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That one stranger at a bus stop who gave me a plot twist for a story I was stuck on
I was waiting for the 72 bus downtown last Wednesday, scribbling in a notebook about a character who couldn't leave her house. An older guy in a faded work jacket glanced over and said, 'Why doesn't she just set the front door on fire?' It was such a blunt, weird idea, but it cracked open the whole story for me in like 10 seconds. I ended up writing a 12-page chapter based on that one line. Has anyone else had a random comment from a stranger totally reshape a project you were stuck on?
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michael_wood3218d agoProlific Poster
My buddy Dave had this happen to him at a coffee shop two years ago. He was stuck trying to figure out a murder mystery where the killer was supposed to be invisible but it just felt dumb to him. Some girl at the next table overheard him mumbling about it and just said, "Make them a ventriloquist, the dummy is the killer." He thought she was crazy at first but then it clicked hard. He rewrote the whole second act that weekend and ended up self publishing it on Amazon, actually got some decent reviews. I still laugh about it because now he can't write without going to a coffee shop and hoping some random person fixes his plot holes.
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