No one ever wrote a war story by writing for his own fiction.
He wrote it by making the other poor dumb author write for his, and rip him off!
Fiction set in the battlefields of both past and present are rich in possibilities and
engaging conflicts.
War stories give the author the opportunity to explore dark themes and reflect upon the
nature of the human condition.
Just kidding.
It’s mostly an excuse to show off lots of explosions.
The real life tragedy of war can be considered a slightly controversial subject.
But don’t let nuance get in the way!
Who needs realistic depictions of the devastation, violence, and suffering when we have awesome
action scenes and adventure without all of the long downtime between battles and the
endless logistics of real war.
So marshal the tropes…
I mean troops as we march off to write a war story!
One of the biggest and most central characters to any war story is the war itself.
Real life historical wars often have numerous accounts written from many different perspectives.
These varied records can make researching the setting easy, but they make even better
drink coasters.
It is far easier to skim the wikipedia article before getting bored a third of the way through
and instead watch MASH.
Don’t worry.
I am sure history nerds won’t point out a story’s historical inaccuracies.
With our setting barely researched the war is on, but first we need a few good men or
rather a bunch of stock characters.
We could use a boot camp scene to establish our characters first.
Be sure to have a loud drill instructor who will steal the show.
We can also start by introducing a soldier fresh out of boot camp into an already established
unit.
There he can quickly be shown to the rest of the squad as the author beats the audience
over the head with their one or two character traits a piece.
Some of these characters include:
The gruff veteran.
You can easily spot this character because he always has a five oh clock shadow and may
or man not have a cigar.
Despite having significant experience and being reluctant to get to know the new guy,
he will usually end up sacrificing himself for the new recruit later in the story in
order to humanize him.
The sadist soldier.
This solider is needed in order to shoehorn in the standard issue war crime scene.
Why this man is still serving on the front lines despite being obviously unstable is
a mystery no writer need bother to solve.
He is just there so we can pretend the story is morally complex or something.
Being a sadist means that the character will probably survive at least until the final
climax of the story.
The incompetent and usually authoritarian officer will probably get his men killed.
Never address how this guy even got to such a high rank in the first place despite showing
absolutely no leadership abilities at all.
The competent officer.
This character can easily be identified by his light touch and loose command style.
Just overlook the question about how he manages to keep discipline in his unit despite never
calling out the other characters on their obvious lapses in duty that would get any
other soldier court marshaled.
The idealistic medic who may or may not be a conscientious objector.
This character is needed in order to contrast with the sadist soldier, but has much lower
odds of surviving in order to showcase the tragedy and randomness of death in war.
The joker.
This character is needed to add comic relief.
Like all other comic relief, this should be his only character trait!
After trying in vain to get the audience to sympathize with the cast, it’s time to move
on to the plot.
War stories plots are easy since the story’s progress can be counted by how many characters
are left alive.
Surviving a war story is actually pretty straightforward.
The less poignant his death would be, the more likely a soldier is to survive.
Only characters devoid of motives or attempts to humanize them in the downtime between battle
scenes have any chance of making it until the end.
Being sympathetic is a surefire way to die.
Also never ever show anyone a picture of a loved one!
In fact, carrying pictures of anyone in a war story is a death sentence as they make
for tragic mementos.
While humanization often proves fatal in war stories, an author can also use the lull between
combat scenes to have the soldiers reflect upon the nature of war and human suffering.
In fact, why wait, we can have our soldiers become philosophers in the middle of battle!
Combat is a great time to reflect upon the human condition!
I guess in the last part of boot camp they make all of the soldiers read Nietzsche or
something.
Speaking of combat, action scenes are where a war story can really shine.
Making a gritty and realistic battle scene is actually super easy!
Just use shaky cam as a substitute for proper editing!
In fact, let’s use shaky cam all the time!
That won’t get on the audience's nerves.
But surely there are more ways we can spice up a war story plot.
Why not add a love triangle?
Oh?
You think I’m joking don’t you!
Surely you think that war stories, a genre aimed primarily at a male demographic featuring
a predominantly male cast, must be free of the dreaded love triangle!
Well you would be wrong!
Oh.
So.
Wrong!
No genre is safe from a love triangle.
And if there is one thing fandoms take almost as seriously as war, it’s shipping.