WAR STORIES - Terrible Writing Advice

When writing a war story, an author needs to keep low because you never know when you are going to get hit with a cliché! Let’s get down in the trenches to write a war story. We just need a few good men and we can march to victory, or at least good box office sales.

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[iomnibus]

You forgot a couple of characters/archetypes in your squadron:
- The guy from Brooklyn with the thick Italian or Puerto Rican accent (the latter if you want a token Latino);
- The guy from Texas who wears his 10 gallon hat under his helmet;
- The overweight "slow" one who ultimately takes one for the team by falling on a grenade, or jumps in front of the hero to take a bullet;
- The Midwestern kid who had never left his farm before the war, and never swears (e.g. "golly gee willickers.")
- The guy who always quotes from, and carries The Bible.

[tyrantking]

Nothing is safe from the love triangle, not even the love triangle.

[soapblocks]

NO GENRE IS SAFE. HIDE YOUR PLOTS. PROTECT YOUR STORIES. WE CANNOT LET THE LOVE TRIANGLES TAKE OVER.

[intergalactichumanempire]

Remember: NEVER depict the enemy as anything other than 110% evil

[noapld]

you forgot about the girl soldier. she doesn't have a character, she's just there so critics won't call the movie sexist. But fear not! the girl one never actually does anything

[kimarous]

"The incompetent and usually authoritarian officer who'll probably get his men killed": a WW1 classic!

[eqlipse]

There's only one thing which bugs me about this video. As a veteran myself, I have met EVERY SINGLE ONE of those "tropes" in real life. Incompetent officers in particular were a painfully common experience =_=

[zeframmann]

When Hiromu Arakawa wrote the Ishbalan war arc of Fullmetal Alchemist, a fantasy war in a fantasy setting, she not only read many books on various real-life wars, but she sat down and interviewed surviving veterans of WW2. The story that she claims stuck with her the hardest was the one old man who only sadly said, "I still can't watch war movies."

[AnniechungChung]

"If there's one thing that fandoms take almost as seriously as war, it's shipping."

May I dare disagree? Shipping is a war.

[Sir_Rune]

Why not have a war story in wich a war starts because of a love triangle.

[JRichard]

But... but how do I use shaky cam in a book?

[snowwonder]

My history teacher refused to watch that movie because he knew it had a love triangle.

[denisonfagundes]

Yes, I will write about war, with an evil empire, in space, and with a love dodecahedron, and a female chosen one, and it's gonna be great, with lots of battles and evil superiors who hate the lesser grunts.

[anarana]

Also make sure that the enemy is absolutely evil, having their soldiers show no humanity at all and killing little kids
everyone knows there's only one good side in a war!

[Nisselak]

I ship The Sadist Soldier with The Idealistic Medic

But of course, The Protagonist can be added to have the love triangle

[aquaperi]

Here's something that one should TOTALLY do (not):

Have the surviving fighters have NO MENTAL TRAUMA after the war.... Yeah...

BECAUSE TRAUMA TOTALLY NEVER HAPPENS TO SOLDIERS IN A WAR!

[pyrosauria]

You forgot the spice of war stories. 1) Ridiculous enemy weapons and 2) pet companion that's used for audience manipul-I MEAN sympathy. :3

[magiv]

"If there's one thing fandoms take almost as seriously as war, it's SHIPPING. "

What do you mean by "almost"?

[bryan]

"Never address how this guy got to such a high rank in the first place despite never showing any leadership abilities at all", You haven't been in the military then have you? ;)

[fakename]

>when the youtube channel you made to subtly promote your self-published book outshines that book's success in about three months