My side character stole the plot in 3 paragraphs

I was writing a simple prompt about a lost dog and the neighbor who finds it, but after one scene where she mentions her dead sister, the whole story pivoted to grief and I couldn't get it back on track. Has anyone else had a minor character just take over like that, and did you let them run or force the original story back?

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barbaraschmidt1mo ago

Honestly, "she mentions her dead sister" hit me right in the gut because that's exactly how it goes. I once had a mailman character who was supposed to just drop off a package, and he ended up taking over a whole chapter about his failed marriage. Tbh, I let him run, and now he's the main character of a separate book I never planned to write. Ngl, sometimes these side characters know the story better than we do, and forcing them back is like trying to put a cat in a carrier. At this point, I just let them have the wheel and see where the crash lands.

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