Oh my goodness, this blog is a lifesaver! Thank you for sharing so many cool prompts. Do you have any ideas for space-fillers? My (modern realistic fiction) protagonist is going to witness two significant events, but I don't want them to be one after another.
(Thank you for following along! I’m glad to hear my work is helpful to you!)
How you fill the space greatly depends on the age of your characters and the general plotline of the story so I can’t guarantee that any of these suggestions may actually work for you, but I’ll try to keep them as varied and broad as possible so something may work. In general, I tend to live by the notion of putting some nice things in between negative things and vice versa, so I would say keep that in mind. Your readers don’t want to be slammed with too much drama but we also don’t want to let them get two comfortable!
Your filler scenes can include:
Meeting new characters, or observing strangers’ interactions. The latter can be a foreshadowing tool or used to have your narrator reflect on their own life based upon what they see.
Winner, winner! Or loser, loser. Things either seem like they may be looking up for your MC, such as seemingly getting closer to that promotion or winning that contest. Or, perhaps things are going completely awry. A pet is missing, they got stuck out in the rain, lost something important.
Recovery. If the last significant event was traumatic or negatively impacted your MC, then take your time writing about the after-effects of it. This also works for the opposite sort of event. How are they living it up and feeling after a good thing happened?
