Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How to show a character being bored for multiple chapters without boring the reader

Make the character bored, not boring. Whatever the reason that you want to show how your character is bored for chapters, exactly that reason should be making the story interesting. If that doesn't...

posted 7y ago by DonQuiKong‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:13:00Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33983
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar DonQuiKong‭ · 2019-12-08T08:13:00Z (about 5 years ago)
Make the character bored, not boring. Whatever the reason that you want to show how your character is bored for chapters, exactly that reason should be making the story interesting. If that doesn't make sense, your reason to have chapters of boredom is a bad one.

An example would be to show the contrast between interesting politics and an oblivious king being completely bored by that. While the story evolves around him, the character is bored but you have to show how the story evolves.

If however the reason for the boredom of your character is that the story is boring and there is nothing else happening, and nothing else that's interesting and that you can show, skip that!

You cannot sell a book that goes _she was asleep, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in ...... a little snore ...._ for pages. But you can sell one that says _while she was sleeping, someone stole all her stuff._

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-03-05T12:11:36Z (almost 7 years ago)
Original score: 4