Don't Get Lost in the Battle

With high or adventure fantasy, battles tend to be part of the genre.  What better way to draw to a climax than sending thousands of armed soldiers against each other, perhaps led by some savage who can kill 1,000 by himself?

But before jumping into the fray, you might consider a few points to keep yourself from getting lost in the battle.

First, think through the logistics.  How many combatants are there?  What kinds of battle units are involved?  What is the landscape like?  How are the armies supplied?  What is the objective of each side?

Once you have a general idea of who will be skirmishing, take time to research what similar battles looked like.  For example, if you have an army consisting of cavalry, archers and infantry, how many make up each group?  From there, research historical battles involving similar groups.  It's not difficult to find strategies generals would use for organizing their forces and positioning them for battle.  Research how people fought with the weapons and armor that your armies employ. 

I don't need to do any research; I'm writing fantasy.  Don't let your genre excuse laziness.  Plausibility exists in fantasy worlds; we need something to hold on to while we explore the unknown.

Years ago, I was trying to write a battle between men and dwarves, and I struggled with how to write it.  So I called a friend who does Civil War reenactments to get his take on battles.  He had personal experience with mock battles, and I picked his brain on how fatigued he would get, how hot he would get, the level of confusion involved, etc.  He also read a lot of accounts of battles, which allowed me to ask more gruesome details, like how bodies would stack up.  Some of his answers led me to new questions I hadn't planned on asking.  These tangible details greatly helped me in anchoring the reader to the narrative.

Plan the battle at a macro level first so that you know how you want it to play out.  What movements will take place?  How will it be resolved?  How many casualties will there be?

After understanding the battle at a macro level (and perhaps describing it at a macro level), personalize the battle.  Let the reader follow the character (or characters) who matter.  A battle without characters means next to nothing.  Why should the reader care about the outcome?  And through that character, let the reader experience the reality of the battle with all of its excitement, dread, and whatever emotions you want to pull into the scene.

When you focus on individuals, be mindful of the macro level at the same time.  Otherwise your writing will be out of sync, making for a confusing tale.  The characters don't need this macro information, but you do.  If it helps to stage figurines while you write or draw crude graphics, do it.  Just keep yourself grounded in what's happening.

If you decide to change the battle, go back to your notes on the macro level and rethink all scenes in the narrative that are affected by the change. 

Stay focused, and read everything with a critical eye.  Ask yourself what is happening in all directions.  Take breaks and make new drawings or notes if you need to.  Even if the battle is rushing along, you don't need to rush your way through writing it. 

When the battle's over and you know you've taken into account all of the subtle details, you'll share in the victory.

The Art of War

Writers of high (or epic) fantasy will inevitably find their stories leading to a climatic battle at some point. Depicting war within a fantasy world should lend itself to a few principles of reality, but it shouldn’t become so engrossed with details so as to lose the pace of a military conflict. I offer a few ideas for crafting war into fantasy tales.

I never liked hearing this as a young writer, but this is true even of fantasy writing: you can’t effectively write what you don’t know. I’m not by any means suggesting that in order to write battles a writer must experience one first-hand. I do believe, however, that a writer must know about war and battles in order to best tell a story involving them. A parallel thought is this: a male writer could use a female protagonist effectively even though he has never been female, but he certainly won’t create a believable character if he doesn’t know any women.

Since fiction is not true, we cannot rely upon other stories for background information. I believe other stories can teach us how to write, but they should not be our sources for subject matter expertise. One of the main problems in relying upon fictional material is that it may have no factual basis for its military sequences either, so your own credibility gets washed away with theirs.

History is a great source for military knowledge, but by no means should we study medieval warfare alone. The fact that modern wars have been fought in different ways ought to aid us within the fantasy world. For example, suppose you have an army that utilizes gigantic tortoises to push through enemy barricades. Reading articles or books about tanks could give you the necessary understanding about the kinds of strategies and techniques favorable to your hard-shelled reptiles. Other things to watch for in classic battles: terrain, weather and battle formations.

If you can find someone with personal experience, that works even better. Before I wrote “From Drì Anem To Dervinâss,” I spoke with a friend of mine who participates in Civil War battle reenactments. Not only did he have the first-hand experience of what it was like to be in a battle (if only a mock battle) with the number of troops relative to what I was writing, but he also had an extensive knowledge of some realties of actual battle in that time period that I hadn’t considered. If possible, find local veterans and spend some time with them; they might be more than willing to share a few tales of their own.

A final point I would like to make is one of logistics. Research the rates of travel for armies of the type in your story. Also consider what it would take to feed and supply the army. One thing some people may not consider is how widespread an army can become while traveling. If an army of ten thousand foot soldiers is broken into ranks of ten, your army has a thousand ranks. Give each rank some breathing room, and the army easily spans over a mile in length. From being in marching band, I’ve found that even a group as small as four hundred, while marching, will stretch several blocks while moving. Ten thousand foot soldiers will likely stretch to several miles in length while moving, and they won’t all get to their destination at the same time.

I used to take fantasy writing lightly, substituting facts for my own thoughts on how things could work. It’s a trap to think that since we’re writing fantasy, especially high fantasy, that we can neglect certain principles of reality (such as armies traveling three hundred miles a day on foot without rest or food). Use nuggets of plausible facts to build credibility and establish trust with readers. Oh, and you’re welcome to use the tortoise idea if you like, but please don’t describe them as living off sunshine and happiness.