I walked, she walked, we walked...GAH!

Why not just skip the hows and wherefores of how character A got there and move on to the meat of the action? Instead of 'he walked over to Mary and said' go with something like--

'He said in her ear' or 'he said against her skin' or 'he said, his voice getting softer as he got closer?'

*editor's hat on*

I never need a play by play of how a character gets to where you need them to go. Just put them there and I'll assume they walked. Trust me. If they're teleported there, you can mention that. But walking? Pffft.

I always default on 'He came up beside her.' 'She pulled her horse up beside Billy's.'

Thanks, actually. I've another word for my master kill list

1) Use even blander verbs like "to go" and "to come". Hopefully they will be so bland they disappear into the unobtrusive background, like all those thousands of "said"s, leaving only a whiff of pine-fresh scent. e.g. "He went over to the table and...", "she came up to me and.."
2) Omit any mention of locomotion entirely, leaving it up to the reader to infer its occurrence (i.e. what mscelina said).

"She administered the Heimlich while snorting "I love you" into the co-pilot's ear."
"He grabbed the gravy out of my hand and declared, "You put tomatoes in the meatloaf? That's sacriliege!"

"Abby stepped on his toes as he leaned toward the last piece of asbestos, and swatted his hand away from the toxic slurry."

I end up with too much walking in first drafts. I do what Mr. Chuckletrousers suggests. Between removing some and using invisible movement words, I don't need much walking.

I also have a lot of stories with legless characters, which solves the walking problem in a permanent way.

When I first started writing and had the same question/issue, I was told by my creative writing prof that a certain amount of movement is assumed and doesn't need to be stated. i.e. if the character's in the room, you can have them move about the room without having to reference the "walking" part of it, since it is assumed by the reader that the character is doing things inside the room.

Now, when you're taking your character from that room to, say, his car parked at the curb, you'll have to show him walking, running, etc. out the door and down the sidewalk to the car. It's too big of a spatial jump to make with the reader's assumptions.

Something also to keep in mind. Kind of goes hand-in-hand with mscelina's suggestion of getting to the "meat of the story."

Echoing what's probably already been said, I tend to let actions direct characters around, e.g. A lets B in, A then pours drinks while B inspects the bookshelves, A sits down, B looks out the window, etc. so there's suggestion of moving around the room without saying, "A goes... A walks to... A moves," etc.

-Derek

And for really big spatial jumps, that's what line breaks between paragraphs are for. Say you end your scene in the kitchen, then line break, then, "In the car, she leaned over and whispered..."

Just skip it. Write your character as being where you want him to be and let the reader fill in the blanks. I mean, no-one's gonna think "Sheesh, Haggis, has your MC mastered the art of teleportation now?!"

Are they?

Use 'padded'.

I just walked over to my computer, saw this thread, and said, "How ironic is this? This is exactly what I need to know more about." Then, I turned and walked back out of the room.

Now that I'm finished cracking up at MsK, it's been said before but I'll have Billy Jo kick his boots across the room, one of them bouncing off the couch. Collapsing into the recliner, he grabbed a beer from the mini fridge to the right.

Etc. etc. I make the character do all the work while describing the surroundings.

Rolling Thunder said:

Use 'padded'.

Click to expand...

"Because the cell was padded, I managed to undo my restraints without suffering physical harm."

This writing topic brings to mind all the walking that goes on in television these days. Have you noticed all the walking during, e.g., Law & Order, Without a Trace (a couple of my favorites).

Nobody just converses anymore; they're always walking. Walking down the hall, walking in Times Square, walking up the steps to court, walking through the squad room, walking, walking, walking.

Apparently, television writers suffer from the same syndrome.

Just have them fly or skate.

'He turned and left the room'
'He moved forward a step'
'He closed the distance between them with a step'
etc...etc...

I still think flying or skating is more interesting

Use movement terms primarily if the movement is out of the ordinary.

Do they glide across the ice? Do they baby step across the ice?

Does the movement matter? Does it leave the other character thinking "I wish I could glide like that," or "moving that slow, and she will fall."

Movement can be central to a sceen - "She carefully bounced off the wall, aiming herself for the door, it would take several gaceful bounces; then waved as she exited the zero gravity room into the hallway below, or was it above?" Terrible sentence, yes, just think "Ender's Game" fan fiction there. He has been known to write whole pages on how movements interact with one another.

Some authors seem to leave out movement entirely, so the characters seem to sit and chat forever as if they are waiting on something to happen.

I like 'went.'

Good simple word - indicates movement without bothering with unnecessary detail. Otherwise there's always 'galumphed.'

heatheringemar said:

When I first started writing and had the same question/issue, I was told by my creative writing prof that a certain amount of movement is assumed and doesn't need to be stated. i.e. if the character's in the room, you can have them move about the room without having to reference the "walking" part of it, since it is assumed by the reader that the character is doing things inside the room.

Click to expand...

Yep, agreed. In dialogue I throw in some small parenthetical actions here and there (sipping a drink, doing some random little gesture) just to anchor the conversation in reality, so it doesn't seem like talking heads, but you only need to say what they're doing if what they're doing is in itself interesting or relevant (e.g. some gestures/movements tell you about the character, how they're reacting or something).

heatheringemar said:

Now, when you're taking your character from that room to, say, his car parked at the curb, you'll have to show him walking, running, etc. out the door and down the sidewalk to the car. It's too big of a spatial jump to make with the reader's assumptions.

Click to expand...

You do need to do SOMETHING to make that spatial jump, but you don't need to actually say "he walked to the car" or whatever. You can say "he slammed the door behind him and patted various pockets, looking for his car keys. In the car, he flicked on the radio yada yada..." And the reader knows that he left the house, got to his car, opened the door and got into the car, without your actually having said that. Another option is to leave a blank line between paragraphs, like so:

Paragraph where the character is in his living room yada yada yada, doing yada yada yada. He's racking his brains about such and such and can't believe he's in whatever situation and wonders if he should go talk to his girlfriend or not, and so on and so forth.

Paragraph where the character is in his car, driving to his girlfriend's house. Yada yada yada.

Leaving a blank line between paragraphs lets you make all sorts of leaps without having to spell out for the reader what happened in the interval. In the above example, obviously he decided to go to his girlfriend's house, left his house, got in his car etc., but you don't need to say all that.