#but i imagine there would be like symbolic combat working through interpersonal emotion conflict a la revue starlight

[thirtyskeletons]

last night i had a dream about three kids who are the best of friends, until one of them, this girl named clare, goes mysteriously missing. it turns out that she was sucked into a fey world of animal people, a lavish society based around extravagant combat tournaments. while she is trapped there, she starts slowly transforming into an animal person herself, a deer. as she gets lost in the glitz and glamor of the tournament, she starts losing herself and her memories of her old life. by the time her two friends, raffi and enid, come to the fey world to find her, she has completely changed, now cold and hardened and also a deer. the two friends have to compete in the tournament in order to find a way out of this place and save their friend, while also trying not to lose themselves in the same way in the process.

[plotlinehotline]

Theres a sizable portion of my story where the main characters go through training of various sorts; two of them are training in combat and to become symbolic leaders of a revolution and the other is being taught to control his new powers. This comes relatively late in the story and im worried that since theres really no montage equivalent in writing itll get boring. I planned to maybe put some romantic tension in, but will that be enough?

Author Wesley Chu tackled something similar in his book The Lives of Tao. He used the training period as a means of fleshing out the MC and building bonds between him and other important characters. So, at the end of that section of the book, the main character changed both physically and mentally. Authors write about extensive training periods quite often. Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling, Jim Butcher, Veronica Roth, and many more exploit this plot point to show differences between characters, strengths and weakness, and character development. Training times are excellent for showing growth, since it’s a time for literally nothing more than learning and improving. If you can reliably write how your characters change and grow during what I am assuming to be a particularly grueling time in their life, there is no reason to think that it will be boring. Your main character is learning how to control his new powers, so how is he dealing with the new responsibility that has been suddenly thrust upon him? How do they feel about becoming a symbolic leader? Both of those points are a lot of pressure to put on a person. There is definitely room for some emotional growth during that training alone. Since you say that this training comes relatively late in the course of the plot, think about how the added stress of the prior events affects their well being. Are nightmares or flashbacks affecting his ability to train? Is there any unchecked rage towards a certain group or person that has yet to be tied up? There are so many directions in which you can go to expand on what you have already written. 

If your characters knew each other beforehand, how does the training affect their friendship? If they didn’t know each other, how do they react being forced together in such a way? You characters could become completely different people because of the training and have to build their friendship from scratch. That last example was somewhat cliched, but it would add emotion and spark to your work. Since I do not have the full picture to your plot, I want to refrain from plot point suggestions. Just keep in mind the pressures that your characters will be under in this situation and how they react. 

As for the romance, I’m generally not a fan of adding romance when the plot doesn’t necessarily call for romance, but if you find that it is fitting for the plot and situation, go for it. I find that too many novels add romance just for the sake of pleasing a certain audience. When romance is shoved into a piece where it is not quite fitting, it tends to seem forced and takes away from the rest of the plot (read my mini-rant about sex scenes in media here). On the flip side, however, romance that is done right can be heartbreaking in the best way. If a few of your characters begin to develop feelings for each other and are pitted against each other during or after their training, that adds a special type of conflict for your characters. If one of the romantic interests is deemed to be unfit for the job, how do your characters react to that situation? There are so many roads that you could take to add drama and tension without making seem frivolous. 

If you decide to add romantic tension to your story, but it doesn’t seem like it’s enough to be interesting, it might be time to take a slightly different direction in your writing. Continuously adding different plot points to try to liven things up can lead to the storyline becoming cluttered and hard to follow. It is best to keep things simple and cause tension through the characters’ personal and interpersonal struggles. From the small taste of your world that I was able to glean from the question, I can imagine a great number of areas from which you will be able to draw fuel to keep your story interesting.

xx Sarah