More good novel-writing advice from Charles Stross. (Mind you, I have yet to get my greedy little fingers on any of his novels, but I understand most of the rest of the world has that problem as well.)

The moment of realisation: say you’ve got three alternating plot threads set in different parallel universes (like me). If you kick off the novel with alternating chapters, and #1 consists of a head-butt and #2 is a knee in the goolies, it is a bad idea for #3 to be a Vicar’s tea party. I speak metaphorically — describing the tone, not the content, for no goolies are kneed or heads butted — but chapter #3 is limp.

This may have something to do with why I keep skipping over act II, scene 1 of the space opera to write bits of scene 2 and occasionally of acts III and IV.