“Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it’s often only found in moments of truth.”
—Alan Rudolph
IN A POSITIVE Change Arc, your protagonist will have spent the First Half of the Second Act blundering around in foreign territory, making mistakes based on false assumptions, and getting his hand slapped for his every wrong move. But he’s also going to have been slowly—maybe even subconsciously—learning his lesson and figuring things out. These personal revelations are going to lead him up to a very special turning point at the story’s Midpoint, 50% of the way into the story.
Up to now, your protagonist will have been struggling under the burden of his Lie. He’s still overwhelmingly convinced he can’t possibly live without it. But the First Half of the Second Act has altered him, probably without his even realizing it. He’s ready for a big change. The Midpoint is that change. It prompts the character to turn away from the effects of the Lie, if not the Lie itself quite yet.
The Midpoint acts as the swivel for the entire story. Not only is it a crucial moment of revelation in your character’s arc, it also marks the end of his reactive phase and his transition into active mode.
Director Sam Peckinpah referred to the Midpoint as a story’s “centerpiece”: it’s big, impressive, and the center of attention. Your Midpoint is an important opportunity for a killer scene. In his book Write Your Novel From the Middle, James Scott Bell recommends starting your plotting with your Midpoint, so you can plan your entire story around this moment.
In discussions of plot structure, the Midpoint’s emphasis is always placed on the protagonist’s shift from a reactive role (not in control of the conflict) to an active role (taking control of the conflict). This is the fundamental turning point in your book. Without this shift, you have no evolution, no variety, and no story.
But taken at face value, this explanation of the Midpoint is incomplete. Where, after all, does this shift come from?
It comes from deep inside the character. It comes from the heart of his character arc.
At the Midpoint, the character ceases to survive merely in a reactionary role and begins to take definitive action in overcoming the antagonistic force. He does this, not because his goal or his determination to achieve that goal have changed, but because the Midpoint is where he will gain a better understanding of both the external conflict and his inner self in that conflict.
In other words, he finally sees the Truth. Stanley D. Williams calls this the “moment of grace.” James Scott Bell calls it the “mirror moment” (since it metaphorically—and sometimes literally—involves the character looking in a mirror and seeing the truth about himself). The character has been seeing evidence of the Truth throughout the first half of the story, but the Moment of Truth at the Midpoint is where he finally accepts that Truth. He accepts it not just as a universal, generic truth, but as a Truth that is the key to achieving his plot goal, and, by extension, the Thing He Wants.
This does not mean the character rejects the Lie. It’s still too early in the story for that. But the Midpoint shows him the importance of the opposing viewpoint. Consciously, he will continue to claim he believes the Lie throughout the rest of the Second Act, but subconsciously, he will begin to act in harmony with the Truth.
For example, the murder of Po-han at the Midpoint in Richard McKenna’s The Sand Pebbles forces protagonist Jake Holman to face the Truth that it’s impossible to stay personally neutral while in the midst of a war. He still claims neutrality at this point, insisting the morality and politics of war are something for the officers to “fool with.” But his actions in plotting to desert the Navy prove that, deep in his soul, he no longer holds with that Lie of neutrality.
At this point, your character is now a divided person: caught between the Lie and the Truth. His incomplete understanding of how to implement his new knowledge of the Truth is the reason he will not yet be able to achieve total victory in the remainder of the Second Act.