So, I've been revising the Beasts, filling in all the blanks--*cough* setting *cough*-- adding those things that make a novel work better--you know, things like character conflict, like foreshadowing, like PLOT--and I've gotten up to chapter five.

Chapter five involved the first firefight for my heroes, a real kick-in the walls raid that got complicated by them finding more resistance than they expected. But chapter five also involved me trying and failing this scene several times until I just gave up. When it came time to revise it, the ms abruptly trails off into all caps that read: BLEAH THIS SCENE IS ALL CRAP AND NEEDS TO BE REDONE COMPLETELY!!!!!

I do so love it when I leave those little notes for myself. :P

So, here I am, reworking chapter five, and realizing that a) there's no setting and b) what setting there is comes directly from a million television episodes. A warehouse! Behind a chainlink fence! Off by itself! With random security guards! Whee!!! That'll be exciting! Not.

The thing is, TV's conditioned me in a lot of tiny ways. I'm not going to beat myself up for this--it's a first draft scene that's incomplete. It's allowed to suck. But, I am going to remind myself again: DON'T MAKE THINGS EASY FOR MY HEROES. Television has a good reason for so many of its showdowns happening in warehouses. They provide space; they provide an easily secured area; they allow for explosive stunts. And those are exactly the reasons I'm resetting this scene.

We can do more with writing.

A heavily-armed team of soldiers? Let's put them in the 24hr business district. Let's have them deal with the bank doing business next door, the hotel across the street, the restaurant tower with its open-air dining levels. Let's put the secret lab in the bottom of a busy IT building. And let's do it on a Monday, just as people are getting off work.

They want to sneak up on the bad guys? They want to catch them meeting all unawares? It's going to take effort, and if it goes wrong? It's going to get messy, unless my heroes are very, very good. It also gives me another chance to decide how important the stolen tech they're after is. Is it worth spraying the area with bullets? Or do they let it go, and hope they get another chance at it?

I'm not sure of the answer, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Reading: my own prose with red pen to hand.