Here or there
Jul. 9th, 2021 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliWhen originally noodling with a story, when still trying to add in new ideas or figure out where an idea fits, it's a good rule of thumb that, when you don't know what happens next -- you should ask whether any of the ideas you keep around will fit. Don't mess around with dead connections if you can cut to the sparkly idea.
OTOH, it is a question. Sometimes it would mean the drama would spike rather than rise (and force the story to continue to rise from the abruptly high level or risk anticlimax). Sometimes you need to connect two characters before the scene is believable. Sometimes a character needs to struggle more before receiving what is needed, and the giver needs the contrast with things that did not help, and that you need to introduce beforehand.
(The fun part is that this will affect the story length in more than what you put between. The longer it is, the longer other parts may need to be to avoid the story feeling misshapen. )
OTOH, it is a question. Sometimes it would mean the drama would spike rather than rise (and force the story to continue to rise from the abruptly high level or risk anticlimax). Sometimes you need to connect two characters before the scene is believable. Sometimes a character needs to struggle more before receiving what is needed, and the giver needs the contrast with things that did not help, and that you need to introduce beforehand.
(The fun part is that this will affect the story length in more than what you put between. The longer it is, the longer other parts may need to be to avoid the story feeling misshapen. )