I'm writing a story, and the bulk middle of it is going to be MC traveling from town to town, gaining companions, and encountering enemies throughout. I've never really written about traveling before, so I was hoping I could get some help. I'm afraid that it might get a bit repetitive. I don't really know what I'm asking, so just give me some of your insights. If you know of any books that portray traveling (preferably fantasy) well, please mention them. Thanks, Jack.
Use it as a time to explore your world and develop characters. Throw in some bandits or wild animals or something. Use it to flesh out your story and characters.
Ok...I know that, but I want the MC to gain a companion in each city, so I need help thinking of different ways that he meets them.
A way to do that would be to make sure the characters are diverse. One could be a rich womanizer hoping to impress a female member of the party. Another could be a pathetic lowlife who secretly wants to take revenge on the main character for a past action. The choices go on and on. And of course, because their personalities are different, they would meet up in different ways. Come up with personalities for the characters and create meetings that would suit those personalities. I just think that not everyone should join straight away, nor should they be suddenly uncaring about leaving their current lives behind to go questing. It just doesn't seem natural in most cases.
Hmm that sounds good. Getting some ideas...Maybe someone could refuse to join and then they meet up later as enemies... Thanks for that insight...been a big help.
Fill your world (if its in an invented world, of course) with perils. In my story, my MCs sleep on the clearing of a forest, were one of them does the watch. He hears the most beautiful voice he has ever heard, and is dragged into the forest. There are many kinds of perils that do not involve fighting action (but, you should add many, many action scences if you want to keep people hooked up.)
Yes, that sounds good. I've never really tried writing an actual combat scene...It's gonna take some work.
Deltora Quest is a great reference for traveling and companion-gathering. Read through those books and figure out how they managed to work the travel into the narrative, then try something similar.
I wrote a city-to-city-to-city travel piece one time with descriptions of the different people I met in each of the three cities and descriptions of how I got from one place to another. The last city was Manila and I sold the piece to a local travel magazine. I should have a copy here somewhere. If I can find it I'll scan it in and post it. There is one very important rule in writing a combat scene. Do not express any emotion. Keep it cold. Any attempt to express the feeling of being under fire will rob the reader of finding that feeling for himself. This same rule applies to any kind of traumatic situation. I have been eyewitness to the self immolation of a Buddhist monk, a firefight with there were heavy casualties on both sides, the dropping of napalm near a village causing the destruction of the village, and a small child stepping on a land mine and being blown in half. I wrote dispatches about all of these and other similar everyday happenings in the part of the world where I worked for a while. I wrote the dispatches in a clean, cold, impersonal style that I had learned to use. I described in almost clinical terms what I saw. Do that, and your battle scene will have power. Try to inject your emotions and you weaken the impact.
I agree with FMK, The companions should all have different personalities. You could also give each town a peril where he meets characters who's personalities connect some way with the perils.
