JP Violet

T/P/S – Travel Scenes, Food, and Reading as You Write

From JP | 05.29.2025

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Travel and food are on the mind this week. Distractions, or tools for characterization?

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Thorns

In order to progress along the right path, it’s important to know where you can stumble. This week, when I found my interest in a particular book flagging, I was reminded of an old thorn that I became very (and perhaps overly) familiar with back when I was running my D&D campaign: The Travel Scene. 

Travel scenes are tricky because they have an inherent implication that the important stuff is coming later, once we get to the destination. If something action-packed does happen during these scenes, it’s easy for those events to feel randomly generated or arbitrarily placed if they aren’t properly foreshadowed. 

Additionally, a writer might accidentally indulge a bit too much on filling the pages with descriptions of the world they built. I personally sympathize with this impulse, but as a reader, it’s difficult to get invested in the scenery if it’s just the scenery.

While I haven’t been able to pick the book back up, I will happily take the experience as a reminder: Try to avoid writing scenes that are just the connective tissue between more interesting scenes. 

Petals

My friends coordinated a very nice birthday celebration for those of us born in late spring. I got to eat some really good food that I’d been craving for well over a month, which got me thinking about food in writing. In particular, I remember practically drooling over the descriptions of food in the Beyonders series by Brandon Mull. That series taught me that food can be a powerful tool for characterization and worldbuilding. 

Geography determines resource availability, which determines food, which ties into culture. In my personal reading, I have found that frequent, yet subtle, reminders of cultural practices can have profound effects on my immersion in a world. Additionally, anything that allows you to highlight a character’s comfort (or discomfort) within the framework of society is incredibly valuable. 

Seeds

I feel a bit guilty about how little I’ve been able to sample in the fantasy genre. I see so many books and authors that get such glowing praise, and as a person who wishes to contribute to the space, I want to be far better versed than I am.

I’ve started reading Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, and it’s incredibly good so far. My goal for this week is to fit in enough reading time to complete it by next week. 

Wishing you travel scenes that are too good to just be a montage,

JP Violet