Tip for March 10, 2010; Roadblocks

Roadblocks. It's something that messes me up all the time.


Roadblocks are basically things that mess up a novel. There are (in my opinion) two major kinds of roadblocks; Plot Roadblocks and Slow Plot Roadblocks. I'll be focusing on Plot Roadblocks today. (See this post to find out about Slow Plot Roadblocks)

Plot Roadblocks are mistakes in the plot where you can't seem to fit in something important. An example would be from my writing yesterday.

I wanted my character to be able to get something he needed (A special sword, actually), but at the moment he was in the middle of a forest fire, and in order for me to fit that scene in, he needed to have a lengthy ceremony in a city just about on the other side of the country. See the problem? I knew that once he was out of the forest fire, he would be able to safely travel to that city. But I had been planning on -and counting on- being able to move into part two (it was one year later) of the novel as soon as he had escaped the forest fire. In order for me to fit that scene in, I'd have to write a long, boring section of the story that I was unwilling to do.

Now, pause. This is where the solution comes in.


There is almost NO problem that can be solved with a little thinking. Just think your dilemma over, and then find a solution. If you can't, well... then you might have to drastically modify the plot.

Here's how I solved my problem.

I thought it over while in bed that night (which is a great place for peace and quiet). And finally, around 11:30, I struck on gold- or rather, a solution.

I went straight to my computer the next day (that is, today), and it worked out wonderfully. Do you want to know what the solution was?

It was simply this; I closed part one as planned, and I added the scene in as something my character remembered. Perfect. And no drastic modifications.

Tip for March 6, 2010; Little Action in a Lot of Time, or Vice Versa

What do you do when you have very little action in a large amount of time? (An example would be a long journey). Or vice versa?

First of all; Little action in a lot of time. There are no definite remedies for this, and it doesn't necessarily need a remedy. However, there is a couple things you can do.

One; Look for certain places where you could expand on a subject. You can take a short sentence, like this one;

They lost their way several times, but they managed to travel 20 miles before dusk.

And turn it into something like this;

Earl thought he heard people talking, so he and the rest of the company went to investigate. After attempting to find the source of the voices, the only thing they found was that they were lost. They wandered for about an hour, but with a little help from Gerry, their tracker, they managed to find the road again and continued on their journey.

You can expand that even further, but it is advisable to avoid short diversions from the plot like this, if it doesn't add something needed to the main plot. However, you could write a chapter in which they get lost and find something that will effect the ending, such as a new character, a strange, ancient tablet with undecipherable writing on it, or the remains of a sharp-toothed Kreer.

Another thing one could do is make more obstacles. The obstacle is completely up to you, but it would be good if they followed along these lines;

-The person (or something else) causing the obstacle does not want your character to achieve his goal.
-It should threaten your character's mission
-It should be mostly unexpected (I'll post more on that later)

On a side note; Your character's goal should be plausible. In other words, the goal should be worthwhile enough that the reader wants your character to achieve it.

What about a lot of action in a little amount of time? This usually isn't a problem, but if you have more than one POV (Point of View, where there is a different character narrating), you may have a problem switching around POVs during a hectic scene, which is why that is not advisable for first-time writers to use that, including me. It also may be better to use first person to narrate, which will remove the possiblilty of multiple POVs.

So, a summary of this tip (for those of you who either skip to the bottom or just skim through it), would be; When you have a little action in a lot of time, try expanding on certain subjects, and creating more obstacles to delay the character from his/her goal.