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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47256
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47256
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

It really depends on how you write it, how important all the components are, and if you can construct a consistent narrative journeying through the story.

Think back to all the big budget movies you've seen where there are giant armies and dozens of characters fighting on screen. The scenes are usually chaotic with lots of things happening at the same time, and in many cases it's just too hard to follow. But some of them work out well because they focus on specific narratives at a time, and use the rest of the battle as a backdrop. For example, in the battle of Helm's Deep, we spend a lot of time following the characters we know, witnessing things through their eyes, and it's okay if we don't see everything in the fight because we're focused on the parts that are important.

In written text, it can be a little more challenging because you can't show simultaneous action well, so there's a big risk that you end up with a muddled and confusing mess. But it's not impossible.

The [Wheel of Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time) had an epic fate-of-the-world battle, "The Last Battle", where all the characters in the 14-book series got together in a last desperate struggle. In this fight, seventeen factions of light take on seven groups of shadow, and each force's story is told from the perspective of one or more characters associated with that group - the characters readers have followed along throughout the series. All the character stories and plot threads are given space for resolution, and the battle chapter clocks in at a massive [81,000 words](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/statistical-analysis-wheel-time/), more than the entire first Harry Potter novel!

You don't have nearly so many individuals and probably won't need 273 pages for your battle, but some of the things that worked for Robert Jordan may work for your case.

It sounds like you have multiple point-of-view characters you've been building up through your story. Your battle is large enough, you can tell different parts of the battle through the lens of your major characters. Break it down into the individual narratives and you can relay it like a sequence of events taking place as part of the overall conflict. Similar to how you've broken it down in your question, you can start with a few groups and their skirmish, and then have the next group show up, and the next, and the next as things spiral into chaos.

But also take care to keep the narrative scope small enough so that it doesn't become overwhelming. If Gang 1 manages to escape from Gang 2 for a while, Gang 2 can temporarily drop out of the narrative while Gang 1 encounters another gang until it's time for Gang 2 to resurface again.

Just like in the movies, if you have too many characters on screen at the same time, then the individual actions of each get lost in the shuffle. If you can keep the focus on a few characters at any given time - say, a half-dozen or so - it'll be easier to follow along.

Original score: 4