How to Breathe Life Into Your Characters VII

Dumpy Middles

We’ve all been there. The wondering if you’re on the right course, if you should pack up your manuscript in a drawer and forget it, or so on. This usually happens around the middle of your novel. You’re losing steam from the exciting beginning and staring down the endless hallway at what could be the end. Let’s face it, middles are the worst place to be in a story. Just because, well, that’s when all the doubts sink in.

When you start off, you’re all aglow with the first love of the premise (what your book is about). As you get further and further in, that emotion begins to trickle. You wonder if you’ve made the right choice? Isn’t that idea over there more enticing? And so begins the flirtation of the new stories just clamoring to be written. IGNORE them. OR, write them down. ANOTHER choice some writers make is to write more than one at a time. If this works for you, I say go for it. But if the cheating’s just keeping you from doing the obvious: finishing the novel, you may have a problem.

I get blinded by the Muse all the time: write this one, or that one. I get down as much of the story as I know, enough to get me started when I’m “free” of my commitment. This tactic works for me because I know that I can go back at any time and tackle a new possibility. And even if I don’t go back right away, sometimes there are just those that look so good on the outside but once you dig into them, they crumble away. Yes, this is all kind of like dating: Is Mr. Right the one you’re with, or is Mr. New Shoes the way to go?

It can get challenging. I like to give the story I’m writing my full attention. That means, once I start, I do my best to see it through to the end. Have I ever stopped writing a story? Yes. It’s hard, it feels like someone sucker-punched you. There are some stories that just don’t work. They’re hard to spot. Someone else can see that it’s not working, but you yourself ignore the obvious a lot of times. You’re stubborn, you hang on, fight. But in the letting go, you find relief.

So, my suggestion? If you don’t already have a critique partner/s, get one/them. You’d be surprised at how they make your writing grow, the holes they spot, the times they let you know, this just isn’t working. There’s a lot of pain involved in writing. You’re struggling to bring to life a new novel. It isn’t an easy task. No one should suffer alone. Middles can be the most depressing aspect you face. But you can get through. Just work toward the end you imagine.

If you need to switch from one story to another to get there, that’s fine. Part of your problem may be that your Muse simply hasn’t figured things out, or if it has, isn’t “ready” yet to deliver. Sometimes we simply need to grow as writers before we can tell a fabulous tale. Even Stephen King had to give up work on a few novels, in order to let himself gain more experience to approach it again.

Just don’t let yourself get talked out of the wonderful story you’ve got going, to check out a flirty new face that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Perseverance wins the day. Just keep tapping away at those keys, wielding that pen, however you write, and you will get past that middle.