Have you ever been reading or watching something, and just when things were starting to get interesting, you found yourself asking: “What? Why didn’t they do ______?” Sometimes, there’s a very good reason for this that will be discovered later, or the creator made a conscious decision for the character to make a mistake in that instance, or perhaps they were even limited by more practical considerations (in the case of movies or television) like special effects budgets and capabilities. Regardless, these dichotomies, where you think something could have or should have happened, but it didn’t, can be terribly disruptive to a story.
Written in a Corner
As I'm working on the Fo'Fonas series, I've made the decision that I'm going to write rough drafts of every novel in the series before I will seek to publish even the first one. I think this will improve the strength of all of the novels, since I'll be able to better tie everything together and generally make for a tighter story. It will also make my job as a writer easier, because I won't be stuck with an immutable origin when I get to later parts of the series.