When you’re working on a first draft and you get to a part that is hard to write because you’re not sure what’s going to happen in the scene, write it anyhow. Do not leave a note to [SAVE FOR REVISION] because you know what? When you get to the revisions you still have to power through that scene and really, in revisions you should be fixing stuff, not writing stuff.
(The exception, of course, is when your beta readers suggest that you add more scenes.)
Likewise, if you have two (or three or more) versions of how something happens, make the decision in the first draft, because, trust me, the Decision Fairy is not going to come alone and wave a magic red wand and delete all but one of them.
(Yes, as a matter of fact, I am dealing with both of the above.)
I have scenes to add to Onyx Sun but those are beta reader suggestions so they don’t count. I have two written but need to figure out where to put them/how to work them in. And I need to write a few more that occurred to me in editing, but again, those don’t count because they weren’t part of the first draft.
The Academy of the Accord, on the other hand, is rife with the above.
I’m currently doing first round paper edits of Book 6 and have two different versions of how something happens. I think maybe I can combine them, and I hope I can because there are parts of both that I really love.
But I also have notes about things like “should probably show more interaction between Shander and his roommates and introduce them before now.”
And my favorites are things like “I have no idea where I was going with this.” (Obviously a scene written when I was too tired to have been writing.)
Or “go back and insert….” Why didn’t I go back and insert it then? Why? Tell me why?
And it’s not going to get any better as I work through the series. Book 7 has several “which way should I work this?” moments, and Book 12…
*sigh*
Book 12 is an unmitigated disaster in that regard with several major points of indecision. Or, rather, of being decided on too many things.
Novel Notes 