Destination reached

Renee's Progress

Tomorrow night I'll do a NaNo Harem Word Count Round Up and post everyone's progress here.

Well, the good news is that my characters have finally made it to Nicaragua. The bad news is that I had to skip writing the plane ride scene to get them there. I was getting hung up on it, because I'm not sure what they need to discuss. I know I probably need to use it for either an information drop (notice I didn't say dump, b/c no one likes those, but I do need to work in some more info about my world at some point) or to further their relationship. Or maybe lay some backstory for the characters they're going to meet in Nicaragua. See? Many options. So I decided to just put it aside for now and see what I need when the story's farther along.

One of the things I'm finding really challenging is what I'm referring to as transitional exposition. (Doesn't that sound important? Kind of like 'sanitation engineer'.) It's the act of getting my characters through the mundane activities that simply don't warrant any wordcount but need to happen in order to get them from the current scene into the next. My story is written in first person present tense, which means (for me, at least) I'm pretty much accounting for every minute that takes place from the moment the story opens to the moment the story ends. So how do I handle things like checking out of the hotel, riding uneventfully to the airport and getting on the plane in just a few sentences without resorting to "We check out of the hotel and take a transfer to the airport. After passing through security, we get on our plane." Bor-ing. I mean, I guess the first sentence would hold up all right, but then I feel like (as a reader) I'm looking for something more in the next one. No one wants to read a wooden play-by-play of events that have no actual bearing on the story. But I also can't simply start the next sentence with them on the plane when the previous sentence had them in the hotel.

Any pointers from you, my vast readership, would be appreciated. :)

Tomorrow it's back to work. Blech. I'm in good shape to meet my NaNo goal, though. Maybe even early! Now I need to start planning out my December goals. It's going to feel weird to fill up that progress bar and then just slap the old one back up there, back to only halfway done.