By Bethany
Tucker.
Stuck in the middle of your draft? Already written to the
end but that section between the beginning and the end feels stale, limp, or
messy? Beta readers giving up in the middle? You might have a case of what’s
called a “soggy middle.”
Soggy middles are Act II problems where the tension is
low, the plot meanders, or the reader, and maybe the writer has trouble staying
with the story. Symptoms are lack of interest, passive shrugging, and dusty
pages.
However, the solution is simple. Want the secret? Fall in
love.
If you’re not in love with the middle of your story, then
it’s not right. There shouldn’t be a single scene in your story that you don’t
like. If you’re bored and having trouble writing
the middle, your readers will be even more bored reading it. Boredom is the
death knell of a story. Books close, go back on the shelf, or worse, end up in
the donate bin. That Kindle Unlimited borrow gets returned with only ten
percent of pages read. Readers walk away. You and your book are forgotten. The
horror!
What does it take to fall in love with the middle of your
story? Clarity. Know exactly what drives your characters. Know what drives your
villains. Know the rules of your world. If the middle is soggy, go back to the
beginning. Act II problems are almost always Act I problems, or world building
problems, or character creation problems.
Once you know what your characters want, what they’re
afraid of, what they need, and what is trying to stop them, (either themselves
or others, or even better, both!) the plot points and scenes of that previously
soggy middle will start to unfurl and tighten up. If your Main Character (MC)
wants to get a new job, but her current boss is jealous of her potential, then
perhaps that current boss will spill printer toner down the MC’s suit just
before she leaves for the interview. Oh no! Now what could have been a boring,
yet anxious, trip to the new company’s office is now a mad scramble in the
local mall to have something presentable to wear. But if the MC wants this new
job because they need money, will they be able to buy a new suit? The tension
is suddenly ramped up. Now, they’re on the phone with their estranged mother,
trying to borrow one of her suits on their way downtown. Which could lead
straight back to another challenge that the MC was trying to avoid. Zing! You
have tension.
The rule of thumb to fixing a soggy middle: never, ever
give your character what they want the first or even the second time they reach
for it. Make it hard. Make them sacrifice. If they’re at the mall to buy a new
suit, make sure their size isn’t in stock. Or worse yet, let them recognize the
person they’re about to interview with in the food court as they walk in
wearing that ruined suit.
If your MC is trying to sneak into a castle, let them fall
in the moat the first time. Then when your MC tries a second time, have the
antagonist see them on their way in. Let them get captured. Push them. Find
that special crucible designed just for them, their fears, and desires, and put
them through it. Turn it on its side, put them through again. Have they learned
their lessons yet? No? Find another way to evoke that fear and send them back
into the dungeon.
Make sure the obstacles are always related to the major
problem driving the story or their character flaw. Don’t just put a car
accident in the character’s way to make things difficult on the way to the
interview, after they finally find a suit. If they’re a superstitious
character, let it be a car accident involving their dream car. They walk into
the interview feeling like fate is already against them, and they’ll never get
the job that will let them buy that car, or even if they do, it’s going to
bring them to a terrible fate.
Consider the kind of problems that threatened one of the
most famous MC’s of our time. Harry Potter. What kind of problems did he face
most often? Was it certain death? Well, to a point, yes. But the most
consistent threats were the loss of home and loss of friends. He grew up
without any. And then he comes to Hogwarts and makes friends. So what does JK
Rowling threaten Harry with for the next six books? Loss. Of home. Of
companions. If people find out he’s a parseltongue, he might be expelled. If he
doesn’t kill the basilisk, Ginny will die. His name ends up in the Goblet of
Fire, and his own house turns on him. He ends up in positions where his home,
Hogwarts, is threatened if he doesn’t take risks, but those risks could often
get him expelled. By books six and seven, his choices aren’t just losing
Hogwarts, but losing his version of the magical world. When Harry makes his
final choice at the end of book seven, it’s the perfect accumulation of all his
fears and everything he loves. His driving forces are perfectly tied together.
He can’t lose anyone else, and he knows how to not be alone. He takes that long
walk towards Voldemort. Zero soggy middle, because the threat was always real
and the choices were always driven.
There are a lot of plotting styles advice guides and
formulas out there, and studying them is useful. I encourage it. My favorite
touchstone is the Hero’s Journey concept, brought into focus by Joseph Campell.
Story Grid by Shawn Coyne is another one that is useful, if somewhat complex.
In the end, however, fixing a soggy middle comes down to knowing your
character, your world, and falling in love with their journey through their
fears. And never, ever, letting it be easy.
You’ll know you’ve achieved your goal when your readers
squirm, yell at you for hurting their favorite character, threaten you with
bodily harm for the terrible things you’ve done, but still can’t stop reading
long enough to actually chase you down.
Terrify your character, terrify your reader. Scare your
character, scare your reader. Hurt your character, hurt your reader. And then
they’ll love you.
Don’t believe me?
Go watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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About the Author: Bethany Tucker
Bethany lives on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State, west
of Seattle. She has been writing fiction for the last twenty years. It’s an
urge she can’t escape, nor does she want to. Bethany writes epic fantasy with
heavy dalliances in the paranormal under a pen name as an independent author.
She is also a freelance editor and formerly an English instructor, though she
would point out that teaching English is not actually what leads her to be
qualified to edit fiction. She has lived abroad extensively and credits her
ability to write diverse fantastical worlds to those experiences.
