posted
I've always enjoyed reading battle scenes, provided they're well done and realistic, but when it comes to writing them, it's another story. My fantasy has a big pitched battle at the end, based firmly in the pre-gunpowder era, and I'm finding it incredibly hard going. It's probably my own underlying feelings about war surfacing; one of the girls was in one, briefly, ten years ago, and it still affects her. Anyone tried to do a fantasy with a realistic battle?
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posted
I've got several battles in my WIP. In fact, my WIP chronicles a war, and yes, I find it incredibly hard going as well. My culture is a pre-gunpowder empire with a massive, well-trained professional army and cavalry. I've had fun so far thinking up armor and weaponry, as well as rank and structure of the army.
The biggest challenge I've had is devising appropriate strategies and tactics. Two of my characters are brilliant generals. I, unfortunately, am not. I draw most of my inspiration from Alexander the Great, though my culture is more advanced.
Another challenge is, simply, how to present it? I go less for the epic, cinematically described battles, preferring instead to focus in on one of my characters while they are actually fighting. But I like to have the strategy laid out, so if something goes wrong, the reader will be able to guess how it might affect the outcome. So I usually have a "briefing" session before hand, which I suppose might get boring or repetitive (I'm sure my beta readers will tell me).
And, I'm afraid my battles aren't all that realistic, to be honest. I try, but I also like making things interesting to read, and so I embellish and allow a little fantasy beyond the realm of what might actually happen, but hopefully within the realm of what is still believable. I think most readers would be all right with that.
And then, there's the gore; blood, urine, feces, body parts.
But it sounds as if you're having more emotional conflicts with your work, rather than struggling with realism vs. dramatic license, etc. At one point I was rather horrified by the events I'd just described. And it's difficult too, to get into the minds of my characters, for whom battle is simply the cost of doing business, and a human life is easily expended. But what can I do? This is the world I've created, so I just buckle down and write it. For the most part I enjoy devising strategies and tactics. This is probably why I was drawn to a book focused on a war.
posted
I'm trying to be as realistic as I can - it was something I decided on from the beginning - simply because I loathe the sanitised battles that so often crop up. We get a report that a bunch of Rohirrim just had a fight with some Orcs. 'None survived'. That necessarily implies a massacre of Orcish wounded, which would probably be inevitable given the depths of hatred involved, and the evidence we have for real massacres, such as the Towton mass grave. I don't want to gloss over that aspect, but quite apart from the fighting itself, I'm not sure whether I'm going too far putting it right on stage.
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posted
If your MC is in it and is affected by it, then it should be on-stage in my opinion. One of my novels (well all of them actually) have battles in them. I try not to sanitize them. They tend to have a lot of trailing guts and dripping gore. Writing them isn't easy. I'm not sure exactly what you were asking though. I write in limited 3rd so I just write what my PoV character is seeing and experiencing.
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posted
Just some encouragement! It's far too easy to leave it and go and work on characterisation, which is much more fun. One of the themes is the clash between a culture which sees exteminating the enemy as a religious duty, and one of the characters who hates violence.
I tend to stick with my characeter's POV most of the time, but for the batle I'm alternating between that and omni, to give a sense of what's happening overall. The reason os in an account of Cannae I read a while back, where the author argues that most soldiers probably didn't have any idea that the Roman army was doomed till near the end. If I stick with the character I'm worried that it's just going to confuse the reader.
[This message has been edited by RobertB (edited November 03, 2007).]
posted
For stratigies and tactics, go to actual battles in history and study what they did. The greeks were actually extremely advanced. If you want really advanced, use the Romans as your pattern. There was a reason they lasted for centuries. In one battle in Early England, a small roman force went up against the combined force of the celts. It was a blood bath. Thousands of Celts died and something like two hundred and fifty roman soldiers died. It was all about tactics. The celts had two methods of fighting. They charge wildly and they fight individually. When you talk about a warm machine, the roman Phalanxes were it. Their shield walls, the lances they threw, the way they positioned themselves to give each individual soldier the best advantage, all made it impossible for the Celts to win. Until Gunpowder, there was nothing even close to being as good as them.
Of course, you can use the time of Joan of Ark, where the english would set up on the battle field with their bowmen behind several rows of pikes stuck in to the ground. They would fire arrows at the opponants and the horsemen could not run them down with out impailing their horses on pikes. Joan in one key battle, did not wait to let the English bowmen get ready. She ordered an attack without preparation of even her own force and the english were sweaped away. Of course, during that period, armies simply blundered into each other, scouts and spies were not used.
