War in fiction:

At Life the Universe and Everything symposium, there was a panel on how to depict war in your writing. It had some good suggestions. Any misinformation is the fault of the note taker.

Bring emotional cost to a personal level.
Take a position of showing both sides of the war.
Tell the story from different perspectives that can include two people on the same side who may have two different points of view such as in store wars one rebel believes that she destroy the death Star another rebel says they shouldn’t.
Address what is in it for me.
Lord of the rings shows battles at a grand scale OEC enormous armies fighting. But then it moves the attention to the characters that we care about in their battles the war.
Ask what the goal is for the battle. And then present at a personal level.
Some good authors that display war are David Weber and Tom Chancy.
Determine what the story is about will affect why you have a war. Let me should you want to accomplish? What is your audience expecting?
Be involved with the political intrigue. The Emperor may have a chance so that he cannot completely trust while he combats the warden of the nation.
In the TV show M*A*S*H, there’s an episode where general loses his son. The character Hawkeye comes to tell the Gen. of his father’s death. The general spends 30 seconds anguishing over the loss of his son. And then he must become the master of war again and continue fighting and picks up the phone to begin a dialogue to preserve the lives of other soldiers.
Recommended book: All You Need is Kill.
Recommended movie: On the Edge of Moral.
Recommended book: The Things They Carry. It talks about veterans experiences in war.
Wealthy people help finance a war. Who are the wealthy people?
Don’t make your own politics obvious when you get overbearing on your political views you can offend half the audience
Your politics have to make sense to you audience.
The problem with West Wing TV show is that the writer had all the people on the opposite side be stupid. You need to have both sides the intelligent.
Orson Scott card recommended read good history in biographies such as Lyndon Johnson.
Recommended book: Winston Churchill World War II.
When you display war you can present one segment of the war and reflect a bigger war beyond the scene.
Do not info dump. Make sure everything relates to the argument of the war. Ask yourself is it necessary if yes then be brief on the information. Let come out naturally