Thank-you - there are some very helpful pointers in there, and it's good of you to type it all out! I like the example that's given in the tumblr post, and also your example from person of Interest. It just keeps ramping up the anticipation, because each possible incident could go so many ways. And I immediately thought "I don't have to think up each incident in sequence, I can just decide on the big one and jam in the extras once that's sorted out," so I guess I'm learning... slowly...

I looked at the Robert McKee book and it's expensive even s/h! So it's obviously very good. I've made an alert for it and will probably end up with a very battered and dog-eared copy which suits me just fine.