Here's a new one I just went through:
In my third mss, right at the scene before the last chapter, the players are in an ICU. There's been an accident. The mc, (at attny) has saved a Marine vet, who's blind, from a fire. But in doing so, he's suffered severe internal injuries, and needs surgery asap.
The soldier is on another floor of the hospital w/ a badly broken leg and loss of blood.
They learn that the soldier as well as the attny share a very, very rare blood type. They have little time, and the attny is going into shock and needs blood.
If the attny dies, the soldier can get his corneas in a transplant operation. But the attny needs units of blood for his own surgery.
I wrote the final chapter and did something I've never done before: I dumped the entire thing the next day!
Thousands of words were tossed for a few short graphs. They were a Godsend. I lie on my bed and close my eyes, wrapping my fingers in the headboard's iron rungs, and the answers always come. Always.
The secret? I didn't decide! I let the readers twist in the wind over it.
Either way, one of my best characters was going to lose something, and so.....
The main lessons/conflicts in the story were settled. I left it up to the book clubs members to thrash it out. Ha! Give 'em something to chew on!
