I was reading CBR's interview of the awesomely talented Tom Cavanaugh (please, someone put Ed on DVD), and came upon this gem. [blockquote sub_text="Emphasis added" blockquote_border="border_top_bottom"] "One of the most enjoyable things about doing this show is these guys, like Andrew [Kreisberg] and Greg [Berlanti] and Geoff [Johns], are not interested in just teasing stuff along. The perfect example of this, it doesn't really involve me, is the Iris/Barry storyline. That's the kind of thing that in other hands, on other television shows, you'd see that going on for years -- longing gazes. You know how it works, you've seen it a million times. We're not doing that here. Stuff that would be a season-ending cliffhanger, to us, is just another episode." [/blockquote]
I think that's true in Arrow, too. It works well for those shows, and I think it's a great lesson to keep in mind in writing in general. Maybe you planned for something to take six issues. Maybe it should take three. Keep going. Your readers can tell when you're killing time.
It also reminds me of years ago, when I asked the late Dwayne McDuffie about his run on Fantastic Four, which I adored. I commented that every issue felt like a complete story and had none of that "trade waiting" feel. I asked him how he did it and he said "You just make more stuff up."