Quote:
Originally Posted by VydorScope
So I am working on book four and I am trying to write this chapter. The problem with the chapter is it is a travel chapter, so at the close of the previous chapter my characters are at location A, and I need them to get to location B so they can do something at that location. So the chapter needs to tell a little about why they are going to this new location, and get them there. Well I have been struggling with it because frankly, its boring.  At a round a thousand words... it does not hold attention but I could not fix it no matter what I did to it.
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The thing is... I could not see that till I left the story and watched/read other peoples work. I do not understand why that works, but it typically does. How about anyone else? That work for you? |
Caveat: I'm a reader, not a writer, so I'll tell you what IMO works in similar situations from that POV.
First of all, if the travel does not add anything to the characters themselves, it's not worth reading. In the journey to Mordor, the relation between Frodo, Sam and Gollum was built and developed, so that long almost eventless travel kept the reader attention. OTOH, Gandalf went from Helm's Deep to the Ents forest in a couple of sentences. And in his meeting with the Hobbits he gives all the motivation for that travel, without boring the readers on the travel itself.
So, I'd say: if you don't know how to make the travel interesting, maybe it's because it does not have a specific function, so you can safely keep it out of your story. When your characters are in B and they do what they're supposed to do, it will be very apparent why the took the journey there.
But if you really want to describe in detail the whole thing, you can use a couple of tricks to keep the reader turning pages, like sacrifice (in the first half of the journey they lose something of great importance and they've got to figure how to go on), struggle (something wants to prevent them from reaching B), satyre (like they are three men in a boat...), revelation (while traveling, they get bits of information they need to perform their task in the B place) and so on.
Just a reader's opinion. Hope you'll find it useful.
