: Re: Avoiding episodic writing I'm working on a novel that will have at least three distinct sections in three distinct locations (the two main characters start in the first location, travel through

@Bethany377

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Your book is about coming of age. You can have all of that, but then everything needs to serve the coming of age. The love triangle needs to be about how your character is developing into who he will be/needs to be. The opening needs to present the challenge that he must overcome. If it's action/adventure, fine, but it's got to ultimately show where he's deficient/powerless. The triangle ought to give him something he needs to develop in a way that he copes/grows with the primary issue. Then the final part of the novel ought to bring everything together, return to the types of things/weaknesses your character had at the beginning and show how the challenges/developments/decisions your character has made have let him overcome whatever it was that happened.

One thing that sticks out here is that if this is a coming of age story for just one character, having 3 characters matter enough to be walking around different places then maybe you're focusing on the wrong characters sometimes. Wherever you force the reader's attention is where the story goes. If your story is a coming of age story, keep the focus in the story on that. Only talk about the characters that matter to that story at a given time. There are times you need to build a foundation for a character to make sense, but often times you don't need too many struts unless you're introducing agent x (whatever thing is a curveball for everyone that warps your story and makes it interesting; mutants in x-men; magic in harry potter; allomancy in mistborn; the flood in halo).

It sounds like you're basically suffering from plot-builder's disease. It's like worldbuilders, but it's a thing where every plot point that could happen does happen and you explore those things out as far as it seems like they should be. Just like with world builders you have to know what matters and what doesn't. What is it that you want to say? Say it and stick to your point. Some amount of wondering from the main thread is fine, it can add texture. But, it becomes the story when it takes up too much space.

Replace he/him with whatever pronoun/name is appropriate. I mean nothing by it.

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