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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47648
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47648
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Sigh. Must agree with Galastel, again!

You need tension, just a different kind of tension, or conflict. Even friendly disagreement, filled with laughter, represents tension. The laughter (or mourning) can be cathartic for the characters.

Times of safety are times of contemplation that can lead to **change** in characters. A battle is too fraught a time to come to some new fundamental understanding of one's self, or the world, or the war you are in. Lying on your back, in the dark, feeling safe and contemplative, looking at the stars, is the time to talk about such things.

You want to portray a peaceful interlude. Following the adage "show don't tell", show us characters doing whatever they do when _they are at peace._ Do they read? Party? Drink and joke around? Sleep on the hillside? Play games? Gamble? Show us what peace is like.

Describing a landscape is one thing, but don't depend on the reader to **infer** from your description what it feels like. The landscape should be filtered through the eyes of characters, how it makes **them** feel, what it makes them long for, or remember, or want to tell other characters about.

> "That one there," Fergus said, pointing. "Used to have an oak, just like that one, when I was a kid. Dad hung a swing on it. We built a fort in it, Mum even made me a flag. I wonder if it's still up there."
> 
> "I can't believe you were a kid," Brin said, and Fergus laughed.

Show us your characters at peace, don't just put them to sleep in a field.

Original score: 5