A stranger's comment about villain motives made me rewrite my outline

I was sitting at a bus stop in Portland last Tuesday, scribbling notes for a fantasy piece, and this older guy next to me asked what I was doing. I told him I was stuck on why my villain betrays his crew, and he said, 'People don't do bad things because they're bad, they do them because they're tired.' That one line hit different, so I went home and rebuilt the whole second act around exhaustion instead of greed. Now I'm wondering if anyone else has gotten plot fixes from random conversations with strangers, or if I should just start carrying a tape recorder everywhere.

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mila_mitchell12d ago

That's a hell of a line for a bus stop. Makes me wonder if the exhaustion thing changes the ending too, like does he get to finally rest or does he keep running on empty? What happened to the greed driven scenes you cut, did any of them get recycled or did you just toss them? Also, did you ever figure out what that guy was tired of, or was it just a random wise man moment? Tape recorder sounds smart, but honestly half the fun is catching those weird one off comments when you least expect them.