Two of the things I didn’t do in first draft which I knew immediately upon realizing I’d written myself toward a cliff and therefore had to do in second draft have now been done.  I had avoided doing these obvious, character-true things for purely superficial reasons.  I didn’t want to be rid of these trappings, but the character did and to not have him take advantage of the very first opportunity to make these changes to his own life skewed everything that I’d written after.

Which gets us back to “murdering darlings.”  No matter how much I may love certain scenes or moments or trappings or notes in a story, if they overstay their welcome, even if they are small things, they can sour things.  Because then I have to rationalize why they’re still there and put those thoughts and words into the characters’ mouths, trying to explain away why the issue hasn’t been dealt with or why the thing hasn’t been discarded or why the argument hasn’t been fought.

And that’s the most useful thing I’ve found to do when plotting or writing: Just ask why.  Why is he doing that?  Why isn’t he doing that?  Why would she say that?  Why wouldn’t she just do this obvious thing?  These two little things the main character didn’t deal with in first draft turned into major roadblocks and all because I hadn’t pinned myself to the wall and demanded honest answers to “why doesn’t he do this now?” 

The answer turned out to be, “well, he does after all.”  And now the whole story is different.  And, I think, much better.