Yesterday, I wrote about taking a looser approach to my scene planning, focusing on the purpose of the scene and letting it develop from there. But today, I came across the concept of creating scene beats, and I think that might be a good idea for my writing process.
As I understand it, scene beats would be specific events or actions that occur in the scene (in order) to achieve its goal. If I can keep them loose like I did for my story beats, that should give me some flexibility while also helping me to keep focus and pacing while avoiding tangents. Since I can only get in about 500 words per day these days, it should also help me when I come back to the scene the next day to pick up faster with the knowledge of where I want to go.
I already have a scene in progress at the moment, but I’ll try it with the next one.
For today I continued the ongoing scene where my characters arrive at the safehouse. Right now, the best friend is trying to overcome his embarrassment and explain himself before leading them in. I’m hoping the result will give the reader insight into his character as we move the story along.