Last night, watching an episode of “Big Bang Theory,” a line Wolowitz said made me change a significant chunk of my WiP.
The line was “It’s the Jewish prayer for eating bread; we don’t have one for falling out of the sky!” And it occurred to me that it would be kind of cool if the major religion of one of the species in my work had a prayer for many significant actions. And then I decided that there was no real point in having only human characters when the story takes place in an Empire in which humans are a minority, and (if further books happen) a war will be started in which several species will align with the humans. So I went into my plot and juggled a character previously only intended as a one-scene cameo into the story in a deeper way.
And I think the book will be better for it.
Thanks, Chuck Lorre!