A thing I learned about writing

"Character hesitates and ruminates before doing something which she expects to be bad, and then does something else" is usually the wrong choice. At best, it's usually the "writer talking aloud to herself" stuff that you'd better clean up in the second draft by skipping the rumination and going directly to the "something else" without worrying too much about justifying the decision; and then sometimes, it's worth considering the option of "Character does the thing [for whatever reason], it is bad for all the reasons she expected, start from there."

In trying to get my characters to make decisions that are smart and reasonable -- not beyond their own maturity levels but not "I did this thing which is clearly a bad idea to move the plot forward!" -- it's easy to have them sidestep conflict and drama entirely, which doesn't work either.

You have to make people step in the conflict, but you've got to give them really good reasons to do it, too.