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Q&A How to make travel scenes interesting without adding needless plot diversions?

I use points in the travel scenes for character development, and skip the rest with a sentence. "It was a two day walk before they got to the travel barge headed down the Black River." Then one o...

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

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-19T22:13:03Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30502
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T00:50:02Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30502
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T00:50:02Z (almost 5 years ago)
I use **points** in the travel scenes for character development, and skip the rest with a sentence. "It was a two day walk before they got to the travel barge headed down the Black River."

Then one of the characters lies her ass off making friends with the captain, not to get a cheaper price or get any information, just to make him like her.

Things can happen in inns, shops, taverns and stables that reveal character traits important elsewhere: Somebody is quick to anger or violence, somebody is a casual thief, somebody is flirtatious or even promiscuous, whatever.

Life happens during travel. It would be rather surprising if two people travel together for seven days and absolutely **_nothing_** changed in how much they knew of each other, trusted each other, or felt for each other (for good or ill), or how much they had thought of their situation and felt about THAT. Unless they are in suspended animation, that seems both unrealistic, and under-imagined.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-09-28T21:49:27Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 0