If you find yourself becoming bored, then do what you must do to make the novel exciting again for you. Never keep building a scene because you feel you must. Think of some other way to solve the problem that is goading you to write what you don’t enjoy.
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📖 Notes & analysis
Boredom on the page is information, not weakness. If a scene has stopped interesting you, it's usually because the outcome has become obvious, either to you or to the reader, and obvious is the enemy of alive. Your attention is a decent proxy for the reader's attention, so when it flags, that's the moment to change the weather. Say a kitchen conversation between two characters has gone flat: instead of pushing through the small talk, have someone say the one thing they weren't supposed to say, and let the scene detonate early. The caution is not to mistake discipline for boredom. Some scenes feel dull only because they're hard, and finishing hard scenes is often exactly the work you write draft two to fix.
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