Two recent plot consultations revealed the same dilemma — both writers were faltering as they made the approach to the Crisis, which occurs about 3/4, give or take, through the entire project.
The Problem
Characters, setting, set-up, premise, and action move from the superficial, introductory mode of the Beginning to the gritty, challenging world of the Middle, the heart of the story world itself.
In the middle, masks fall away and the characters reveal themselves for who they truly are, warts, flaws, fears, prejudices, and all. At this point in the relationship, just like in life, the story tends to get messy. Fights can ensue. Feelings can get hurt. Because of that, writers often back away, afraid of what the characters will reveal about themselves, doubting their ability to manage the dark side of the characters.
Writers tend to want to back off when they approach the Crisis. And why not? We shy away from disaster, drastic upheaval, or deep loss in our own lives. Why would we want to do any differently for our characters? Yet, that is exactly what the Crisis is — the suffering that occurs when the protagonist’s whole world shatters and doesn’t make sense anymore. Because only out of the ashes of the old self can a new self come into being — the beginning of the character’s ultimate transformation.
When things get messy, writers often long for the good old days at the Beginning of the relationship when things were smooth and happy, and superficial. Don’t give into the urge to go back and start over again. The truth of the relationship and the characters emerge in the Middle.
Plot Tips and Tricks
1) Use of Antagonists
Writers who make friends with as many antagonists as they can create seem to slog their way through the Middle without as much mishap as those who have not fostered such relationships.
The six basic antagonists are: other people, nature, God, machines, society and the characters themselves.
If you are trying to deepen your skill at showing character development, of the six antagonists, the inner workings of the characters themselves offer the richest form of support. In terms of plot, three basic character traits have the potential to create scenes with the most conflict, tension and suspense or curiosity: the character’s flaw, fear, and hatred.
For example, in the Beginning of To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee introduces Scout, the protagonist, with the flaw, among others, of being insensitive to other people’s feelings. In the Middle, Lee turns the tables on Scout. Now, rather than continue to see all the ways Scout demonstrates her insensitivity to others, the reader sees how Scout suffers the effects of others’ insensitivity, from her cousin acts of cruelty towards her to how a white townsperson married to a black woman deals with the insensitivity of the community around him.
Scout’s flaw is not the only antagonist that creates more conflict, tension and suspense in very scene. The Middle is fraught with antagonists of every sort. Her father serves as an antagonist when he asks Scout to control her temper and her fists. Because of scenes in the Beginning showing Scout’s impulsive fits of anger, the reader knows as well as Scout and her father just how hard it will be for the eight-year-old to control these two shadow aspects of herself.
Lee employs other antagonists in the Middle: an old mad dog down yonder; Mrs. Dubose, a neighbor who symbolizes the collective consciousness of the town folk or society at large; Aunt Alexandra; grown men of the community; etc.
2) Unusual world
The Plot Planner mimics the universal story form with a line that moves steadily upward to denote the necessity of giving each scene more significance to the character and more conflict, tension and suspense in the dramatic action than the scene that came before it.
A trick that can help you over the roughest territory of all: the middle of the Middle is to create an unusual world. So long as you keep a measure of conflict, tension and suspense alive, the actual dramatic action can flatten out a bit in the middle of the Middle. Here, the writer can take time to deepen the readers’ appreciation of an unusual job, setting, lifestyle, custom, ritual, sport, belief or whatever your imagination dreams up.
This world, whether real or imagined, comes alive with authentic details most relevant to the unusual world, specific details the average reader does not yet know or appreciate.
For example, in the Middle of Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden shows the world of the geisha as the protagonist herself learns about the expectations, dance steps, joke making, dress and hair.
In the Middle of Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak shows us through six pages of illustrations the unusual world of wild things making rumpus.
In the Middle of My Half of the Sky, Jana McBurney Lin shows the everyday life of a tea seller in China.
The next time you find yourself bogged down in the Middle, don’t resort to going back and starting again. You will only end up finding yourself in a seemingly never-ending cycle. Instead, make a list of all the antagonists you can think of that are relevant to the overall plot or thematic significance. Add the development of an unusual world, and see if you don’t find yourself jumping from one scene to the next, and bypassing the quicksand of the Middle all together.
Do you have any tips to help writers slog their way through the middle??? Any tips about writing the build-up to and the actual Crisis??? Please do share…….
Good Post Martha! Especially on the tip of creating some kind of unique world or focus on ritual for the middle.
I find that the middle is the best place to focus on backstory via flashback or developing subplots or parallel story-lines.
Another tip I’d like to share is utilizing the timeline of a story and breaking it down into scenes/chapters. This helps with structuring the novel during the first draft.
For example, if my story takes place within a week’s timeframe, then I break up the ACTs with 1-2 days for both ACTs 1 and 3. And then I structure the middle with an alotment of 3 to 5 days (knowing of course that at midpoint or the middle of the week, a thematic reversal or twist has to occur). Then I break it down even further by what each day has to accomplish in terms of conflict, character growth, and proving my premise.
I find using a monthly or weekly calendar helps to organize all of this.
Another way of finding material for the middle is creating a time line for your main characters. Each event on the timeline can then be written down on an index card. Then you can shuffle the cards for pacing or structure and then expand on the relevant events of your choosing.
Of course there are other ways to structure a story such as the Hero’s Journey or the Heroine’s journey, mythic journey.
Each story will be different, depending on the story you choose to tell.
I hope this helps.
I keep goiing back to the beginning. Now I know why
I try to keep coming back to goal–the big goal. Then I look for a smaller goal, a step to the bigger one, around which I can structure a scene. And then, as our friend Beth says, I try to “make bad things happen” to get in the way of that goal.
