Overcoming the Murky Middle: How to Write the Middle
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If you’re going to get stuck anywhere in your writing process, odds are good it’ll be smack dab in the middle. The part has the most expectations to carry as it develops the promise of the beginning and builds on it to create the climax. The good news is there’s hope for writers who find themselves struggling and wondering how to get through the middle. We’ll first go over some of the causes of a slow middle so you can begin to identify what might be causing the slowdown, and then we’ll talk through four ways to plow through the murky middle.
What causes a murky middle?
The middle of a book is a place where it’s natural to slow down—the momentum of the beginning, character introductions, and inciting incident has worn off, and now you find yourself well into the story. The middle is where development and complications are necessary, which means you need to effectively coordinate all the elements you’ve put into play. This can be tough, and there are many ways the middle’s challenges can become muddy as you work through it. Below, we’ve listed some of the common causes of a murky middle.
Cause #1: Too much going on in the story
When we talk about too much going on in a book, we don’t necessarily mean stories should be simple. In fact, we’re all for intricately plotted books with complex storylines (we’re looking at you, Susanna Clarke)! What we’re talking about here is when you have too many elements that aren’t moving the story forward. Too many goals, plotlines, world details, and characters can be difficult for readers to follow and even harder for an author to use effectively. Developing subplots, worldbuilding, and characters can become distractions that take attention away from the overarching story. If you’re too focused on smaller parts of the story, it’s easy to get turned around in the world you’ve made and start wondering where you wanted to go in the first place.
Cause #2: Lack of tension
Despite being foundational in a compelling manuscript, stakes are often the first craft element to go soggy. For many of the reasons we’ve listed above, the middle is an easy place to lose tension. Building a world, even a contemporary one, takes time, characters, scenes, and emotion, but it’s vital that these elements contribute to the stakes rather than take away from them. Are these threads emphasizing the main ideas and themes? Are they moving your characters forward or simply giving them busy work? Put another way, are they spinning their wheels while they’re waiting for the plot to happen?
Cause #3: Repetition
Repeated story elements also contribute to the murky middle of storytelling. Quests, school stories, work romances, and any other book built on recurring events are naturally inclined towards murky middles as the story falls into familiar patterns (i.e., get up, get ready, go to the cave/school/work, face the monster/bully/copy machine). These patterns can also appear in scenes if characters regularly behave in the same way, use the same reasoning, or do the same actions. Patterns aren’t necessarily bad, and, in fact, they can be expertly used to build expectation and tension. However, as we’ve mentioned before, it’s vital that the story is always moving forward despite similar events or happenings.
How to fix a murky middle
Knowing why you’re stuck in the murky middle will help you find the steps you need to take to get out of it, and sometimes you might need to try more than one of these techniques to get unstuck. Below, we’ll show you some of the best ways to get out of a muddled middle.
Getting Unstuck Tip #1: Refine your “why”
Step back from your book and consider the reason you began writing in the first place. What sparked this idea? What made you excited to write it? Have you moved away from that original spark, and is there a way to reignite the heart of the book? Redefining why you want to write this story will help you see where you may have put in too much detail or where you may have departed from your original inspiration and destination. Trying to identify the core of your story or the major themes of your book can help you think about your why.
Getting Unstuck Tip #2: Up the stakes
The middle is a great place to raise the stakes of the story, especially if tension has been lost. Once your protagonist is settled in their world and the conflict, the middle provides an opportunity to up the ante and expand the scope. Maybe more could be lost if the protagonist doesn’t act; maybe more people become involved than before. More information could be revealed or a traitor unmasked. Perhaps the tunnel is blocked, or the wizard is not at home. Of course, you don’t want to completely change the story halfway through. When the stakes rise here, it should be a natural extension of what’s come before, which will allow it to be more compelling and engaging for your reader. Please raise your stakes responsibly.
Getting Unstuck Tip #3: Use an outline
Outlines are a fabulous tool for putting new thoughts on paper as well as showing what you’ve actually written in the story itself. Even if it’s just bullet points, if you’re not sure where to go next, write out what should happen next. If you’re feeling stuck, briefly outline what’s on the page now. Do the characters have enough information or stimulus to keep moving forward and grow, or are there gaps that need to be filled in? Is there repetition that’s keeping your story going in circles? Are the stakes clear enough to keep them pushing ahead? Explore your options to change the order of events, condense them, or take them out completely.
Getting Unstuck Tip #4: Skip over it
Many writers believe they have to write in chronological order, but the truth is, you can write in any order that suits you. (If you need it, you can consider this permission to skip over a tough scene.) If the middle is too murky to see through, you can jump over scenes to reach ones where you know what needs to happen. By working on parts that are settled, you can then return to more uncertain parts and see more clearly what needs to happen in those scenes or chapters. Your mind is always working to untangle and solve problems, and you’ll often find you have a solution by the time you come back.
Final thoughts on overcoming the murky middle
Each part of a book has its challenges, but the murky middle isn’t one you have to fear. Keeping your why at the front of your mind and holding fast to where you want to go with the book will help you keep putting one word after the other. Sooner than you realize, you’ll be at the climax, and as the plot diagram goes, it’s all downhill from there.
Photo thanks to Rory Björkman on Unsplash!
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