I was planning out the middle portion of my story, and realized that only like three or four of the chapter moved the actual plot along. Everything else was very episodic and a lot the chapters felt like one-shots. But I feel they were necessary because the MC is learning how to fight, be a warrior and learning about the magic of the world. So the chapters are basically the equivalent of the RPG Side-Quest to level up your character and gain more experience. Plus I really wanted to avoid the whole "instant expert" cliche that fills the fantasy genre and really go into what the MC has to go through both mentally and physically to get up to speed with other more experienced characters. So is there any way to hook the heroes warrior journey into the main plot?
Sure, apply some of his early lessons to later situations. Maybe he messed up bigtime on one of those early adventures, so he's particularly under pressure when a similar situation arises in a do-or-die scenario.
I got the idea that maybe you could introduce a rival, someone the MC had conflict with during his training (always competitive - ex-best friend or even estranged brother). When he's out of 'boot camp' and leaves his master/trainer, the rival then keeps muscling in on his 'quests' after he's done all the hard work, to appear the hero or for ill gotten gains. A miniature conflict to keep the story moving, while you prepare MC for the main event. After his journey from a young naive warrior to a battle-hardened veteran, have the rival reappear as one of the main adversaries. A little cliche, perhaps - but cliche's are called so for a reason - it works. If you're not too obvious about it, they are harder to detect.
You could always keep them in a separate work, as a short story or side story. Gloss over the training in the original work, and then tell the story as a sort of anecdote on its on. I've found that keeps the work you are happy with, without padding the work.
Dude episode type chapters are good, In my opinion. Especially in Action or Comedy novels. You can seperate each major fight into a chapter. The reader expect each chapter to be equally interesting instead of like I find in some more fluid novels that some chapters are quite boring compared to others.
