Shoutout to the stranger who helped me fix a plot hole at 2am

I was stuck on a scene in my fantasy novel around 1am last Thursday at a Denny's in Flagstaff. A guy at the next table saw me crossing stuff out and asked what was wrong. I told him my time travel rule broke my whole story, and he pointed out I could just make the magic system only work on Tuesdays. It was such a dumb simple fix that I finished the chapter in 45 minutes. Has anyone else gotten story help from a random stranger in a weird place?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugos676d ago

Ran into a similar thing at a Waffle House in Alabama at 3am. Was sketching out a car chase scene for a thriller and couldn't figure out why the bad guy didn't just take a different exit. The waitress refilled my coffee and said "because his GPS was busted and he trusted a map from 1998." She was probably kidding but I wrote it in and it worked. Sometimes the dumbest fixes come from people who don't even know they're helping. Still think about that waitress whenever I write a chase scene. Her name tag said Mabel and she smelled like cigarette smoke and maple syrup.

harperp316d ago

Wait @hugos67, is Mabel taking new writing clients?