“Middles challenge us to find our tenacity and our patience, to remind ourselves that it is within this struggle—often just at the height of hopelessness, frustration, and despair—that we find the most hidden and valuable gifts of the process. Just as in life.”
—DANI SHAPIRO, STILL WRITING
What is the hardest part of a book for you to write? That’s one of the most consistent questions I get in interviews. And I think it’s important every writer knows their limitations and what they need to work on. We have our own unique strengths and weaknesses. I have several weaknesses I’m always trying to improve, but the two constants I struggle with are setting and middles.
Especially middles.
I now understand why writers call it “the sagging middle.” I started a story strong, with all the intentions to finish with a flourish, when suddenly it deflates like a limp balloon. I feel as if I’ve reached the blank, boring space that I can’t seem to fill with anything but crap.
Now, the sagging middle probably exists for me personally because I don’t plot or outline in major detail. As an organic writer (I’m a pantser), I like to figure out things as I go. I may know the beginning and end, but I usually sketch the middle with hopeless optimism and a smug smile that says to my muse, “No worries. I’ll know what happens when I get there.”
I never know. Ever.
My only consolation is all the other times I’ve struggled yet managed to flesh out the middle. And they’re numerous. The seams of a story will either hold up or collapse under the weight of the middle. This is the part of the book in which we truly discover who our characters are—and that’s why once we’ve been through the middle we usually need to go back and edit the beginning.
For me, this is also the most exciting time, because toward the latter half of my middle, I suddenly get it. A big lightbulb goes off in my head, revealing why I was writing this story in the first place. The characters finally show me who they are. But to get there, I need to be open to discovery. I need to show up with only one guarantee: I will be completely miserable for the next few weeks while I work on the middle. But it will be worth it.
Doesn’t the hardest stuff usually deliver the biggest payoff? The beginning and end are amateur hour. Anyone can do that. But to slog through the middle of the story, to show up and be consistent, to handle the unglamorous nuts and bolts of a story, that’s where the true writing champion shows up. This is what gives me the most pride.
I stuck around to write my middle. I didn’t give up.
All of your writing practice leads to this point. For me, this is where I may need to pause to research a bit. When I was writing Any Time and Any Place, halfway through the book, I discover my hero is passionate about stargazing. And that he has a telescope. This discovery was unexpected. I was just writing, and suddenly I had this intense knowledge that he loved astronomy. Now, this fit with the overreaching theme of my book—finding one’s own home in life—but that knowledge came to me later.
As I’m writing this scene, slogging through the mud pit of word carnage, I realize I despise astronomy. I flunked it in college. I like looking at the stars but couldn’t tell you where the Big Dipper is.
I was cranky. I bitched about having to stop writing the book and spend a few hours online researching constellations, stories about Greek mythology, and what type of damn telescope he’d have.
Research seems like a big time suck, but we usually discover things that make sense much later. I needed that time to think about my hero, why he loved stargazing, and how it connected to my heroine. And when I figured out that my heroine also loved the stars, I rewrote a fabulous scene in the book, and threaded it through the middle, all the way to a grand gesture that tied up the ending.
See, the middle is time to take a breath and air out your story. It’s okay to spend some time figuring them out, even if you’re a plotter and know exactly what’s going to happen. The middle is where the surprises are hidden—not the coveted beginning or end. It’s a wonderful secret buried in the muck, and only the writers who take the time and energy to harvest the story will find it.
This is where trust comes in. You must trust your previous writing experience to find your way. Trust in your muse and your characters. Trust that you will be shown the way, but that it may not be the road you originally intended.
I’m not saying the middle will be fun for you to write, but I’ve learned, at least, to trust. That takes away a lot of the sting.
And if you’re one of those writers who adores writing the middle of the book, good for you.
For the rest of us, remember great rewards come from hard work. You may discover realizations about your character by digging into the heart of the story. Great realizations come by creating habits. Those are when the lightbulb moments come crashing over us. But you have to show up to get it, and you have to write the middle.
Take a few hours while writing the middle of your book and research something for your characters. It can be the hero or heroine’s career, a hobby, or even a location they might visit. Breathe some air into the story, and allow yourself to look at it in a fresh perspective. Research is tricky because it can drag us in and keep us from writing, but I also believe it’s crucial to writing a great book. Even if your research material doesn’t make it into the book, you will know more about your characters and story—and that will translate to the page.