War & War Plans in YA

Well, firstly, it depends on what genre you are writing in. Sci-fi, Fantasy, Historical, and Contemp are all going to approach war differently.

You probably want to do some basic research on warfare and combat, tactics and strategy. And you have to know what level of technology/knowledge each side has. This blog has lots of good articles if you search under various keywords: http://l-clausewitz.livejournal.com/190040.html And you have to keep in mind that while war, or individual battle, can take place over a wide area, if it's happening to your character, they won't see most of what's happening, just what's happening right in front of them (like, being scared shitless and desperately trying not to die, primarily). I mention it because most YA is written from 1st or close 3rd perspective, so chances are you won't have the opportunity to zoom out your authorial lens to look at the whole battle and see what's going on in the big picture.

I thought the Chaos Walking trilogy (book 2 and 3 mostly) did a decent job of this, but they used unmanned flying camera drones and display screens and long-distance communicators and multiple POVs in order to keep the reader up to date on who was killing who and where. That won't work for every setting.

I'd read a little Sun Tzu (The Art of War) and read up on military history to get a feel for how warfare is conducted. Technology and tactics change, but the overall concepts don't.

Even if you don't zoom out, soldiers can still get a fairly good bead on whats going on. Gossip, rumors and just being in the right place at the right time.

But yeah, a good idea would be to study actual wars. Look at how technology (and magic, if you have it) would change not just how people kill eachother, but how they move and how they communicate. These have HUGE impacts on how people fight.

Frex, in the 18th century, people got into lines not just because their muskets were hugely inaccurate, but also because it was the only way to effectively coordinate troop movements in the heat of battle. Even in the civil war, where guns got way more accurate, armies had a huge command structure and system of couriers to run notes back and forth.

Heck, Gettysburg was such a crushing defeat for the South because of communication errors. I mean, everything else wasn't so hot for them, but some people (including me) think that if Lee had better communications and intelligence, he could have either won the battle...or at the very least, not lost it so hard.

Anywho, read a lot. Think a lot. Those are my suggestions.

And do everything Kitty says. BUt that's just general advice.

I'm glad this is here because if things go as planned, I'm going to have a fairly potential epic war on my hand later on in my series. Fantasy/Paranormal, but still set in our world. Anyway, this helped me too!

Good thread. This is something I'm interested in too.

Do you mean a full on war or are you talking about a battle scene?

If it's a full on war then you need to think about the wider context - where is it going on geographically, how many people are involved, where are the front lines and flash points, what kind of weapons are being used, are the soldiers trained or conscripts, is there a guerrilla element to it or are they head on clashes - and then drill down into where your scene fits into it.

If you're talking about a straightforward battle between two sides, then again you need to think about how many people are involved, what they're doing, what the weapons are, who needs to die/get injured. I always watch war movies and action films when I'm thinking about fight scenes.

MM

What helped me a lot was reading soldiers memoires (I think?) from recent conflicts and stretching back as far as I could read without getting bored. This has given me a somewhat solid basis as to what soldiers really deal with. Particularly the novel version of what became the TV series 'generation kill' (can't remember the name) gave me a huge insight into how a soldier percieves battles.

Ofc. this was for use in a scifi story but if you want to be somewhat accurate, this may help you.