Once again I'm treading water in a chapter, trying to figure out what to do. I feel like I'm swimming in a big old pool of stuff. Stuff to move the story forward. Stuff the reader needs to know. Stuff the characters do. Stuff they say. Stuff I want to say. Stuff that's just fun to write. Stuff that clarifies. Stuff that evokes.

All this stuff can't be here. Some of it has to go. The scenes have to be tight and move quickly.

One thing I noticed about the latest Harry Potter movie was that they really whipped through some of the plot points in order to get them all in. If you missed one line of dialog--sometimes even just a couple of words--that was it. You wouldn't know why the characters did such-and-such or why thus-and-so ensued. They gave you exactly one chance to catch on and keep up.

That's what a chapter needs to be like, IMO. In a book, you can stop and reread a line if you think you missed something.

Okay, back to work. Sigh.