Maybe switching between point of views of different soldiers, some of them getting killed

bang bang bang
jack was kil

>>8017107

I do that quite a bit. It's hard to coordinate, especially when several events are supposed to happen at once, like in pic related when they are shot down and fighting their way out of a crashed cruiser.

I am tyring to focus on keeping the sentences short, but I end up using "shot" or "fired" or "put a bullet thruogh" way too much. It just feels like word gymnastics after a point.

>>8017137
Then switch more, focus on different things the soldiers are doing during the battle. They aren't shooting all the time.

Maybe you can draw some inspiration from this excerpt from Red Badge of Courage:

>He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part--a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country--was in crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.

>If he had thought the regiment was about to be annihilated perhaps he could have amputated himself from it. But its noise gave him assurance. The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited, proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades. It wheezed and banged with a mighty power. He pictured the ground before it as strewn with the discomfited.

>Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere--a blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones. A burning roar filled his ears.

>Following this came a red rage. He developed the acute exasperation of a pestered animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs. He had a mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at a time. He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers. He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast.

>Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat. He fought frantically for respite for his senses, for air, as a babe being smothered attacks the deadly blankets.

You can see here that immersive combat writing doesn't seek to explain the battlefield from an objective standpoint: offer the reader all of the clamor and chaos that your characters experience, and any narration of the actual timeline of events should come in the form of flashing clues and frantic sensations that would actually be available to one of the soldiers on the line.

As an Infantryman myself, I can say from my very limited experience (training only, but a good deal of it), that a soldier's input of the goings-on of a battlefield is audio. A soldier hears what is going on around him much better than he sees it. Another tip is to keep distances a little larger than you might want to. On the modern battlefield, 200 meters is considered "close."

>>8017205
Another thing: I'd be impressed by a passage that doesn't try to write eagle-eyed badasses on the battlefield. Traditionally, an Infantry rifleman is taught to fire for suppression at "known, likely, and suspected" enemy positions, and it's almost impossible to actually see your shot hit a target.

Try writing enemy positions as estimates based on clues from received fire and the layout of the terrain. If Peter hears machine gun fire* a couple hundred meters out from his front, and steals a glance that way to find a thickly vegetated birm overlooking a draw, he should immediately begin placing shots in the direction of the crest and the front face of the birm, despite not seeing anything specific. Then, maybe, if he keeps his eyes in that direction, he'll see a muzzle flash or two, and shoot at that stimulus until he stops hearing/seeing activity in that area.

*(note here: it takes minimal experience to differentiate what the different weapons systems commonly found on the battlefield sound like. Any soldier who's been in for a few weeks can categorize a weapon - 5.56 point, 5.56 belt fed, 7.62 point, 7.62 belt fed, heavy machine gun - just by hearing it. Don't be afraid of sounding unrealistic by writing a soldier who deduces very expertly with his ears. Typically, soldiers in real life are better with sound information than people think they are, and much worse with visual information than people think they are.)

>>8017236

Agreed. Most of the battles I write are CQB, but I love the idea of people shooting at shit they don't even see, just guessing where the enemy is from the sounds of gunfire.

>>8017186

I do. I try to keep them moving, or shouting to each other, or ducking behind cover, or trying to guess where someone is.

>>8017249
>Most of the battles I write are CQB

Oh yeah, I'm not Delta Dan or anything so I have a lot less to offer you there lol. I'll tell you what though, I'm actually on a detachment this week that's serving as OpFor for some urban ops training that another unit is doing. I'll be observing their performance in a few different training missions, most of them in buildings and town streets and stuff. If you'd like, I'll try to take some notes on how one would write those scenarios based on what I see, and share them with you in a few days.

Go get in a shootout and use that as inspiration.

Seriously though it depends on the tone of your story. If it's serious you should keep it tense and realistic. If it's goofy you could probably ham it up and make it more "Hollywood."

>>8017279

That'd be good. If the thread is dead by then you can send it to me at [email protected], I'd love to see any notes you have. Thx anon.

>>8017428

It's serious. I've been in plenty of airsoft shootouts but those are pretty much running from tree to tree shooting until someone ducks at the wrong time and gets hit. There's team coordination and stuff but that's hard to convey in a book. It's hard to describe a battlefield I envision in my head. I think movies are better suited to action than novels; focusing on the characters' feelings is what is important.

>>8017428

also airsoft fights are with toys so it's usually within 100 feet, which is VERY close quarters for guns. Most of the battles in the book I am writing take place at 200 to 300 feet, though sometimes closer.

>>8017095
i think it should read more like an after action report. very to the point, matter of fact, no frills language.
save all the flowery prose for the rest of your story.

>soldier did this
>soldier was using this weapon when he did this
>an enemy soldier approached carrying this

>>8017095
Make it jagged and fast paced. There is no time for details and new things keep happening really fast. Nothing happens the character expected. It seems more chance based than anything else.

The reader has a very hard time following what's happening. Then you can either have what happened explained later or have hints at what happened or nothing at all.


Also it does depend on the angle you want. Is this some people shooting at each other for the first time or battle hardened veterans who've been at it several years?

>>8017095
I'm going out on a limb, but try reading some Karen Travis. She makes things nice and gritty.

>>8018221
>Is this some people shooting at each other for the first time or battle hardened veterans who've been at it several years?

A bit of both, actually. Early I on I focus on their fear and shaky aim but later on they grow more hardened.