More Ripples

I felt like I didn't get much done yesterday, but I did get the business side of my taxes done (the hard part), and I did a lot of thinking about what happens next in the book. I'm dealing with a ripple effect, where the changes in the last scene should have a big impact on what happens next, but I'm not sure yet what that will be. There's a transition scene, and I'm going back and forth on whether it even needs to be there. If it's there, then I think more needs to happen. But then the more that happens there, the less of a surprise it will be when something else happens later. I'm waffling between suspense and surprise.

If I go with suspense, then it's all about knowing something is likely to happen but not being sure what that will be or exactly when it will come. I'll need to drop more advance hints that something is planned, and then the characters will have to take more action to try to figure it out and maybe prevent it.

If I go with surprise, then I'll need to cut some scenes, but then we aren't actually getting the reaction to the previous events.

Every time I think I'm sure about what I should do, I think of something that will be affected if I do it.

So I guess I'll finish my taxes while my subconscious chews on it.

Meanwhile, I'll try to stop giving in to distractions like shopping around for a relatively cheap tablet that I can travel with instead of taking my laptop. I don't know why that became a priority yesterday, but it did. It may be my brain's usual trick of getting me out of the way so it can work.