Bridging the Middle

A rant about writing a middle that isn't soggy like leftover Cap'n Crunch.

I've heard it probably more than any other writers' complaint: The beginning slaps, the ending is a banger, but the middle... the middle is just there, and how does one make it exciting and not sag? How does one write the middle part of the book, that gets us from where it all took off with a bang, through to the conclusion where the stakes were never higher? Many writers struggle with the middle portion, and my thoughts on this are that maybe the middle isn't the issue, but the way we're thinking about story structure as a whole.

Lift up that three-act structure, that high school early writing lesson, that Iowa-era post-war McCarthyist—(no really, look up ties between how western narratives post-ww2 were shaped and the political ideologies backing them, it's fascinating)—this structure we're inundated with, and throw it overboard. Wave to it. Bye! See you again never. It's been fun!

I think what's missing here is the need to embrace story as a journey, not from Point A to Point B, but comprised of worthwhile steps through the countryside. The middle IS the story. It's not just a mechanism to get to that desired ending. So what if we instead consider things this way:

The beginning The middle
The middle Still the middle
The end Still, yes, the middle

We join our characters at some stage in their journey. Their journey, their story, even if it "begins" at their birth, had begun long before, too. Inevitably, there is something before each story that influences the present tense events taking place, those current things which the reader participates in during the book. We begin in the middle. We continue, also in the middle, and when we leave the characters, their stories continue off into the vanishing distance after we part ways. It is still the middle. It is all the middle. Thus, we don't consider how to write a beginning, middle, and end, but how to write compelling events that spur on interest, movement, and dramatic unfoldings. The middle is the journey.

Underneath it all, the same key fundamentals reside, guiding the craft. What if it's not all buildup and denouement? What if you wrote a story like a spiral, or in kishōtenketsu?

Maybe another element to this equation is the refocus from individualist narrative (see above Iowa Workshop mention) toward collectivist, or coexistant narrative. Stories in which it is not just the one hero who must take Campbell's road trip to bring back a boon and prove their worth, while ignoring the systemic plight that remains after their victory is celebrated. The saggy middle can be strengthened by leaning into the value of each character's contribution to that journey, how the pieces fit together and how their differing goals play out in the drama being told. The mental picture that comes to mind for me is a game of Go, in which weak individual stones gain value and power when grouped in strong patterns, though each was originally equal in their helplessness. So too, in creating multiple avenues for drama to progress along, can the Middle strengthen itself by binding more story threads together.

I like to think of story along the Rules of Cool: there should always be something new and interesting to turn the next page, and it doesn't always have to advance the primary plot. Excursions, sidequests, postcards: these are valued parts of a journey, too.

When I start to think that a story I'm working on is flagging, I'll ask myself, "what's the most interesting thing that could happen next?" and go with that.