I hate middles!

I still struggle with middles too. You can make them more interesting by creating mini-arcs within the large arc, like a roller-coaster with all those little scares right before the big drop. And reading more middles might help you get used to writing them.

I like to plan for a big event or revelation in the middle. The "mid-point reversal" where the unexpected happens and things go sideways. This gives the front half something to work toward, and the back half something to recover from that helps drive the plot in addition to the main story goal.

I've always suffered from the boggy middle syndrome, and this tactic fixed that for me. So much so, that my agent actually told me "the middle was damn near perfect" and I danced around like a fool for days.

The middle is where I get lost. Normally, I wiz through the beginning, sketch out an extremely weak middle, wiz through an ending and head back to my middle where I eventually decide my story has no legs to stand on.
If I were to break my middle down into three acts, I'd say my third act is equally as easy for me to write as my beginning and ending of the story, but act one and two kick my booty.

TrickyFiction said:

You can make them more interesting by creating mini-arcs within the large arc, like a roller-coaster with all those little scares right before the big drop.

Click to expand...

I like this idea myself.

Also, ask yourself, "What if?" to help create those little bumps along the way.

Try this trick. Make each chapter a complete story, well almost. That is, Have a beginning, middle and an end. Each storiet builds on the last to follow the typical book plot growth. That way you're not so worried about the lag in the middle of the book.

Combine this with Tricky Fiction's roller-coaster and there you go. The perfect book!

Danthia and TrickyFiction have it totally right. All I want to add is more about mindset:

Maybe a good way to look at it is that there is no middle. Sure physically there is one possibly even plot-wise there is, but for you, the writer, maybe not? Some authors clearly do exactly as you do: create many scenes and then sew them together for "the middle." Some books are made extremely exciting because of this because the writing is so fresh, sort of the mini-arcs mentioned by T.

Since you are already keeping track of what's happening to your plot as you go along (excellent practice) you should be able to get where you are going without ending up with a product that's lost it's spontaneity which is what happens to me when I force myself to be linear, no excursions, no exceptions.

And now Danthia needs to tell us which of her books had that perfect middle so we can study up!

Middles

Best advice I have received on this problem (which I share with the rest of you) is to stick closer to my MC. Get under her (in this case) skin, make sure all reactions are from her, all perceptions from her. Since we are all so very self-absorbed with our daily issues and problems (insert tongue in cheek), we ought to be able to project that onto the MC.

So it is less of a plot problem and more of a character problem -- at least in my case.

MLC23 said:

I don't usually put in chapter divisions until later (gulp) maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Click to expand...

There's no right or wrong way to write a novel, just what works or doesn't work for you. I used to wait to put my chapters in too, but I found that the middle of the book overwhelmed me. Breaking the thing up into chunks helped me to see it as a series of small projects instead of one huge one.

How do you eat an elephant? Right?

I hate middle too. I'm pushing through mine right now and it makes writing every day a chore. But my advice is to do just that. Push through it. Give yourself permission to write crap and when you go back and edit, you can make it better. in fact, but the time you finish the book you may figure out how to add more foreshadowing/important info/etc. to the middle and really liven it up on your second draft!

I have a habit of quickly writing middles just to get them over with, and then going back and fleshing them out in subsequent drafts. It's okay to do whatever works for you.

The mini-arcing is a really good idea. I hope it'll work for me.