It Doesn't All Have To Be Action

I was working with a client's story yesterday and we were running into a bit of a roadblock. The story was just not going anywhere and the author was frustrated. Now, in reality, I am really not worried about this because the author can produce and does a great job of working out of jams. Still, there was some frustration. Why? Part of the story seemed to just stall out.

As we looked over the story, I pointed out that this was just going to happen. There was really nothing that could be done about it (and yes, that did add to some more frustration). I guess I should say, there are things that could be done, but it would have required some major plot changes in the story. This was something we didn't want to do.

You see, this was simply a situation where the story needed a functional scene. We had no cop car chase scenes. We had no intense arguments about hidden babies or a miscommunication of messages. The hero and heroine were not "going at it." In simple terms, this was a scene that required simply giving information. It wasn't so much an information dump, but more of a transition to things that would come later on.

I think that too often, writers are trying too hard to make sure things are ALWAYS moving fast and forward. And yes, we do want forward movement. We don't want the characters sitting round for pages reading the newspaper in the same room and not doing anything. But it is fine to just get that information out and then move on. Don't panic!