I am not exactly sure of the nations on either side so excuse me if I get the nations wrong, but The Spanish would march with long pikes, on the battle line, five, six rows back would have the ends of their pikes sticking out. This was really effective against a charge. It was a dominating military. The swiss came up against them and their soldiers simply pushed the pikes to the side with their hands and fought too close for the pikes and beat them.
Some of the best armor during most of history was leather with tightly packed cloth sewn to it. The leather was fairly difficult to cut and the cloth added padding. They even used this under chain mail. Chain mail, by the way, did not fair well against the ax.
If your soldiers use stabbing weapons like the Roman sword was designed to do, the armor, tactics, fighting style will be different than if the swords are designed for slashing.
The wealth of the nation makes a big difference too. A professional army with loads of money can have the armor that all looks the same, while if the indivdidual supplies their own armor, there might be many styles, possibly depending on rank and wealth, which tend to go together. The professional would be trained and kept together.
Remember, in the bible, they talk about suffering the slings and arrows. In that period, entire phalanxes would use slings as later periods used arrows or musketeers. Tbey were part of the military force.
During the Revolutionary war, the British had a tactic where when the opponant fired, the british would do a bayonet charge. They could cross the space of the battle field faster than the opponant could reload their rifles. In that, it became similar to any other primative battle.
The weapons used, the armor worn, the types and shapes of shields, will dictate tactics and stratagies. It is best to follow what actually was done and
Edited to add that during one of the great battles against the scotts, the scotts still used swords and shelds. The british were still using muskets. In close fighting, a musket with a bayonette is not equal to a sword and shield. The british had orders to the men on the lines that when the scott raised their sword up to slash down, the soldier to that side would "protect his partner" by stabbing under the arm. Again tactics turned what could have been a mismatch of weaponry into an embarrassing defeat.
The main thing is to use real battles and tactics and your battle scenes will be more real.
Just my one cent, not worth two.
[This message has been edited by rstegman (edited November 03, 2007).]
posted
I find the historians don't always agree on what happened, unfortunately. The ancient writers describe phalanxes meeting with a great crash, leading to an assumption that bettles were largely a shoving match. But some more modern writers argue that people were rather reluctant to close on all that nasty sharp metal, and battles were largely defensive in nature. I've compromised on this, with two lines closing, hacking at each other, then backing off for a rest until the officers can push them into advancing again. One side breaks, gets slaughtered as they run, and it turns into a massacre. That raises all sorts of issues about what exactly would have happened; did they all run in a mass, or break away in groups, or what?
This one is a battle between disciplined formations; if one army surprised the other in a pass where they couldnt form up, a very different type of battle would follow. I don't have any cavalry to complicate matters; they're not much use in the mountains where the story's set anyway.
If you want to see a good demonstration of using POV to convey the entirety of a battle on the macro and micro levels, read Sharpe's Eagle by Bernard Cornwell.
posted
I've made a conscious effort to avoid war and the military in my work---not because I don't enjoy reading a good account (I do), but because I've realized I know nothing about war and the military from a personal point of view.
I've never been in the army---I'd seen or read several "military" books and movies where it was real obvious the writer / movie people didn't know the first thing about their subject---and realized I'd been duplicating that mistake for some time in my own work.
I abandoned several ideas along the way after this revelation---for instance, I thought up a good hellish and disgusting setting, then got stuck on what could possibly put my characters in it, other than, say, military action. A stab at it another way got halfway through before semi-final abandonment.
So, right now, I try to stick my characters in somewhat lower-key jobs, some of which I know something about, some of which I don't.
posted
I can't agree that you have to have been in a battle to write about one, Robert. For one thing, a battle now has little or no resemblence to one that we are likely to write about. And we can learn more than most fighters ever knew about tactics with some judicious reading. I think everyone should read Art of War and Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars.
I know I have mentioned before that Deed of Paksenarrion was originally turned down because it is military fantasy written by a woman. When it was accepted it was apparently partly because Elizabeth Moon had been in the Marines (where she will be the first to say she spent her time using a computer lol). I thought that was amusing. She knows strategy though, being an exceedingly well-read woman.
I can't imagine limiting myself from writing about war because I've never had the misfortune to have to fight one. There are a lot of things I haven't done that I may write about. I'll try to learn about them before I write. (Do read up on horses before you write about them--please. I recently gave someone a HUGE scolding when his MC didn't even unsaddle the horses before going to sleep.) But I bet you don't say you can't have horses in your books if you haven't ridden.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 03, 2007).]
quote: I tend to stick with my characeter's POV most of the time, but for the batle I'm alternating between that and omni, to give a sense of what's happening overall. The reason os in an account of Cannae I read a while back, where the author argues that most soldiers probably didn't have any idea that the Roman army was doomed till near the end. If I stick with the character I'm worried that it's just going to confuse the reader.
