, in that you will lose the reader and their speed/focus as they slow down and try to figure out exactly what is happening, trying arrange their mental picture. Avoid slowing down the pace of a battle scene. I really, really can't stand it in movies when a timer is ticking or someone announces 1 minute until... something... then the movie proceeds on for about 5-10 minutes until that something happens. GRrrr.

Realism, vivid, fast, personal, and of course VIOLENT. Fuzzy bunnies and daisies have no place in the battle scene, nor some random enemy/friendly being nice to help a character off the ground... unless some mutant trooper stomps on a bunny eating a daisy just before tearing a man's head off... and that enemy soldier that pauses and reconsiders shooting your bloodied up half-dead self on the ground gets shot a third nostril from your ally.

JLrep · 06-10-2006, 02:23 AM

"Fight scenes" covers a lot of grounds. As general rules (and you know how dangerous those are), a first-person narrative in a large-scale battle will be very hectic and brutal - a deviation from that would imply a strong bias in your character, i.e., some really unique condition of euphoria, depression, etc. And then, of course, if the PoV character is observing the battle from a ship/starship/whatever, you're pretty much obliged to make him ponder the moral ramifications of war.

What is often of more interst to me are the unique passages of 3rd-person and/or small battles; and by "small battles" I mean what would generally be called a fight scene, between two or three or four people. In these cases it is heavily dependent on the kind of impact you are attempting to have upon your reader; in my own experience, the largest factor (apart from any predominant emotions) is the skill of the PoV character - the difference between an untrained fighter who reacts through instinct and experience, and a trained one who can lapse into the calm mindset of a martial artist; the difference between the anxiety and adrenaline felt by a neophyte and the quiet alertness of a veteran. That sort of thing.

ghent96 · 06-23-2006, 04:09 PM

Who here has:

1) written or writing battle scenes in their current work, and

2) written and gotten published a work containing battle scenes?

(I'm only a category 1 warmonger)

imrhati · 06-23-2006, 04:25 PM

well to what scale do u mean published? i had a story with a fight scene in it punlished in the school newspaper does thta count? if it does i'm 2, if not then 1.

ghent96 · 11-01-2006, 04:13 AM

Hey, getting published is getting published %) Look out world! He's a Cat 2!

Fixed · 11-01-2006, 12:15 PM

depends what type of fight

if you want a small scale fight, these normally take place between 2-10 people then it won't be as hard to explain the manoevers of each character and get more into detail about who fights who etc, add in a few emotions and show some slick moves, add pauses and if there are important parts and aspects of the fight then explain them in great detail

but if you want a war scene with huge number of troops fighting an opposing force then you're going to have to explain very briefly what happens in the fight and then highlight the important parts of the fight but quickly move on, The important parts should include the number of people dying, a dead commander, a nade killing 5 troops. the other things you should point out are the manoevers of the flanks, how does the fight progress and how does the strategy work out? Just make sure you don't take a page explaining the death of one soldier or anything like that

oh and I dunno if this counts as bein' published, but I was once published in a school magazine and plan on getting published in it again a few more times... I also plan on actually publishing a novel... though I realize this may not happen anytime soon...