Structuring a Scene

As I get into the muckity muck of the middle (pages 100 to 300, for those not in the know), I've been re-reading Scene & Structure by Jack M. Bickham. There are some great gems in there about how to put together a scene that makes the character seem to be taking steps backward (e.g., the heroine's informant gets murdered, her car gets towed, her cat's puked on the carpet) while moving the story forward (e.g., the infomant's murdered, which then leads the heroine to find another source of information which, in turn, leads her deeper into the story and heading toward more obstacles).

As I said, I'm re-reading this book. There's so many tidbits of advice to remember when you're writing, you're bound to forget a tip or two year after year and manuscript after manuscript...