: Re: Phrasing to balance immense speed with boredom Through much of my novel the protagonist spends considerable time cruising over various landscapes at speeds exceeding 500 km/h. To you or me this

@Welton431

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I'm not sure that can be done, especially if the MC is bored with it. It isn't a good idea to try and thrill the reader with the same thing again and again and again anyway!

So do it once, and then gloss over it.

In my story, one character is an extraordinary marksman. He takes this for granted, but nobody that sees him in action for their first time ever takes it for granted. Their praise, astonishment, or laughter pleases him, it reminds him he is special, and there is nothing else particularly remarkable about him (by my design).

So I have, in the story, devised several reasons (including one early on) for him to exercise his talent in front of strangers, and amaze them. One in particular that sees this several times stops having any reaction. The marksman notices that, but he doesn't mention it: Because he gets it, he knows that after awhile, his friend would be more surprised if he missed!

The amazing things we experience will become routine and "just the way things are," after a few exposures. This goes for readers too, you can thrill them once with astonishing speed, but that's it. After that, they get it: The ship is crazy fast.

So pour all your attention into the first description. Make it long and milk the first-time. If nothing changes about the speed, it is boring to describe it in detail the second time. You can change something, add a fight or counter-attack, add a malfunction, hit a damn goose at 500 kmh.

This is why fights and battles can be evergreen, we can make each one different with different enemies, positions, stakes, and defenses.

But what you are talking about is static and unchanging, so the description just seems repetitive, and that gets boring quick.

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