I don’t know if this is an issue for other writers… the handful I know personally rarely mention it, although they have mentioned it as a problem they struggle with.

Specifically, as a discovery writer, I often find myself putting my characters in a room and talking about what’s going to happen next or what’s happened to them.

Think of it as an episode of Star Trek: you gather your cast in a conference room around a strangely shaped table (designed to maximize camera angles but look super weird in real life), and they talk about what’s happened or what they plan to do. It’s a convention born of trying to fill an allotted air-time… you need 44 minutes of episode, and so you have a number of “Well, let’s slow down the pace a bit and really think about what we’re doing” moments.

I don’t think books need that. Or, at least, they rarely need to be happening in a conference room. There’s an efficiency of action we’re aiming for… two detectives can be in a car chase while they discuss the case, or two soldiers trying to get to the next trench while under fire, or whatever. Occasionally you do need to slow the pace down, give the readers a chance to catch their breath… but I have to be very conscious of my instincts to say “Okay, let’s figure out what happens next.”

Or you do what I do: you write those scenes in so that both the characters and the author know what’s going on… and then you cut them after the first draft.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!