Your Story’s Centerpiece

 

YOU CAN ENVISION the Midpoint as a turn in your story’s row of dominoes. When the line of reactions from the First Half of the Second Act finally whacks into that domino at the turn, it begins a whole new line of falling dominoes. This is a big moment in the story, a major scene. It has to be the logical outcome of the previous scenes, but it should also be dramatically new and different from anything that has come before.

 

Exercise: Answer the following questions about your story’s Midpoint.

 

Question #1: What major event occurs in the middle of your story?

 

Examples:

• The capture of the main characters. (Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher)

 

• A battle. (The Magnificent Seven directed by John Sturges)

 

• The death of an important character. (Dragon Seed by Pearl S. Buck)

 

Question #2: In thinking of this event as your story’s “centerpiece,” how can you make it appropriately exciting, colorful, and dramatic?

 

Question #3: How does this event change your protagonist’s perception of the antagonist?

 

Question #4: How does this event change your protagonist’s perception of the conflict?

 

Question #5: How does this event change your protagonist’s perception of himself?

 

Question #6: How does this event and your protagonist’s personal revelations shift him out of a reactive phase into an active one by allowing him to take more control of the conflict?

 

Subplot Exercise: Answer the following questions about your subplots.

 

Question #1: How will the Midpoint bring your protagonist (or the “lead” character in your subplot) to a new understanding about your subplot(s)?

 

Question #2: Will this new understanding be a direct or indirect result of the revelations in the Midpoint? How?

 

Foreshadowing Exercise: Answer the following questions about your foreshadowing.

 

Question #1: How and where in earlier chapters have you heavily foreshadowed your Midpoint?

 

Question #2: How have you lightly foreshadowed the Midpoint right before it occurred?

 

Reference: Structuring Your Novel, chapter 7, pages 94-99.