Long Travel Portions

10 posts
User avatar
Gender Female
Points 3225
Reviews 365
My characters have been traveling for the past thirty-plus pages, and even I'm bored with it.
They do the same thing day in and day out, mostly complaining or thinking for half the page.
I would feel cheap if I played the whole "One month later..." card.
Question: How can one make uneventful traveling interesting?




User avatar
Gender Other
Points 89625
Reviews 1272
Summery. Instead of showing everything they do (which can get really long, as you have discovered) Summerize what they do over the month/week/year. It will save you a lot of pages and it's not cheating. Sometimes you have to play that card.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 890
Reviews 253
I had that same problem, where my characters were on a 13 hour plane ride, and it was really long, but I didn't want to skip it, because about 1% of it was important. What I did was I had the two characters talk for awhile and then my main character drifted off to sleep. I don't know how long your characters are traveling for, this would probably only work for a couple hours' of travel.
"Just saying none of us want to conquer the world won't stop some other idiot from trying."
~Liberty and Justice, by Paul Dini

www.batmanworldblog.blogspot.com




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 3225
Reviews 365
Like, a month, ha.
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
-Catullus, Carmen 85




User avatar
Gender Other
Points 89625
Reviews 1272
Yep. The ol' summery card is probably your best option in that case. That, or alter the map so it's a shorter trip. Both are deaus ex machina options. Both work and are used by most (if not all) authors.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 1217
Reviews 7
Yeah, I have the exact same problem. For around a month they are traveling, non stop! (well yes they do stop some times, but you get the point!) So I have used the summary and only done the really important scenes.




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 3225
Reviews 365
The thing is, they have to travel for a month or this one character will never have to be forced to reveal something to the other...

But it's annoying because all they do right now is walk around and bitch, sleep, walk, bitch... I'm starting to summarize it up though :)
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
-Catullus, Carmen 85




User avatar
Gender Other
Points 89625
Reviews 1272
I have a similar thing with the long travel things. My characters are super-secretive so the trips are a must. Hence the two, two-week long travel portions. Total important scenes: five, maybe six. Summery for the rest.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 1062
Reviews 4
You can always make travel more interesting by adding in more eventful scenes in travel, make the trips exciting or grow your characters more through dialouge and conversation. If you have anythiing in your story that requires a lot of explaining than have a character explain it while travelling.
"I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible."




Random avatar
Gender Male
Points 1233
Reviews 52
the the uneventful travel portion of you story isn'r working because...well... it's uneventful.

strange and relevent happenings taking place over the travels is a good way to develop character and add new spark to the enviroment through which they are traveling. ( crazy stuff can happen, even on a plane ride)

otherwise you can just pop up a "lil' sumthin' sumthin'" summary.



Spend your days thinking about things that are good and true and beautiful and noble, and you will become good and true and beautiful and noble.
— Matthew Kelly