So today while my mind was less then engaged at work I kept turning over a scene I need to write for Cawdor. The scene was born out of a need to establish elements properly before they become essential later on in the story. However a scene that does nothing but establish is dull and without life. It’s better to turn it into a narrative bit, but I did not want to do that. So, I was stuck. How could I find some conflict in the nature of the two characters that furthered the plot and did not force either character into a falseness that would render the scene hollow?

Today when I got home from work my sweetie-wife and I went to the gym in our Condo complex and I got on the treadmill to start building up my endurance again. (I had been doing pretty well until the sneeze over the July 4th weekend wounded me.) So I set out to do a brisk mile on the treadmill. (Brisk walk, not a jog. Not with these arthritic knees.)

About seven minutes into my set I realized how to fix the scene. I found the conflict, I found what both characters wanted and why it was in opposition and I even found the best point of view to write it from. I turned to my sweetie-wife and proclaimed that this treadmill was the treadmill of plot, because more time than not, when I used it I solved some tricky bit of plotting.