Yes, I worried about whether or not it would come to this. I’ve been struggling with my novel and in my frustration, I killed someone. It was an accident. He was driving home from football practice and I caused him to drive off the road.

It provides a minor subplot that will help me reach the 50,000 words, and actually works well to help develop the characters and set things up for the culmination of the novel.

When I went to my first NaNoWriMo write-in, I was given a cheat sheet. “NaNoWriMo Novel Rescue Companion”. It lists six different things to do in case of a plot emergency. I didn’t really have a plot emergency, it’s just the accident happened. It moves the story along, and fills up the pages. It is close to the first plot emergency idea.

“Give one of your characters a fatal illness.” Okay. It wasn’t a fatal illness. That just wouldn’t have worked. It was a car accident. It was a minor character that I introduced and killed off all in the same chapter.

“Add a talking animal to your novel.” Well, my novel takes place, in part, in Second Life. One of the key characters avatar is a ‘furry’ in Second Life. That is about as close to a talking animal that I can get to in my novel.

“Have one of your characters suddenly discover that they are a superhero.” Well, everyone in Second Life can fly and can teleport. Not quite superheroes, but as close as I can get.

“Have one of your characters suddenly become naked.” Well, there are scenes in the mature regions of Second Life. I’ve got that covered, or I guess I had better say, uncovered.

I’ve now broken 35,000 words, so I’m hoping that with events leading up to the conclusion and all that will happen there, I won’t have any other plot emergencies. The last two suggestions I just can see using.