As much of a struggle as it was last time to clean up the half-rewritten scene I’d left myself, upon further reflection, I realized that it all had to go. I had let it get away from me and my characters had ended up in an impossible situation.
So, despite spending over an hour and a half trying to untangle and rewrite it on Sunday, I went back and tossed the whole thing today, starting over. So far, though, it feels a lot better. I had been too caught up in trying to visualize irrelevant details last time and had let those drive the development of the scene – how and where my character ran for cover – but this time, I tossed out the physical details and have been focusing on what my hero feels about them and about what’s going on. So far, I like this version much better.
Of course, I still have to introduce her to the best friend character she is going to meet in this scene, and that is where things went really sideways last time, but hopefully, by readjusting how she got to that point, I can make the rest of the scene work, too.