Yo! I've recently revived my high fantasy, and it's changed pretty drastically. I'm in the process of outlining, even though I swore I wouldn't work on it right now.. But I guess you just gotta follow where inspiration leads you! Anyway. I've stumbled across an issue. I have characters that need to travel between two distant cities, fairly quickly and regularly. My trouble is that I'm not quite sure the best way to do this. The cities have to be far apart for reasons I won't get into, so making them closer isn't an option. Animals to ride are pretty uncommon for another reason I won't get into, so that's another concern, and walking would take forever. But I feel that adding trains or air ships would take away from the typical, slightly medieval, vibe of high fantasy. I'm not opposed to doing it. I just don't want to go so far away from the norm that it throws people off. Also, I suppose traveling through the sea by ship is possible, just not ideal. So what do you think is the best option here? I know, it's my story and it's fantasy, I can literally do whatever I want. And I will. I'm just looking for opinions. What kind of long-distance travel have you seen in novels that works or doesn't work? Which option would you choose in my situation? Also, once I figure out the means of transportation, is it necessary to explain the entire trip? Or could I just say something as simple as, "It took us three days to reach our destination"? Any and all advice appreciated.
Something like mirror travel might be cool? Walk into one mirror and out the other? Oh manual trips huh. 7 league boots?
No, no, I can do magic travel too. There's some limited magic, so I'm not opposed to going about it that way. I just worry it may cause a plothole later or that it's just too.. convenient. Yanno? lol
How about a weather phenomenon - like a hurricane speed wind that is always blowing on certain route -- and people catch some sort of balloon or winged craft between destinations. Walk to the start and finish of the "rip"? Not read it before, just uh making crap up.
Walk into a mirror, a lake, a portal, a spell. a card. Teleport. Create a temporary animal that doesn't really exist to get you where you need to go. I enjoy Harry Potter world's style of getting from one place to the other. I've no idea how to say or spell it. Starts with an A though. There's literally hundreds of ways to go about it!
All aboard the Dragon express! No feeding the dragon coal, sonny, you'll spoil him. Kidding I've seen the mirror thing, and some sort of wormhole like place, magic lockets, and strange animals. Depending on the landscape you could create a natural phenomena that creates transportation. Maybe certain land itself moves because of some sort of shifting plasma beneath it, or the wind carries off the giant leaves allowing anyone to hitch a ride. The ideas are like Nicoel said endless. Actually this was used in an old Mark Hamill movie called Slipstream.
Yeah Dragons are a good idea. Also, you don't have to explain the entire trip, it will probably be boring for the reader if nothing exciting happens.
I have no idea what the topography of your setting is, but perhaps there is a river that flows near the one city and stretches down near the other. It has a swift current but is wide and deep so rapids are uncommon. They could take a riverboat to one city, and then perhaps take a coastal vessel to get back. Maybe the river is a common causeway used by merchants and travelers, so there is a kind of self-contained culture that pops up, like little shanties along the river offering foods and trade goods, brothels or taverns. Might be an interesting place to your characters to find themselves a part of. I dunno. Some thoughts. But I agree that maybe you explain the entire trip once so the reader knows more or less how it is, and then for subsequent trips in which nothing important to the plot happens, you can just explain it away in a sentence or two. A full account of every trip there and back would be tedious to write and tedious to read.
Thanks everyone! You've been very helpful. I shared your suggestions with my husband to bounce the ideas off of him. And he actually helped me come up with a pretty perfect idea for my story. So I'm going to go with giant birds!! Thanks again for all your suggestions.
