Tangents and Subplots: When Do They Work?

My worksheets page is most often recommended for my beat sheets, but one of the other tools I share is the Elements of a Scene Checklist. The checklist (or the matching worksheet for use with multiple scenes) helps us identify whether a scene is truly necessary and contributing to our story.

Occasionally, I’ll receive questions about some of the elements on the list, like “what counts as character development?” I have no proof, but I suspect at least some of those questions come from writers...