Do the action, don’t intend to do it

Let’s look at this sentence:

Sally walked down the street to go to the store.

This sentence gives Sally both an action and an intention. But does the reader really need that separation of action and intended action? In most cases, no. The sentence instead could be revised in one of the following ways:

Sally walked down the street and went to the store.

Sally walked down the street to the store.

Sally walked to the store.

Now we have Sally either doing two actions that are equal to one another or have her doing one action and including a location.

When might the original sentence actually be useful? When Sally intended to walk to the store but is interrupted:

Sally walked down the street to go to the store, but a car screeched to a halt beside her. The driver shouted at her to get in the car.

Here Sally doesn’t actually make it to the store, so the intention to go makes sense.

Why is it important to have a character actually do the action rather than intend to do the action? It creates a distance between the reader and the character. And the reader may wonder if the character actually completed the action.

Intention in POV character

Each scene should have one point of view character. When this intention to act type of sentence is written about the POV character, the easiest revision is to change the “to” to “and” (and perhaps the verb tense will also need to be changed). But you have other options. Let’s look at a few more examples that use different structures for the revised “action” sentence. (I’ve taken the “action” sentences from The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow and have rewritten them to create the “intention” sentences.)

Intention (avoid): I’d collapsed into Locke’s arms to soak his shirt with tears.

Action: I’d collapsed into Locke’s arms and soaked his shirt with tears.

Intention (avoid): I sat on my thin mattress to watch the sun creep butter-soft across my pink-and-gold bedspread.

Action: I sat on my thin mattress, watching the sun creep butter-soft across my pink-and-gold bedspread.

Intention (avoid): She approached to see a dark figure standing next to the ruined house.

Action: As she approached she saw a dark figure standing next to the ruined house.

Intention in non-POV characters

Remember, each scene has one point of view character. Jumping into the head of a non-POV character is jarring for the reader and should be avoided. Sometimes the jump into another character’s head is obvious, but at times, that jump can be subtle. And this use of “to” (or “in order to”) as a signal of intention is one of those places.

In this example, Sally is the point of view character:

Sally was walking down the street to the store. A car screeched to a halt beside her. Thomas yelled out his window in order to get Sally to hop into the car with him.

The reader is in Sally’s head in this scene, but the final sentence jumps into Thomas’s head. The reader can see and hear Thomas yelling out the window. What the reader cannot know for sure is why Thomas is yelling out the window. The reader can use clues (perhaps Thomas yells something specific or motions with his hand or thrusts open the passenger door) to figure out that Thomas wants Sally to get into the car. But that needs to come from Thomas’s actions and not directly stated in the text.

The bottom line, beyond avoiding head-hopping, is for you to trust your readers. They can figure out Thomas’s intentions from his actions (and providing his actions gives them more description, more showing rather than telling). Allowing them to read between the lines also makes them more of an active part of the reading process, which heightens their enjoyment of the book—of your book. And ultimately, if you’re publishing a book you want other people to read, having readers enjoy your book is the main point, isn’t it?