Spent the past two days playing with this one scene. It’s very important — it introduces a new character who’ll be important in book 3, and it continues to illustrate my protag’s view of the world/place in the world, plus also bring in some pressure/fear/ticking clock action from another plot thread.
The first time I wrote it (and a few ones that branch from it), it was approximately 5 k, total.
This draft, i knew that the new character was all wrong. Wrong name, wrong persona, wrong desc, wrong history, etc.
Luckily, this draft, i knew how to make her awesome (okay, maybe not just this minute, but you wait for book 3, i tell you. This is the poignant backstory phase of her life.)
The second time, 3 k. But they were a very up close 3k. My protag was *right there* every time things happened. I was being photorealistic. (I did this a lot in book 1, and had to fix it. I’d get bogged down in the details of actual nursing, and not the drama or emotion of it, and things would get slow. I edited or fixed all of them, thank goodness.)
The third time, just 2 k. Way distant. As in the action was happening down the hall, and my protag was in the periphery. (I gave serious thought to having her just pass the action in the elevator, as they shared a ride to the same floor. Talk about short and far away.)
The last time — or what i hope is the last time ;) — i was just about to rip out the 2nd draft, and then realized, hey, some of this is better than draft 3…but a lot of the draft 3 is better than draft 2…so i mixed the two, while cutting a lot out. (New motto, this draft, and typed in all caps at the top of my notes file for this book: Nothing is too good to cut.)
So now this particular scene is up to draft 4, which is about 2k, but it’s super awesome and fantastic and finally does what i need it to do. I feel like my brain just coughed up a hairball. Phew!
A writing date tomorrow, and still all Thurs off, huzzah! Should hit 30k soon :D.