The week my plot outline fell apart in real time at a coffeeshop in Austin

I was working on a mystery novel and had this super tight 12 chapter outline. Then on Tuesday, I overheard a barista at Flightpath Coffee tell a customer about finding a locked safe behind a wall during a remodel, and suddenly my whole plot felt boring. I spent the next 3 days rewriting the middle section to include that safe, but now the ending doesn't make sense with my timeline. Has anyone else had a random real-life detail wreck their carefully planned story, and how do you decide whether to follow the new idea or stick to the outline?

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paulw8711d ago

That locked safe detail would've derailed me too. My outline once fell apart because I overheard a guy at a bar describe his job cleaning crime scenes, and suddenly my protagonist's boring accountant backstory felt like watching paint dry. I chased that new idea for two weeks, ended up with a plot hole big enough to drive a body through, and scrapped the whole thing to start over. Now I write outlines in pencil, literally, because I know some random barista is gonna ruin my life again.