Battle Scene

[edwardcullen13]

Hey there, can somebody help me answer this question:

How do you write a 2000 person on 2 person battle? I am having a tough time.

[TheKnightWhoSaidNi]

That's pretty vague. Who's the focus of the scene? Which of the two people, or which of the two thousand soldiers? Does the scene switch perspectives? In other words, start out by asking "whose point of view do I want to express the scene from?" Ask yourself that and then write the scene from that perspective.

[jonereb]

Answer the questions posed by KnightWhoSaid, then read a few novels/passages that relate. I needed to write a Civil War scene, so first I read The Red Badge of Courage as research.

[edwardcullen13]

I dont really know if this might help but to give an answer to your question here's the excerpt of where i am at.

“Edward, what’s going on?” Naro asked.
“I’ll explain later. Prepare to fight.” Edward said unleashing his sword and allowing a very slight color change in his eyes. “We can’t kill them. So, just hurt them to a point of unconsciousness. But whatever you do, do NOT underestimate them.”
“But they’re just humans.” Naro said.
“Yeah, humans… human bodies possessed by souls of evil fused with demons of hell.”
“Very good Edward,” a guy said to the right.
“You know what we are,” a girl said standing directly perpendicular to where the last guy was standing.
“Sadly that’s not going to help you much, you see there’s 1000 maybe 2000 of us and only 2 of you. Not very good odds now is it? Besides you’re not allowed to kill us now are you?” the guy said cockily.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t you cheeky bastard.” Naro said now getting pissed off and unsheathing his sword.
“No Naro, we can’t, they’re regular human’s just possessed. We can’t hurt them unless you want to go to jail or never be able to come back to London. We can only knock them unconscious.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.” Naro said.
“Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,” the guy and girl laughed as they raised their arms, signaling their lesser minions after Edward and Naro. The possessed souls came rushing forward, Edward and Naro jumped onto the stage and Naro asked, “Wait, can’t we just control the cops minds into thinking it was someone else and kill everyone?”
“We could, but, think of the people. We’ll be tearing family’s hearts apart, sending them into a life of woe and sadness.” Edward replied.
“Since when do you care?”
“You’re right. Let’s kill ‘em.” Edward said quickly with a crooked smile and a demonic look in his eyes.

[ClaudiaGray]

Honestly, if it's 2000 against 2, I don't see the scene lasting that long to start with. If there's some really compelling reason for these people not to be pulverized within 60 seconds, then you ought to make that clear and call on it immediately; it's the only factor in the fight, really.

[edwardcullen13]

im sorry, not to be rude or anything, but i failed to mention that Edwrad and Naro are extremely powerful vampires who have already killed EXTREMELY strong demons earler.

Im sorry for failing to say that. Please excuse my rudeness.

[TheKnightWhoSaidNi]

I figured it had to be a super hero story or something, otherwise I would've pointed out the obvious lack of logic.

[edwardcullen13]

again i am terribly sorry about failing to mention the details.

[Dancre]

First things first, you need to watch your punctuation.

“I’ll explain later. Prepare to fight.” Edward said unleashing his sword and allowing a very slight color change in his eyes.

“I’ll explain later. Prepare to fight,” Edward said unleashing his sword and allowing a very slight color change in his eyes. You need a comma after fight.

If you want this puppy published, then you need to understand the basics to writing.

As how to write the fight, I suggest an outine might help.

kim

[reenkam]

I think it'd kind of depend on the nature of your vampires. Like, if they had superspeed then they'd fight faster, so then you could mention a couple of the individual hits, a few vague descriptions, and be done with it. If they have super strength then more than one of the 2000 could be taken out at the same time. 2000 people would most likely just run foward and crush anything that was massively huge, so the vampires will need something supernatural on their side, other than biting, I'd think. Just use that in your description and make it go fast. I don't see something like that being a battle that would go on for pages and pages. Something quick with non-specific descriptions that are more generalized to the group than to specific people in the group should work. (with the group being the 2000)

All of that's just my opinion/suggestion, of course.

[edwardcullen13]

i dont mean to be rude yet again, but would y'all like a list of the things i think the vamps can do? To help you all try to help me...if that makes sense...

[JoNightshade]

It doesn't matter what we tell you in advance... you're the one who is writing this, and you're going to have to write the scene your way, in the best way that fits into the book. Why don't you give it a try and then post it in Share Your Work? I think you will get more useful suggestions after it's written.

[FennelGiraffe]

Even an extremely powerful vampire can only do one thing at a time. Maybe he can to do a whole lot of things in quick succession, and maybe he can subdue a large number of opponents with a single move, but he's still going to make a sequence of separate actions.

Step back and think through exactly how the battle happens, in slow motion, move by move, opponent by opponent.

Once you know it, you'll be able to write it.

[edwardcullen13]

Thank you very much everyone as soon as i write this scene i will take Jo's advice and put it in Share Your Work and see what everyone thinks...Thanks again.

*Edward