3 fixes to make your first novel fly: part 2 – give your story a middle

There are three problems I commonly see when writers first attempt a novel. Last post I discussed failing to hook the reader. The other two are plotting problems. Today, I'm looking at …. The missing middle

There's an old saying that stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. In many of the manuscripts I see it's clear the writers planned the start and the finish. But often there is nothing in the middle.

That doesn't necessarily mean they're too short. Au contraire, I see a lot of manuscripts that bravely rack up several hundred pages between the first incident and the last. Much of this seems to be aimless noodling until the spark catches and we're into the climax.

For instance, a girl gets a job as PA to a glamorous film star and spends a lot of the book talking to her friends, and hanging out with Target Man on a professional basis. But nothing develops for three-quarters of the book until she's thrown out of Camelot – which then kicks off a perfectly creditable rollercoaster to the end. I can feel the writer keeping the characters milling about the set until she's ready to unleash them on the purposeful bit. I can also feel her boredom as she tries to find ways to keep them amused until the part she really wants to write.

But every step the story makes should be purposeful. Don't mark time in the middle. In fact, don't even think of a middle. Think instead of a series of steps, each of them significant, which changes something and causes what happens next.

In those  novice manuscripts, I could precis the middle into a few short pages and then zip straight to the end. It shouldn't be like that. The parts between the beginning and the end should be necessary.

Thank you TMAB2003 on Flickr for the photo. I originally intended this to be two posts, but it ran away with itself. And so you will very soon get a part 3 – the other major novice plotting problem… stay tuned…

Do you find middles tricky?