How to Manage the Middle

This is an excerpt from my July 2024 newsletter. Subscribe here to get writing tips and first dibs on workshops delivered to your inbox every month.

In the middle of this year, I’ve been thinking about the middle of stories. Whereas beginnings, with their destabilization of normal circumstances, and endings, with their reverberating shifts and revelations, feel naturally dramatic, middles can feel like a slog. As writers, that’s the last thing we want. A slog to write is a slog to read—or to watch.

I’m giving up on a popular TV series that has this problem. Several recent episodes feature the same arguments between the same characters, the same tensions over money and love. In the beginning, those tensions showed promise. But now, with no growing threats of dooming the characters’ chances at happiness, the tensions are tedious.

Whenever protagonists (like you, in an essay or memoir) don’t face new or increasingly serious difficulties or threats, a narrative slows.

I recently read two books with terrific middles. One is Eve J. Chung’s novel, Daughters of Shandong, which follows a girl in northern China whose family is displaced when Communists take over the country. Another is the nonfiction account of Captain Cook’s final expedition, The Wide Wide Sea, by Hampton Sides. In both narratives, just when you think things couldn’t be worse for the protagonist, they get worse.

These stories follow actual as well as metaphorical journeys. If you’ve taken one of my classes, you’ve probably heard me compare stories with journeys. A twisty, hilly, surprising route is preferable to a straight, flat one. While you don’t need a physical journey to keep your story’s middle interesting, travel provides a built-in narrative structure. Writing about an eventful trip can be a good way to practice crafting a lively middle.

But if you’re facing a monotonous middle, how can you make it magical?

• Rework your opening. “All second-act problems are really first-act problems”—that’s a saying from script writing. It’s not always true, but it’s worth considering. Ask yourself, in your story’s beginning, do you care deeply about your protagonist and what happens to them? Do they have a goal that’s huge, meaningful, and hard to reach? Do they have an important reason for wanting that goal? Are significant obstacles preventing them from reaching it? When you can answer “yes” to these questions, you’ll have a beginning that sets you up for a better middle.
• Escalate. Escalation means it becomes harder and harder for your protagonist to reach their goal. The stakes of not reaching that goal rise. Escalations can involve the tangible, such as a propeller breaking on the boat that you bought for your charter fishing business that you quit your good-paying job to start just as you’re face mounting bills. Or they can be psychological, such as a long-lost cousin calling to ask a favor, after reminding you of how she saved your life when you were in trouble and threatening to expose your long-kept secret. Escalate in the direction of your protagonist’s worst fears and dearest longings. Aim for continual escalation until your story’s climax. Don’t hesitate to complicate the situation. Include reversals and contradictions. Show how the protagonist is fooling themselves. Leave gaps or reveal hidden truths. Imagine how more bravery and honesty could point to escalation.
• Adjust your timing. Are you beginning the story too early, with preliminaries that don’t illuminate or put pressure on the protagonist’s dilemma and desires? If so, try beginning in medias res (in the midst of things), at the moment when everything changed and set the story into motion. Or is it possible that your middle is a chunk of backstory that could be broken up and interspersed with the main action? Perhaps your middle could be trimmed to a fraction of its size so readers reach the third act’s action sooner. While revising, remain open to adjusting the content in any way that makes your story better.

If you can’t tell whether your middle is monotonous, try setting your story aside and returning to it after many months with a fresh perspective. And ask the opinion of a smart, candid writer or editor friend.

Take heart, if you’re struggling with the middle. You’re not alone, and you’re on the right path. The only way to write a manuscript that grips readers from its beginning through its middle to its end is to keep writing.