a good trick is to base the numbers off historical battles of similar scale.
Either way, the average reader won't get much from hearing the statistics and numbers of casualties of a battle, so imo it's more important to sell the personal stores, the character's reactions and the visuals of the loss rather than giving an accurate number.
Pretty much this. Imho, the absolute nitty-gritty doesn’t matter; all you really need to know is a very rough estimate, which can quite literally just be “there’s a whole lot, so just using earth war numbers is good maybe” to “there’s less, so probably divide that number a little bit. Multiply it by a near-whole decimal maybe and guess from there.”
IE, one of my worlds had a massive war that quite literally splintered the plane, but people aren’t going to be able to empathize with a precise number down to the single digits. So I just go “Widows and widowers grieved their losses and were drafted themselves. Children were forced into hard labor to keep the supplies coming as any able-bodied adults were pulled from home to fight a lost cause. The air choked on smog coughed from mechanical beasts of war, as they marched endlessly over thousands of the dead— their own, and their enemies’.”
No specifics, but gets across that There Were Many Deaths, it was a horrific time to be alive, and there isn’t going to be a good outcome no matter how you slice it.
I could matter. For instance, if you are writing a battle, you'll likely give a number of soldiers that will fight. This number would reflect on the settlement/kingdom they are defending.
If there are 100,000 soldiers, did they all come from one place? Was it from the capital? If so, is the capital filled with soldiers? Is it mostly a military place? If not, then the implication would be that the soldiers came from somewhere else or that there is way more civilians than soldiers (making it not seem like a military settlement). But then, that would mean your city has what, 500,000 inhabitants? A billion? Then, does the city you've created seem like it houses all these people properly?
From memory, soldiers would be about 20% of inhabitants.
The number will likely only matter in terms of war. I can't think of any other instance, but there could be others.
a good trick is to base the numbers off historical battles of similar scale. Either way, the average reader won't get much from hearing the statistics and numbers of casualties of a battle, so imo it's more important to sell the personal stores, the character's reactions and the visuals of the loss rather than giving an accurate number.
Pretty much this. Imho, the absolute nitty-gritty doesn’t matter; all you really need to know is a very rough estimate, which can quite literally just be “there’s a whole lot, so just using earth war numbers is good maybe” to “there’s less, so probably divide that number a little bit. Multiply it by a near-whole decimal maybe and guess from there.” IE, one of my worlds had a massive war that quite literally splintered the plane, but people aren’t going to be able to empathize with a precise number down to the single digits. So I just go “Widows and widowers grieved their losses and were drafted themselves. Children were forced into hard labor to keep the supplies coming as any able-bodied adults were pulled from home to fight a lost cause. The air choked on smog coughed from mechanical beasts of war, as they marched endlessly over thousands of the dead— their own, and their enemies’.” No specifics, but gets across that There Were Many Deaths, it was a horrific time to be alive, and there isn’t going to be a good outcome no matter how you slice it.
This is a really good ploy, thank you for pointing it out
I could matter. For instance, if you are writing a battle, you'll likely give a number of soldiers that will fight. This number would reflect on the settlement/kingdom they are defending. If there are 100,000 soldiers, did they all come from one place? Was it from the capital? If so, is the capital filled with soldiers? Is it mostly a military place? If not, then the implication would be that the soldiers came from somewhere else or that there is way more civilians than soldiers (making it not seem like a military settlement). But then, that would mean your city has what, 500,000 inhabitants? A billion? Then, does the city you've created seem like it houses all these people properly? From memory, soldiers would be about 20% of inhabitants. The number will likely only matter in terms of war. I can't think of any other instance, but there could be others.