I like what you say about writers avoiding/backing away from conflict. SO true. I think the retreat to that opening, where things are quiet, may need to change in more ways than it used to. The more I read about openings and the more openings I really look at, I see how few stories still contain that safe harbor of the ordinary world. More and more, books are starting with a bang–right in the middle of the first problem. Which isn’t all that comforting! 🙂
Thanks. this came at the perfect time.
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Interesting post!
I wanted to add that another reason why I think we tend to get lost in the middle is because we often know where we want to end up, but then we either aren’t quite sure how to get there, or we’re just plain daunted by the sheer amount of work necessary to do so. Kind of like scaling a mountain.
Thanks for your comments everyone!
Livvy, you sound like me — a visual, organized writer. Great tips — I, too, have used a calendar to help organize — very helpful to keep track of days and weeks, or whatever.
Anonymous, yup — there’s the cycle at work. Have to force yourself into the great unknown and trust all will be there to support you as you need it.
Hi Becky — character goals are the best thing to help writers keep grounded. And, I didn’t mean to imply that the beginning doesn’t have a lot of bang and zip and pop — it’s just that the beginning of anything is easier, once you make that first step which can be a stopper, than once you’re deep into it. For a story, lots of plot threads start to get tangled, obstacles get more serious, stakes are rising, the clock ticks ever faster — it’s a lot to manage……
Stella, I think the lucky ones are the writers who know where they’re headed — the dilemmas they face are exactly as you stated, but at least they have a light shining at the end of that long tunnel. For those with no idea of where they’ll headed, it’s even more difficult.
The more I write here I more I wonder how we ever actually do it — get all the way through. A leap of faith everyday, sitting down and writing…….
Here’s to the possibilities…..
Your blog is really helpful to new writers like me. About 3 months ago I started painting again after almost 18 years. & through my abstract paintings I started writing short stories. I did post one of the stories on my blog. Go through it & please give me feed backs. I dont belong to any writers group so I dont really know much about sentence structure & stuff. All I do is pen down my thoughts. The problem I face is that, when I think, I can't write & when I write , I cant think. any advise on that?
http://edson-dias.blogspot.com/
I just learned about this blog. Can’t wait to dig in.
Thanks
Oh, Martha, how tricky the middle can be, something I never fully appreciated until embarking on my first novel, ‘Night Surfing’. I’m trying to have as much fun in the middle as I had writing the beginning and the ending. Your comments about making friends with protagonists and creating an unusual world came just at the right time for me. I have to gather together all of the little details about the story I’ve been keeping in my fragment file and throw them like fireworks into the air so that my characters can react to them, move in unexpected ways because of them maybe, and hopefully keep me passionate about my story. The writing of this novel came just at the right time for me. I’m ready to play with the messiness that ekes into every character’s life and run with it. It’s fun to veer of course and see what happens but still keep important backstory plotpoints front and center. You once again know just the right thing to say Martha to keep us all motivated. It truly is about taking a leap of faith every day. The gems, those little moments that make stories so memorable are out there, just waiting to be found…Mary Eastham, Author, ‘The Shadow of a Dog I Can’t Forget’
Hi, guys.
Try this: take a handful of people and put them around in a circle and have each person make up a bit of a story. You will see how natural we humans are as storytellers. We inherently know how to start and end a story but we also know how the ‘middle’ goes too.
That ‘middle person’ – the one directly across from the ‘start’ person in the circle, will invariably drop an outrageous bomb into the made-up story. (“And THEN, an alien came down and kidnapped the plumber!” etc, etc.)
I find that middles are the time to drop a bomb that sends the main character on a passionate mission that’s different than the mission as she first saw it. It’s more than what we might call a simple ‘complication’, it’s something entirely eye-opening that she (or we) didn’t expect.
In my novel THE BOOSTER http://www.jennifersolow.com/booster.html
the main character (literally on the exact middle page) switches from being a self-indulgent lone-shoplifter who cares about no one to doing her first heist with someone else.
For Jillian, this changes everything. This other person is ‘the bomb’ – she becomes the reason Jillian’s entire life, and attitude about shoplifting changes.
Without that bomb in the middle, the story lags and eventually runs out of steam. I had to keep reminding myself this in my following two manuscripts. It’s easy to forget.
Martha, super post! You tackled the saggy middle. Many writers do succumb to this, and I’m sure many ms(s) end up shoved under the bed at this point and another ms is begun.
I follow the rule, what is the worst thing that can happen? and that takes me past the saggy middle and leads me to the dark moment. As you explained, the middle is where the characters’ worlds – that they thought they were handling – turn upside down and that brings out their flaws, because they are under stress. Vulnerability rages. This gives that great tension to the book that keeps readers transfixed. Readers identify with the struggle.
I always looove visiting your blog. 😀 Is that a new webpage design? It’s BEAUTIFUL and very user-friendly.
My first project has been sent in and now I wait of the second one to come along. It’s exciting not knowing where I’ll end up. 😀 Each day has become an adventure.
Hugs, JJ/Nancy
What an incredible amount of valuable information here!!
Your generosity humbles me. I remember a friend saying how much she liked the writing community because of how generous writers are.
Your comments prove that point again and again.
Thank you!!
Hi Martha,
Wow, you certainly shared an abundance of information for us to digest. I espcially liked the idea of creating another world for the character and audience to gain perspective and in depth understanding. I’m going to experiment with that suggestion.
Mary
Cool blog. Helpful stuff. Thank you:)
Great post, Martha. Thanks for using My Half of the Sky as one of your examples. I’m honored. I agree with you and many of the comments. But rather than planning out each step, I just let the story take me–at each point asking myself, “Okay, where could this lead?” That is how my subplots–my middle–comes into being. (It’s probably not the most efficient method:)
Fun learning all the different strategies writers use to create their magic on the page. Inspiring, and helpful to all of us……..