Put the gun on the wall and use it

by Alan De Smet

...it helps to remember that I subscribe to Anton Chekov's First Rule of Playwriting: "If there's a gun on the wall in act one, scene one, you must fire the gun by act three, scene two. If you fire a gun in act three, scene two, you must see the gun on the wall in act one, scene one."

Waste nothing.

(Quote from J. Michael Straczynski in a post to Usenet in 1994. I've chosen to quote Straczynski's quote because I can't find a definitive version of Anton's quote.)

Plan ahead. Keep things dense. The result will be more satisfying if players can stand at the end and see the pieces that fit together.

You don't need to include lots of red herrings and irrelevant details. Players have a knack for complicating and delaying things all by themselves.