I've been thinking about this a bit.
J's recommendation of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels is an excellent one. Cornwell also has a similar character in the Hundred Years War. He masters the omniscient, but hugs close to the characters.
1) How important (to the story) is the knowledge of what starts the battle, ends it, and what it leads to?
2) How important are the motivations to the character?
3) What does the character know, feel, and see?
I guess, in essence, I'm saying that if your protagonist has a truly separate story line than the war, the battle will only be relevant in what it affects. The reader will follow the character, not invest too much in anything that takes away from the path they are following.
As to JeanneT's suggested reading, I also recommend Sun Tsu's The Art of War. Mike Munsil gave a link to an online version here. And I'll add to that list--as I have previously--with The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, Niccolo Machievelli's II Prinicipe can be applied to strategem and motivation, Fighting Techniques in the Ancient World by Simon Anglim, Roman Warfare and The Complete Roman Army by Adrian Goldsworthy.
Also, have you considered not limiting yourself to the phalanx, the maniple may be more effective in some strategies.
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited November 03, 2007).]
posted
It can indeed. It must have taken a lot of practice, though, to fight in a complex formation like the triplex acies; I can't see it working without a core of professional officers at the very least, which is effectively what the centurionate was. Even the ordinary legionary often had to serve for years on end. My guys aren't professinal soldiers, they're more like the armed farmers who manned the phalaxes. I read like mad, though I haven't got round to Sun Zu yet. I've been a big Sharpe fan for years, precisely because of the realism, though Cornwell doesn't have too much to say about what happens to the wounded. I can only think of two places where he goes into the real horrors there; once when Sharpe is badly wounded himself, and once when he goes way over the top indulging in the awful death of the fellow who runs off with Sharpe's wife. The battle's really important to the plot; one of the MC's has been forced into the role of a rather reluctant messiah figure, and landed with the general's job. He can't do much else with the whole city raring to go. If he doesn't beat them, then he's not the messiah, and the city falls.
[This message has been edited by RobertB (edited November 03, 2007).]
posted
Randomly quoting and commenting. If I make no sense, please forgive me--I'm extremely tired.
quote:The main thing is to use real battles and tactics and your battle scenes will be more real.
I agree with this.
quote:I've never been in the army---I'd seen or read several "military" books and movies where it was real obvious the writer / movie people didn't know the first thing about their subject---and realized I'd been duplicating that mistake for some time in my own work.
You're very wise to realize this, IMO. People writing about war based on superficial knowledge happens a lot, and I rather expect a lot of people subconciously have a wrong idea of what war is like because of it. I hope that authors who do write of wars at least research accounts written by a variety of people who have actually been in war, not just second-hand accounts, fictional accounts, or "arm-chair general" critiques of battles.
quote:And it's difficult too, to get into the minds of my characters, for whom battle is simply the cost of doing business, and a human life is easily expended.
I'm not quite sure how to put this into words, or even if I should since I've never personally been in a real fight (outside of training). I've trained in Aikido, bo (staff), archery, sword, and even have a BB rifle and done a Civil War re-enactment. I get my tactics and strategies from books and my 'moves' from the training I've done, but I get my characters from the people I've know who have been in battles or who have killed.
If your society really is one that overall places very little value on life, then I'd accept a cold-blooded "price of doing business" commander. Maybe. If your elite decision-makers (those who decide to go to war or not) have never fought in a battle or trained for war, I can buy them starting a war over something stupid: a perceived slight or whatever. What bothers me is that a lot of books portray fighters (especially higher-ups) as essentially heartless men/women who aren't bothered by killing or only think of soldiers as playing pieces. In my experience, that's not true.
For some reason, people like to talk to me about the horrible things they've seen. I've been a pen pal to numerous sailors, soldiers, airmen, and marines of all ranks. My pen pals who gave orders cared desperately for their men and deeply felt their lack when someone was hurt or killed under their command. They might not show it (and often tried not to), but they do.
(Even if your characters are in a cold-blooded, life-is-valueless society, the commander could at least fear that he will be killed if he screws up.)
I also do prison ministry. I'm a pen pal to 17 men in for life on murder charges. (Yup, I'm always writing something--pen pal, blog, or novel!) Some of them have told me what they did and why. I grant that some criminals have absolutely no conscience, but most do. I've learned from talking with these men just how much killing another person puts a wound in your soul that haunts you, even if you manage to not think of it often. Even if they put on a "I am tough" facade.
