Here's something that often trips me up in drafting: what to show and what not to show.

Like, okay, I know the sequence of events happening at this point in the story, but what am I choosing to show on the page?

(Thread)

Seems like every draft I make mistakes I have to fix in edits, both showing stuff I should skip and skipping stuff I should show.

For instance, EVERY FIRST DRAFT I wind up showing planning scenes I have to cut later (usually because I'm figuring out the plan as I write).

Other times I'll skip scenes in drafts that have a TON of inherent tension because nothing plot important happens, but then realize later OH WOW, I put these characters with huge amounts of tension between them in an elevator together or whatever, I should write that out.

Live example: currently I've got a sequence where the following events happen story-wise:

* Character makes a tough decision to do a thing
* Meets up with another character to do the thing
* They sneak to where the thing is happening
* The thing happens

My initial, unthinking instinct is to write out every one of these, because they're all things that happen.

But the reader only needs to see it if something interesting is happening. Something changes, something unexpected occurs, there's important character interaction, etc.

In this case, the decision is important to the character. KEEP.

Meeting up with the other character might be an opportunity for fun banter, but honestly, nothing unexpected happens. This sequence isn't a major plot point, so I don't need to draw it out to build tension. SKIP.

Sneaking CAN be a great opportunity to build tension or have little character relationship moments, and I love writing sneaking scenes. But again, in this case, showing that sneaking wouldn't really change anything. Even though it's technically a tense moment, I should skip it.

This is the same sort of rule I try to apply to travel. Nothing important happens on the trip? "Three days later, the soaring towers of Plot City came into view." Done.

Sometimes travel can be a great opportunity to get character work done, but if not, SKIP.

On the flip side, in my first draft of this current book, I had it in my head that the story was about X Dramatic Situation, so in my first draft I rushed to get everyone into that situation as quickly as possible.

This was a mistake! One I'm paying for even now.

A beta reader & my editor pointed out that I skipped over an entire sequence of extremely dramatic events that caused X Dramatic Situation to occur, having them happen offscreen rather than to my characters. And that I totally failed to build tension by jumping right in.

I'm revising to bring those events on the page and build way more tension & get way more character investment in the situation, rather than being like Chapter 2: HAHA EVERYTHING IS AWFUL!!!!!!! and then having nowhere to go from there until halfway through the book.

I have to remember that even when I have a strong idea of what the events of the story are, I have freedom to decide how to show the readers that story. Stuff that's not important for plot may be important for character. Stuff that's logistically vital may be dramatically boring.

Another one that gets me is repeating events! Just because our characters are checking every day to see if the mystic portal has opened or whatever, I don't have to show you them doing that six times. I can just mention that it's happening and show you when it finally DOES open.

Now I should get to work and actually write that scene I was talking about!