Been a while since the old color has posted anything related to writing of significance. But I seem to have this obsession with military rank, dunno I think I like the idea of it or whatever. And I was wondering how to go about writing a war story/novel. Has anyone experimented with it?
What I am writing now involves some Science Fiction militaries so I don’t know if it is much help to you. so far I have a bit of the fighting be at the micro level, but I plan to have more of it at macro. My military experience is mostly limited to JROTC.
Well what to say? ( i don’t know exactly what you want for experiences) As far as method, i just sort of designed different armies based on different missions and SOP’s I then try pitting them against each other in different logical situations. Naturally for drama i write the forces into scenarios that are against them to try to equalize them a little. For example some of the fighting that happens at the beginning is between the most powerful state in the galaxy and a rather primitive planet. Should be an given fight if the more powerful force was prepared, but they are not. they are not outfitted to take on an invasion and are beyond normal supply lines. So they are short on men, vehicles and munitions. Also there military has become more of a gendarme force in the relative peace that has existed for years that no longer has massive reserves of munitions. This hurts them when they take on a more primitive but dug in planet with supplies. The more powerful force does destroy their centralized manufacturing ability, but this decreases there ordinance. I generally have found it a fun thing to write, as it forces me to think like I am running a battle myself.
Yeah that does seem to make sense, just gotta hunker down and write I guess. The idea of pitting people together seems nice.
That the fun part. One neat exercise i like to do is imagine the two armies fighting over a area that i know and try to figure out how they would react and what different commanders would do.
