In the scene that I started today, my hero learns about the threat against her and has to make her first decision about how to respond. But at the same time, each of the main characters are together in this scene and the news affects them all in some way, so I want to mix in beats showing their development and arc, as well.
That makes for a lot that this scene needs to accomplish, so I tried the idea of scene beats to figure out in advance what needs to happen and in what order. I’m hoping that will help keep me on target as I write and will also help me assess the pace and figure out how much space to give each beat in the scene to keep it trucking along.
I have also gone back and eliminated some of the notes I was forcing myself to make about scenes before, such as trying to figure out a seven point arc for each one and the emotional impact of the scene. The emotion is something that I think will be better addressed in the revision process, and while the scene arc is still probably important, writing it the way I was resulted in my arcs being too dogmatic and awkward as I tried to fit everything in.
This scene is going to be quite a long one and I anticipate it will take several days, if not a week or so to write. With that length and complexity, it should be a perfect opportunity to test the scene beats approach!