Hey, has anyone else ever been frantically cranking out a mystery during nanowrimo and had, say 6,766 words in, have one character ask another character a question that derails the whole plot? Just asking.
Characters can be real jerks, when they get ideas.
I hope it helps you move your plot in a new and even better direction!
Eventually, maybe, but not much for it now but to forge ahead. At least I now accept that I’ll probably have to rewrite the first 10,000 words before I even get started, instead of being dragged kicking and screaming to that realization four drafts in. Wisdom, I call it.
Never had that happen, no. My characters are fond of grabbing the plot and forging merrily ahead while I stand there and insist, “But wait. How did we get to this point in the first place? I need to know why we’re here before we can go there!”
Hope you get ’em straightened out.
Beat them into submission. They still might not do what you want them to do, but it’ll feel good to pound them into mush.
Problem is, during nano, there’s no time to go back and make them do something different in the old scene – I have to just forge ahead trying to force them into reasonable behavior “on a going forward basis” as they say in marketing. Then the new behavior doesn’t match with the old behavior written down back there and the characters start giving me side-eye.
Of course, the real problem is those characters were probably trying to tell me something.