When Characters Do Bad Things

I was peacefully writing away yesterday afternoon.

La, la, la.

That was me. I began a new chapter with a new character. He carefully slipped out of the house in the morning, being extra careful not to wake his wife who didn’t need to get up for a few more hours. Off he went to work, the ever-so safety conscious employee. All day he works alongside his longtime buddy. Then he shocks me. As he is driving away from the plant, he drives downtown and meets his buddy’s wife for a long-standing affair! They even have a hotel room booked for every Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:30. I was shocked. So shocked I almost stopped writing. Seriously. My fingers paused. My brain leapt scrambled against the brick wall it had been flung against and my jaw dropped.

I stuttered. I blinked. I couldn’t believe it. Sure, in the past my characters have done some pretty zany stuff. But they have never, NEVER done anything that I would disapprove of. And this guy did. I created a cheater and I didn’t know. I’m really quite choked at him. Why would he do this? He’s a good guy with good relationships. Or, at least, so I thought.

I had to stop writing. I left him at the hotel room door. It was hard writing about this as it came so out of left field. The character will stay. The affair will stay. And I will get over it.

What surprised me the most was maybe not his affair, but how shocked I was. I started jumping on what was flowing from my fingers onto the screen. I was getting in the way when I was in the groove and the right, honest words were hitting the page.

I honour the groove, and yet, my brain was stuttering at my fingers, so I had to quit. I was afraid I was going to spoil it. That I was going to get in the way of the story.

Has that ever happened to you? Have your characters shocked you so thoroughly you had to put down the story and compose yourself?