Tips or resources on writing scenes of battle?

[2WayParadox]

I just finished writing a scene about a battle and I'm not all that happy about it. I like the ending and the start is probably okay, but the middle bit that contains the development of the action is what I'm not happy about.

My POV character is a sergeant, so maybe that's not the best choice.

Anyway, do any of you have some tips or know of any good resources that handle this topic specifically?

 

[X Equestris]

There's actually an article on this very site that talks a little about this subject.

Writing Warfare in Fantasy: A Guide to the Battle Scene

 

[2WayParadox]

thanks, i'll give it a read

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

My POV character is a sergeant, so maybe that's not the best choice.

A sergeant is a fine choice of POV, depending on the needs of your story.

My advice for writing a battle, is the same for a one on one fight, or even a sex scene. Focus less on the choreography or events, and more on how those events impact the character, emotionally and physically.

 

[skip.knox]

Sometimes it's about tone or plot, too. For example, in my own WIP, I am introducing a monster race. We get foreshadowing of this, but we get properly introduced in the context of a battle scene. I throw in magicians as well.

But I wanted to keep the monsters (and the magic) still murky and mysterious, so I set the battle in fog. That was a deliberate choice that had more to do with tone and pacing than it did about characters. OTOH, having chosen fog, it led me to make certain choices about how the MC would react, as well as my choice of POV for the scene.

Which is all by way of saying it's not so much about the mechanics of realistic battle--that's really more of a given--than it is about the needs of the story.

 

[goldhawk]

This might help:

Peter Jackson on the Battle of Helm's Deep, "Editorial:
Refining the Story" [12:27], Special Extended DVD Edition,
disc 4, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.

"We found when we were cutting, you really needed to follow your main
characters, your principle characters. If we had two or three shots of stunt
guys fighting, you wanted to come back to one of your heroes.

"I think with any battle sequence, there has to be a fundamental purpose to
the battle. If it's a global, strategic kind of purpose, you're trying to
defend your castle because this person wants to take your castle, it's not
compelling. And that's really what we had with Helm's Deep. When we were
beginning to cut it together, it was just an attack on a castle. We felt
strongly that we needed to make the battle have more a human quality, that
there had to be more of an emotional reason for the battle to take place.

"So when we did our pickups for the Two Towers, we spent a day during our
pickup shoot actually filming a group of actors and extras being terrified,
huddled refugees, hearing the sounds of battle, reacting to various moments of
the battle, suddenly, it had a purpose. I mean to have Viggo standing on the
ramparts, drawing a sword, facing the Uriks, and then you cut into the huddled
women and children in the cave, and then back to Viggo, you felt, Wow, this
guy is defending his people."

 

[2WayParadox]

hmm, I have a scene later in the story that has a similar element to it

But the scene I made this post about is about a small, highly trained unit that has barricaded itself and is fending off an attack from pirates in their pirate den. I don't have any characters that I follow among the pirates and the ones inside the barricades are all trained soldiers. I guess I could make the battle more close, but that's not what I'm aiming for. The smaller unit is well prepared plus uses magic to demoralize and weaken their larger opponent. They're surprised at how easily they were able to push the pirates to a point where they've lost so much that they will give up if given a good enough opportunity to do so.

 

[Incanus]

This might help:

Peter Jackson on the Battle of Helm's Deep, "Editorial:
Refining the Story" [12:27], Special Extended DVD Edition,
disc 4, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.

"We found when we were cutting, you really needed to follow your main
characters, your principle characters. If we had two or three shots of stunt
guys fighting, you wanted to come back to one of your heroes.

"I think with any battle sequence, there has to be a fundamental purpose to
the battle. If it's a global, strategic kind of purpose, you're trying to
defend your castle because this person wants to take your castle, it's not
compelling. And that's really what we had with Helm's Deep. When we were
beginning to cut it together, it was just an attack on a castle. We felt
strongly that we needed to make the battle have more a human quality, that
there had to be more of an emotional reason for the battle to take place.

"So when we did our pickups for the Two Towers, we spent a day during our
pickup shoot actually filming a group of actors and extras being terrified,
huddled refugees, hearing the sounds of battle, reacting to various moments of
the battle, suddenly, it had a purpose. I mean to have Viggo standing on the
ramparts, drawing a sword, facing the Uriks, and then you cut into the huddled
women and children in the cave, and then back to Viggo, you felt, Wow, this
guy is defending his people."

It's funny, the effect they were going for here didn't work on me at all. When I see the huddled women and children, I can't help but roll my eyes. To me (and to my sister who is also a big LOTR fan) this 'technique' felt horribly cheesy, ham-handed, obvious, un-subtle, and unrefined. Not a great LOTR movie moment.

I prefer not to be bludgeoned with emotion inspiring content, and recommend more art and less formula.

 

[skip.knox]

I agree with Incanus, though I did like a couple of things about that. One was hearing the sounds of the battle. It felt a bit like citizens during the Blitz hiding in the London Underground. The other was watching Eowyn doing her best to take care of the non-combatants even as she was furiously frustrated at being relegated to the role. What was less successful was the frequent close-ups of big-eyed children (who looked rather like the same actors as back in Hobbiton), and the tearful partings. All I could think was, why are they saying goodbye down here? Shouldn't these boys and old men have stayed up top?

All of which just goes to show how easy it is to mis-handle scenes of high drama. It's a delicate business, killing people off gracefully.