Ah, do I hafta?

Yesterday I had one of those moments of writing realization that don't exactly give me a thrill.

I need to write a whole new scene for the fourth draft of the work-in-progress.

To be honest, my first reaction to this type of realization is a childish whine: "Ah, do I hafta?"

However, the answer is yes, I do.

As it stands now, I have a particular event happen off stage. Then I have a reaction scene.

It's not a huge catastrophe of an event, and when I originally wrote this part, I wanted to get to the hero's POV ASAP, and he's not around when this event occurs.

This story, though, could really use some more activity in the middle, because there's already a lot of dialogue. The event would make for lots of activity. And showing rather telling (via flashback and memories) is usually better, because it involves the reader more.

So even though it means writing a new scene, I think the book will be the stronger for that new scene. I've been cutting in other places (nothing unusual there), so I should have room in terms of length to add a scene.

So I've made notes, and in the next draft, the activity scene will be there. Because, yes, I hafta.