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  • Rose replied to the topic How long is too long for an epic battle scene? in the forum Fantasy Writers 4 years, 2 months ago

    @jared-williams

    Short answer, it’s the first draft, it genuinely does not matter! Keep going, you can trim it down later if you find it too long!

    The longer answer, it is on the long side.

    After finishing and letting it sit for a couple of months, you can consider a few things when you read it.

    Check your causality. Especially in a battle, A should cause B, should cause C. If you have a break in this or something else going on that doesn’t have an impact, you should fix that. Otherwise, it can get too cluttered.

    You may know about Sanderson’s three laws of magic.

    1. Your ability to solve problems with magic is directly related to how well the reader understands it,

    2. Limitations are more interesting than abilities,

    3. Expand, don’t add.

    I’ve found this applies beautifully to battles, with minor adjustments.

    1. Your reader will only become invested as well as they understand what’s going on.

    2. Mistakes and failures the characters have to work around are more interesting than victories.

    (My favorite battles are when characters go in with a waterproof plan and have to throw it out almost instantly and improvise.)

    3. It’s better to have one event that pulls its full weight and has as much impact as possible, instead of many events that go halfway.

    Also, I’d add to that that most readers (Specifically character-focused readers, like me) are mainly invested in battles because of how they impact the characters.

    Besides that, don’t become discouraged! It’s easier to have too much and trim down than the other way around!

    That’s all I can think of, I don’t enjoy writing battles and have gotten quite expert at avoiding them XD Still, now and then, there’s no other solution XD

     

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