I Put My Main Character In The Hospital Today

I've been moping around all day and I think it is because Karen, a fictional character in my work in progress, is unconscious. I cried with Brian when he learned about it. He was in California at the time helping his dad move his mother to a care facility for Alzheimer's patients and he felt guilty for leaving Karen alone in Texas to drive the bookmobile.

How did this happen? It wasn't in my plot outline. I'd been needling Karen for pages but nothing so serious as driving her off a cliff.

As near as I can tell, it's Golden Keyes Parsons' fault.

She spoke at the ACFW CenTex Chapter meeting this month and she talked about Campbell's Hero Journey techniques for plotting. When I got to Step 8, Ordeal – The biggest life or death crisis, during the exercise, I was too embarrassed to write about how the antagonist let the air out of Karen's tires. Granted, it was all four tires at one time, but still not a life or death crisis. On my paper, I wrote, "Karen's car rolls over hill. Hospital. Is she conscious? Brian rushes home, prays. Learns car had been sabotaged."

Now I had a real crisis. When I rewrote the scene I changed car to bookmobile and I let her be unconscious. I can hardly wait to find out what happens next.

Thank you, Golden.