Made a step forward today on my troublesome scene! A good step, I think. We’ll see how it reads in the morning, but I think it may have been a genuine step forward. It involved dialing the scene down. I think I may have been forcing too much (unjustified) emotion into it, and I could simplify things.
The simplify bit was huge. I was also trying to accomplish too many things with the scene. A scene can only ever be about one thing. Sometimes, I can fudge with two things, but those are always my weakest scenes, and I inevitably wish that I’d figured out a way to strip it down to one thing and still cover all the beats that my story needs to cover. I can’t always figure that out, and so I just leave them be. They’re fine. They work. But, they’re not great.
My best scenes are only ever about one thing.
Looking forward to a nice, long day of writing tomorrow. I’m getting to bed on time, which is great.
Solid day. I got stuff done. I feel recharged. Whew.
Night night.