I still remember something from when I was a kid in school and I use it all the time when im writing.
It was an activity we had to do, kind of a small drama skit. "Pretend to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ", we were told. As each of us went up, the teacher pointed out afterward all the steps we forgot. Most of us didn't get out the bread, take out a butter knife from a drawer, open a cupboard to get the peanut butter, get out the jelly and open the jar.
When writing, it's critical to ensure characters do things in the right order, or that things that happen make sense. If someone was doing one thing, and is suddenly doing another, how did they get from point A to point B? Describing the actions that happen are important; readers will notice when sequences are out of order or don't make sense.
It's even more important when working on a rewrite. Many times a change in the story can include deleting part of it. That means finding everything related to that deleted material and changing it, too.
No writer is perfect; we will all miss some of these steps in our story. Hopefully a good editor will catch it. But always take the time to look for them-the changes in your story where you need to identify how something changed and included the steps.
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