Large Battles

[Superpower Emboar]

On the current Chapter I am writing the Protagonists are in a huge battle with most of the opposing side. The way I have written these so far is to focus on one battle between two people in particular and every once in a while have glimpses of the outside battle. As I'm writing this chapter though I'm only getting to write about one particular battle for each character and it is frustrating me.

So which is more effective, describing the battle in whole with a few detailed battles or just describing some of the more major battles during the fight?

 

[Venia Silente]

Since this is Pokémon, you could herhaps assist yourself with the scale of the battle to improve description. I'm taking here "most of the opposing side" means over 100 mons, since I haven't read your work. Considering that any low percentage Raticate can Hyperbeam and Sunny Day you could perfectly describe the battle as a set of more or less disjointed scenes against a chaotically changing background, like, while two of the characters are charging at each other, they have to evade volleys of Swifts, a Draco Meteor, or blast away a couple of Protect shields, etc. Having chaos present as a variable in most steps will help reduce the "only one battle" sensation, both for you as a writer and for the audience.

 

[Firebrand]

I think it all depends on your scope. A large battle could mean 20 participants, or 200. With pokemon it becomes even harder, for while there can be only... say, 30 human participants, provided those human participants play by the rules, there can be 200 combatants. If they don't and have more than six pokemon... things are going to get crazy, no matter how good you are at writing large battles.
now, I think if your battle is key for developing these two characters, or focusing on these two is pivotal to the story... then focus on them. However, you must also indicate that there is action going on around them. I have found that this:

***

can be a writers best friend. That symbol (which I'm sure you've come across) means a shift in scenes or a passage of time. You are more interested in the former, in this case. If you make use of shifting scenes, you don't have to worry about the timing of events. You can write, say, four different scenes that are happening simultaneously, like in a movie how things cut away to show the action.

 

[Caithyra]

One could always play a game of pass the baton. Basically:

Alice barked an order at her houndoom, barely getting out of the way as Bob's meowth attacked Chris' golduck. Chris cursed and yelled at Dan, and Dan straightened his back, his tauros attacking Bob's meowth with renewed vigor. Chris then turned back to Eric, who was helping Felicia against Gerald and Hugh, their water pokémon soaking the brothers' fire pokémon.

Just as Chris is about to order his golduck to attack Eric's blastoise, vines wrapped around the blue bird and a voice rung behind Chris.

"You're mine." Ivy motioned to her venusaur and Chris' golduck gargled as the giant plant-reptile started to squeeze the air out of it.

End random five-minute example.

As you can see, the scene shifts kind of like a running take on a film set (watch the absolute last scene of the British cop series The Bill, and you see what I mean), which can add to the chaos and disorientation that a large battle would bring.

Then the chaos takes a breather as one focus on the main battle (Chris and Ivy) for a while, and then Ivy is nearly knocked out by Jake's gligar and the baton is passed around again, until it gets back to the main battle. And then Chris ends up between Karl and Laura's pokémon and has to dodge, and the baton makes another round before coming back. Rinse. Repeat.

However, you might want to keep the high-lighted characters under a certain number, and not go all the way to Xander, Ylva and Zane. Just mentioning some background noise and dodging stray attacks (or avoiding other combatants) during the main battle should suffice.

One can also combine the above technique with others, such as switching POVs when one switches scenes, showing the battle from another angle.

 

[Superpower Emboar]

Its one pokemon for every person.

Mines a fusion fic, yes I realize you are groaning internally right now but its not the usual kind where they get pokemon parts and such. You would have to read to understand what I mean.

So the way iv been writing them so far is like solovino says, chaos is good.

@feralninja, the scope is kind of massive and I gave the cliche of heavily outnumberedgood guys to bad guys.

Also im already switching POV's alot with astericks, but it seems like every time I have one character beating down a dodrio and another is taking down a nidoking more should be happening

 

[Griff4815]

I'm also writing a large-scale battle right now and have written another one recently, both in my Digimon fic "Scars". They were both between thousands of digimon. What I did was start by giving the scope of the battle and then focus on following the main protagonists and antagonists. After all, people aren't reading the story to see what Soldier #438 is doing. Follow the main characters and occasionally mention what's going on around them to provide the sense that the battle is still going on around them.

 

[MHugs]

Well, there are two reasonable ways to move from place to place: association or segmenting.

With association, to shift focus from A vs. X to B vs. Y, have A and X run past B and Y's location, "just as Y hit B with..." and go from there. That sort of idea. You don't need to actually connect them per se.

To segment things, you'll write something like "C rammed into Z, winding him, but he struggled to his feet ready to continue the fight;" paragraph break; next segment of someone else's fight. You can always intro that with "a ways over, A and X..." or "at the same time, B was..." or whatever. You'll notice this lends itself to a certain flow within the segments, where things 'wind down' as you come to the next transition. That means maybe one combatant is (as above) slowed down and just about to get started, or maybe two have dashed off, still clashing but effectively leaving center stage.

Beyond the scraps you want to focus on in that manner, you can take the occasional break to give a bird's-eye view of the whole battle, giving a sense of how things are going. And stuff.

 

[Superpower Emboar]

thanks for the advice everyone! It helped write alot more in detail for this chapter.