Set Location vs Journey

The first book/story with lots of travel in it that comes to my mind is The Lord of the Rings.

The main characters had to go all the way from the Shire to Mordor on foot. That was an extremely long, dangerous and stressful journey, yet they still had quiet moments along the way that, IMO, didn't feel counter intuitive to the mad dash to destroy the Ring before it could be found and taken by the bad guy. The quiet moments felt natural to me because they usually happened either when the characters naturally had to rest, stop to make a decision about which way to go, or when something was blocking their path so that they had no choice but to stop for awhile.

This happened in The Hobbit too, which is another book with lots of traveling. The quest in that story was much less urgent and didn't really have a time limit, but the author still kept things moving. Just like in LOTR, the characters continually pressed towards their goal, but were still able to have quiet moments when they needed to rest, make a decision about which way to go, or when something blocked their path so they had to stop for awhile.

The Hobbit did have a time limit though. They had to be at the Lonely Mountain by Durin's Day or else they'd miss the chance to find the hidden door and have to wait another year. But yeah, those were the first two I thought of too. There's also Homer's Odyssey. These stories tend to involve some kind of safe haven, whether it's actually safe or just an illusion of safety, where the heroes can hunker down for a day, a week, years...

TAMaxwell said:

The Hobbit did have a time limit though. They had to be at the Lonely Mountain by Durin's Day or else they'd miss the chance to find the hidden door and have to wait another year.

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*facepalm* I can't believe I forgot Durin's Day! Duh. I can feel my geek cred dropping as I speak...

Yes, Homer's Odyssey is great too.

In any kind of quests, there will naturally be those quiet moments. People can't travel every second of the day. They need to rest. They need to eat. As long as nothing too dangerous is going on, they can speak while they're traveling.

There are quite a few books that do quests, but there are few that are considered good. By the sounds of it, you also want one that's fast-paced, and that can be more difficult to find. Tad Williams does quests well, but his stories tend to be rather slow. Terry Brooks, especially in his later books, keeps a pretty good pace, but many readers don't care for him. Raymond E. Feist does a decent job in his Riftwar books. Like Brooks, though, he doesn't write the most complex of fantasy.

You could also take a look at the first book of The Wheel of Time, and maybe the second and third. It starts out with more of a quest feel, but that fades as the series goes on.

One of my current projects is a quest fantasy. There are actually two separate quests in it. I feel like I struck a pretty good balance between keeping the action going and giving the characters some quiet time, but I could be wrong. I just set out to write the quest fantasy I've always wished existed.

Speaking of the classics, Star Wars features three different "terrains" per movie. It's not a journey per se, but it does shift locale and keep an effective story going. At least the originals do. And they find places where they rest--the rebel base, Dagobah, Cloud City, the Ewok camp.

Just because the characters are on a journey doesn't mean they won't have havens on the way--like Rivendell and Lothlorien.

Well, the classic fantasy novel that has this sort of structure is Lord of the Rings. The characters are on a quest, and most of the tale takes place on the road, but with resting points in between. While it's very old, and people debate whether a similar novel would suit today's market, I still think there are things you can take away from it.

I personally do like stories where there is some down time between flurries of activity, since those let the characters develop/maintain their relationships and lets me see what's at stake for them. I just read a novel that was the conclusion of a series I've been following for decades, and while it was very good, I was a weensy bit disappointed that it all took place "away" from the characters' usual home base and that the pace was so fast, we never really saw any intimate moments between any of the characters (who had relationships they'd developed over the course of the series). Not complaining, as an author can't do everything.

I suspect that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. In journey stories it might be harder for your characters to find some peace and quiet, but equally it is easy to introduce new challenges or opportunities. There doesn't have to be an explanation about why your heroes are suddenly fighting a certain kind of monster - it's because they have wandered into the land where that monster lives.

That's a little harder with a story set in one place, when the challenges have to come to you. So in a sense, a journey story gives the writer a ready-made narrative arc - we start here, then we go there, stuff happens, eventually we arrive. And it's not long before you are stitching action scenes into the journey, making it a metaphor for the character's development (or decline).

I've written both, but I actually found the journey stories to be easier to write.

I suppose the daddy of all journey stories, in English at least, is the Arthurian legend - at least in Malory's version. Then the constant location is Camelot but the knights also wander off to find adventure including the quest for the grail.

Terry Pratchetts Small Gods, Witches Abroad, Rincewinds books and others I'm sure.

Once! said:

I've written both, but I actually found the journey stories to be easier to write.

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I've found the same. A quest plot has always been easier for me to write because I can always throw new challenges at the characters depending on the location. The tough part is doing so without getting repetitive.

My epic fantasy, Empire of Chains, is at least partially a quest plot. I had to work to make the places, monsters, and challenges varied enough so that the reader wouldn't get bored. The other key thing is making what happens on the quest matter. Battles should have consequences.

For example, one of my characters gets poisoned by a giant lizard. This poisoning actually ends up driving one of the plotlines in the second book, as they search for a cure before the poison kills him.

Other battles include character deaths, or hint at something mysterious working behind the scenes. I probably have a few that are just plain action fun, but I tried not to have too many of those.


If I'm staying in one location, or just a few, I find it easier to write a mystery plot. My upper MG fantasy is largely a mystery plot, though it turns into more of an adventure plot at the end. I found that the mystery gave me a focus.


My other epic fantasy, Lightweaver, is neither a quest nor a mystery. There are some aspects of both to it, but it's more of a character-driven plot, where my characters have to come to terms with revelations that completely change their lives. That, and save the world.


Each type of plot has its own challenges. I've found I get stuck more often in Lightweaver because I don't always know what's coming next. I find my upper MG fantasy can sometimes be difficult to plan if I haven't figured out the mystery yet.