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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39442
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39442
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

People on long journeys talk to each other, about themselves. Even life-long friends (I have traveled with some) talk about what they are seeing, what it reminds them of doing together, what it reminds them they wish they did. If you have people that do not know each other well, this is a chance for them to tell stories of shaping events in their lives. It is a chance for them to argue philosophy.

What you need to devise is a **_kind_** of conversation between the characters in the traveling group, so given a conversation or two, the reader sees a pattern. Then you can plausibly skip days or months of uneventful travel time, but the reader believes they are getting to know each other, and through the conversations you DO write, you reveal character for all participants: Both in what they share, and how they react to what is shared with them. So you (as author) find an excuse for characters to relate defining or turning point events in their lives.

Or if it is friends, some things they found funny, or wondrous, or in general fun to remember. On a boring walk, it is natural to seek stimulation and take your mind off of plodding west.

So just about anything to pass the time. In the same vein, you can have them play guessing games, the equivalent of twenty questions for kids while driving cross country, or "I Spy", or riddles or songs.

But you don't have to fill the whole time between Point A and Point B, just show us a scene that gives us the idea, here is how they pass the time.

With one caveat: If there is anything that **matters** revealed in these conversations, that lets one character make an important decision because she **knows** her travel companion, that is a conversation to be shown, so the reader is not in the dark and finds the correct choice a plausible decision.

Original score: 2