Today, I nearly made it to the end of my first plot point scene. By focusing on the beats I’d written, as well as my hero’s desire in the scene, I was able to keep the scene on track and drive toward the conclusion.
I did run into a few complications since I hadn’t considered the desire line when writing the original scene beats, so some of them had to be rearranged or eliminated. Next time, I need to do better when constructing them.
So far, this scene is under 2000 words, and it looks like I’ll be able to keep it close to that length, even as I finish the final actions that close it out. That’s pretty good for me, short and punchy, which is good, since there isn’t a whole lot of physical movement or anything else besides dialogue and mental reactions to the news. I can’t let that go on much longer than it has to.
The next scene is going to be a lot more active and should have a simpler desire line and beats. It will be interesting to apply this same approach to a different kind of scene, but I hope it works moving forward.