Life's Funny That Way

Two novels in one

I'm sure many others have experienced this problem... but I'm not sure how many have experienced it this late in the novel draft process that is known as Nanowrimo.  I'm over 38K in word count.  I'm wrapping up my novel (and I have more than enough scenes to go back and flesh out to get over the coveted 50K), and I realize that a large part of what I wrote actually occurs before the novel!

Also, I realize that, in the novel this will eventually become, the sheriff's department and the hospital staff will not see my main characters as people who have righted any wrongs or who have saved the small town from its past.  They will keep the pair sedated until they determine what to do with them.  Another character, one deemed of "lesser stature" by the small community and the 'old boy network' may take the fall for the whole thing.....

This is such a better novel than the "really good" novel I thought I had before.  I never know what will come out during Nano, but when my main character suddenly felt uncomfortable when the sheriff (a man she knew as a kid as the teen all the girls had a crush on) stopped his squad car to talk to her and another person that was in the squad after what I thought was the culmination of my novel.....well, then things all changed.  Because we're so close to the end of Nano, I just told her to shut up because he's a nice guy.

Then, when she got to the hospital, the nurse creeped me out a bit, too.  That was when I realized that this could all go terribly, terribly wrong.  That is the wonder of this thing we call fiction writing.  We really never know what will happen until it does... and we're never, ever in charge of any of it!
Write on, All!
Beck