When your characters talk back

This morning, I had to get up early; the cat has taken to either scratching at or pushing things off of my bedside chest of drawers in an attempt to get his breakfast served if I'm not awake and his tummy's rumbling.

It was 7am, so not too bad. Although it IS half term and I'd have preferred a bit more of a lie-in, if I'm honest...

Anyway, cat fed, cup of tea made, couldn't go back to sleep, so I left Mr Squidge snoring, went downstairs and picked up the WIP.

I'd reached a bit of a sticky point a couple of days previously; resorted to post-it notes (other brands of sticky notes ARE available!) to try to map out the sequence of some key scenes. I thought this morning, as the house was quiet and there was no one else wanting the laptop, I'd try and write the next scene in the sequence.

Two new characters appeared to do what Zanni needed them to do, which was fine. However, one of them - Tia - said something and - POW!

LIGHTBULB MOMENT! 

This minor character, in one sentence, gave me a) the reason why none of the townspeople go into the crystal forest if they can avoid it and b) why my protagonist, Anton (and his dad) hate my main character, Zanni, so much. It's going to racket up the tension no end!

The downside is that there is now a lot of rewriting to do within the 17K words I've produced so far to make what Tia's revealed feel natural and real within what I've already written, but I will tackle that at a later date. For the moment, I just need to work this new information into the story from this point onwards and see how it shapes up...