I will never write of killing lightly, but every novel idea I've had features battles or killing. (My mom thinks it's so I can get some of this gunk out of my head.)
So how do I write battles? I never forget that a battle is made up of individuals, some of who are brave, others which are cowards. Are they all volunteers or are some there under threat of death if they desert? Are they defending their homes, fighting a just cause, loyal to their leaders, or fighting in a foreign land? The course of a battle really is dependant on individuals. Start thinking of the reactions of the individuals, and you start having a realistic battle.
Personally, I mention the gore and death, but I don't focus on it. I focus more on how the fighting affects the individuals rather than ceaselessly mentioning the blood and guts.
quote:It must have taken a lot of practice, though, to fight in a complex formation like the triplex acies; I can't see it working without a core of professional officers at the very least...
Very true. Even phalaxes needed practice. You might consider using ambush-and-run tactics for your untrained farmers. If you put them in squares and send them at a trained enemy, no matter who enthusiastic they started out, they will end up breaking formation and defeated. Or have your messiah-figure try the square first, see the result, and then switch over. Or whatever.
quote:Personally, I mention the gore and death, but I don't focus on it. I focus more on how the fighting affects the individuals rather than ceaselessly mentioning the blood and guts.
Well, I think it is a bit hard to not take note of the blood and guts. They are important because they are part of the fear and horror. They are WHAT affects the individuals. If the friend on your left just got rammed through the belly with a pike, you're affected by exactly that. I can't imagine how it wouldn't be central to a battle and the emotions you'd feel in it. The exact reaction would be affected by what the PoV character is doing. My MC's tend to be active fighters so they often face this up close rather than standing back on a hill over-looking the action, which would involve very different emotions.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 03, 2007).]
quote:Well, I think it is a bit hard to not take note of the blood and guts.... They are WHAT affects the individuals. If the friend on your left just got rammed through the belly with a pike, you're affected by exactly that. I can't imagine how it wouldn't be central to a battle and the emotions you'd feel in it.
As mentioned, I've never been in a real sword battle so you can take what I say with a grain of salt if you'd like. But I have tried to be in conditions that simulate what battle would have been like as well as read first hand accounts of what people in these real conditions said they were like.
What I think most people don't appreciate is that war is a lot of waiting around bored, uncomfortable, and (potentially) nervous followed by a flurry of action that goes so quickly that you barely have time to think or really register what's happening. That's why soldiers/fencers/whatever train so obsessively--so that they'll react correctly during the fight without having to think each move out.
Okay, so you're a grunt in a line of battle facing pikes and your best friend on your left just got rammed through the belly with a pike. Part of your brain vaguely thinks "my friend!" but mostly you're thinking about survival, about the pike headed for your belly and the fact that the pike menacing you to your left is temporarily out of action, so you can slip through the gap in the pike wall and attempt to kill the son of a %#^@! that just took out your friend. You don't have time to freeze in shock or blink back a tear or notice in detail how your friend doubles over as the pike enters his belly, cries out in pain, and collapses to the ground with blood and guts spilled as the pike is withdrawn. It's after the battle that you have time to pause, go into shock, and take a good look at the carnage and weep over your friend (with lots of gory details included, if you're so inclined). If you pause in battle to think about anything but the fight, you're the one on the ground dead or dying.
The real point I was trying to make is that I leave the gore mostly up to the reader's imagination. I hint at it, but I don't describe it in detail. Rather, I describe how my heroine, after she gets one good look, avoids looking too closely at the dead as she walks through the battlefield or how she gags at the smell when she enters a room where two corpses have been rotting or whatever. People are rather desensitized to blood and guts these days due to movies, so I betting that it's more effective to focus on my heroine's reactions than writing in detail about the carnage. I'm not saying that everyone ought to write battle carnage scenes this way, it's just that it's how I write them.
[This message has been edited by DebbieKW (edited November 06, 2007).]
quote:You don't have time to freeze in shock or blink back a tear or notice in detail how your friend doubles over as the pike enters his belly, cries out in pain, and collapses to the ground with blood and guts spilled as the pike is withdrawn.
Hmmm did I say that was how it should be written? Funny, I don't remember saying that. Blinking back a tear is hardly my idea of a blood and guts description. I did mention emotion in passing, but I was talking about the emotion of BATTLE. Stopping to cry or whatever you are ascribing to my comment is rather the OPPOSITE of a blood and guts description.
Well since you gave a lengthy description of how you write it, then I'll tell you how I do, in spite of your rather odd comments about gagging and crying which you seemed to be implying is what I advised.
