December 19th, 2020
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Does anyone have any tips for writing a good battle scene?
Essentially, I’m writing a historical what-if movie about what would happen if the Americans developed time travel and declared war on the Roman Empire. The IP is already copyrighted, so don’t try anything haha.
The scene I’m having trouble writing is a battle between the Roman Legions and the Americans. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be describing in my action lines. My vision for the scene is essentially this: Julius the Seizer rides in on a horse and the Americans focus all of their firepower on him but his armor deflects it all. Then the armies charge at each other and the romans hijack all of the tanks and destroy the Americans. Then, after the battle, they have the American president in handcuffs.
I don’t know how to make this battle epic and filmable. Is this normally something that you leave up to the discretion of the battle choreographer?
December 19th, 2020
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Comments:
BiscuitsTheory
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LuciusDickusMaximus
Usually there’s a lot of explosions. Other than that you have me stumped
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[deleted]
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[deleted]
This is such a fantasy battle, that you better show it to the reader. I would describe every single meaningful action and effect. But don't test reader's patience describing soldiers and tanks - we know how they look.
I specialize on nonlinear timetravel scripts. The only simple advice I can give (other than - don't even think about it!): learn everything there is about timetravel. Start with www.tvtropes.org to quickly grasp what has been done before.
Your midbattle timetravel won't work. You can't just merge two timelines. Not that it can't possibly be done (it's fantasy, after all, not scifi), but you'll have to be creative. Fantasy should be logical, unless it's for kids only.
Structurally it will have "3 acts" anyway. The end is not in the middle, since the battle is not finished yet.
Check Timeless TV series. In the episode about a Mexico vs Texas battle heroes find out that they are in the changed timeline already. They fake minor events to let the big one (Revolution) happen in the future, to preserve the original timeline. Without that they or the time machine wouldn't even exist.
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[deleted]
First off, you can’t protect such a basic idea (modern soldiers going back in time to fight ancient soldiers). There are plenty of screenplays with this idea out there, but it doesn’t matter because your specific story is all you need to protect
Anyways, structure it like you would any scene/sequence. Give it a beginning, middle and end. Shift emotional states and end with things moving towards a very unexpected direction
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LuciusDickusMaximus
I really want to subvert the typical structure. I’m thinking that in the middle of the battle Julius goes in the time machine and changes American history and he becomes the president and it is revealed that the entire battle is now Roman Julius vs American Julius. So I think the beginning is actually the end in my case. Any tips on how to do that?
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[deleted]
I dont know much about subverting typical structure, I would stick to what works; alternating emotional states towards ever increasing stakes
Ceaser entering the time machine sounds like a big moment
Revealing Caesar is president sounds like a big moment
Build your battle/other scenes to build up to those payoffs. I would do this using typical structuring techniques
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