Traveling sequences, character development, and...

So, I have this character. I've been writing the backstory that happens before she makes the mistake that gets her exiled and embarking on a journey, and I think maybe this will end up as something she tells to the other main character, later on, rather than heading up the book. Let's face it - people's normal cheery lives aren't all that interesting! So my original start scene (the one where she embarks on the journey) is going to stand.

The problem is, she doesn't manage to make any permanent friends until she meets Other Main Character: people keep finding out she's trouble and dropping her off. Over the course of her trip, she goes from being very entitled and cavalier to dealing with dimininshed circumstances and lots of uncertainty. But there aren't many plot events in it. I started off by trying to write the trip, but realized that it felt kind of filler-y, probably because she hasn't met any of the other permanent characters yet and so nobody else in the scenes is going to hang around very long.

But I want something to show that her life has gotten more dire over the course of the trip; that although she remains cheerful and confident on the outside, she's been learning that life is not always what it was in her wealthy home country, between the incident that sets off the book and the time she meets the other protagonist.

So. How should I handle this?

Just skipping the trip seems like I'd lose something. Telling the whole thing long-form isn't working. Summaries? I worry about this approach because I want to show the character changing rather than telling about it.

Increase the random danger factor to up the suspense? Lions and tigers and bears, oh my?

Put in a few representative scenes and tell the rest in summary? I'm kind of stumped.


I think part of what went wrong was that I originally had the villain steal a macguffin from her by hand, and she was going to be pursuing over land and by river. Decided the villain was an otherworldly thing instead, and that she's trying to reach the city over there so she can open a portal to try to get her object back.

I think part of the reason why the story still calls for *some* of that sequence to be present is that she *hasn't* adjusted; she's still reeling from the trauma of having her life ripped out from under her - enough that she isn't even aware how much this is affecting her; she's in denial. She has been learning, but still has a lot of her old responses. I have a concern that introducing her in this state to the reader without preamble (or lots of thuddy omniscient exposition about her present mental status) would leave the character seeming somewhat spoiled and unsympathetic.

It's also not a "making a home in a new country" story: the travel continues throughout - it'll just be easier to pace it after we start having some nifty character development conversations.

I'm realizing that when I changed the "who stole the macguffin" part, I was thinking of how to better fit it in with later events, but that I can quite possibly have my cake and eat it too by re-instituting the "chase" sequence with an earthly representative of the unearthly villain...

Still quite interested in what everyone here has to say: how do you handle travel, timing and what happens on vs. offscreen? How have folks seen it handled in their favorite books?