I write what my MC sees and experiences which includes a lot of gore.
The swordsman swings at her slashing her arm. Push away the pain. Dodge. Parry. He raises his sword. Thrust hard into his armpit up to the hilt. Blood gushes in her face. She kicks him in the chest to loose her sword. Wiping the gore from her eyes, she sees Marcus is down, a pikesman wrenching his weapon free. Growling, she rides over the bodies to hack backhand and severs his head.
Well, right or wrong, that's how I do it. Short sentences. Close viewpoint. No time for emotion. Just hack and slash and lot of blood spattering in their faces.
Edit: I have spent a fair amount of time in sword fighting classes (not fencing which is quite different) and feel comfortable describing them. Heaven knows a class is different from the real thing, but you do learn how you move and get an idea what works and what is stupid.
That is different from the issue of strategy and tactics in warfare. As I mentioned before, there are some excellent books on the topic. My favorite is Caesar's Commentaries. If I were going to say the ONE book you should read on the topic, that would be it.
I must admit I enjoy writing battle scenes. The first time I was intimidated. I thought you needed to describe everything that went on in the whole battle. I never go to an omni PoV. I stick strictly in my MC's PoV and describe everything from what she sees. Sometimes emotion or a thought process is appropriate, but limited ones. Surprise. Pain. Anger.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 04, 2007).]
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 04, 2007).]
posted
I wonder how much you actuslly would see in a big battle. Tears afterwards, perhaps, but probably not during the fight itself. A minor, non-incapacitating would might not be noticed much at the time, but hurt like hell once the adrenalin wore off; I did that climbing a few times. I wonder how people would react as they stood watching an enemy advance; I've described people peeing themselves, vomiting, making bad jokes and getting hysterical laughter as a response.
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I had to describe a battle being watched from a distance and found it many times more difficult than writing about being in one. But then you can concentrate more on emotional reactions.
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There was a discussion about how some leaders send their soldiers off to die without giving it a thought. I think they are mostly taking a measurement of costs. They look at the soldiers like expendable equipment. How many can I afford to lose to win this war? If i send this phalanx into the jaws of these three enemy phalanxes, I can concentrate these four against those three and tear out their cener.
If you consider that all the soldiers and yourself might die if you lose the battle, how many soldiers would you be willing sacrifice in order to win the battle?
Then of course, many lords know they and their core soldiers might be allowed to leave if they are caught even if the regular soldiers are put to death. This of course depends on the time period. I recently read a thing where in England when lords went to war against each other, many times the ones trapped in the castle and are going to be forced to surrender, will sue for an agreement to be allowed to leave, giving up the land. In other periods, the heads of the leaders were paraded through the sreets on a pole.
The real question one must consider is what is going to happen to you if you lose the battle? What will you do to avoid the punishment? If i have to sacrifice half my force to capture their leaders and end the war, well......
posted
Oh, the consequences of losing are very important. For much of European history being ransomed was very common. The consequences of surrendering weren't bad for the leaders or knights (not so nice for the hoi polloi). On the other hand take a look at the description of the Battle of Sterling Bridge in Scotland. Sometimes surrender wasn't an option you were given even if you were a leader or knight.
By the way on the subject of tactics that battle is an interesting example.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 04, 2007).]
i am a big history buff and war kind of guy, but i still find wrighting battels hard. especily when i am trying to wright battles in space. i find it helps to read books and watch old movies with battles in them and work upo my battles from what i saw in my minds eye. pluse if there are rulls to your war that makes things harder. in my oppinion war should have no rulls. so my war books there is lots of piligion and raping and killing of innisons, etc. my books take place over 10000 years and 3 species at war at diferent times in the same universe with 4 MCs.
maby i have lost my mind, i dont know i have been working on these books fro 6 years, 2 of them are only 75% compleat.
posted
Why not use a real battle and change the names. It will be easy to work out the decisive move (because an expert has already analysed it!) Merely change place names, leaders, perhaps rename weapons etc. The tatics and strategies of the actual battle and how they helped to win or lose that battle will be evident.
The benefit will also be if you need a few battles in your story you can use another battle from the same campaign -- if there was one -- and will perhaps have different reason for the victory.
posted
Certainly take ideas from old battles and adapt them, which is what generals have sometimes tried to do. But make them battles where comparable technology to that in the story was used. The Battle of Marathon was fought in a very different way to Assaye, despite some similarities.
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posted
I do that actually which may be why I sometimes refer to the Wars of Scottish Independence. They fought a LOT of battles and I always enjoy using the ones where they did bad things to the Brits.
I use the ones where the Brits win for the bad guys.
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