The dreaded middle: why you don't have to dread it, by Yahong Chi

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The beginning, the middle, and the end. Each strikes horror into a writer's heart for different reasons. Common anxieties regarding the middle include the pacing (what if we can't keep the reader's attention?), the length (what if we ramble on too long?) and direction (what if we take too many side detours?). Over at Terrible Minds, Chuck Wendig has an entire post on 25 ways to tighten up your story's mushy middle. And it's always important to be cognizant of potential pitfalls.

But the middle doesn't have to be feared, either! Why? Because you have room, space and time.

Unlike the beginning, which needs to hook the reader and set up the plot and subplots, and unlike the end, which needs to tie up all storylines and leave a feeling of satisfication, you have a wide-open avenue throughout your middle. Your subplots have been established; your characters are introduced and your climax is your fixed point to drive toward. This is the time to explore every possibility that your fictional world can allow. You don't have to worry about consequences just yet (leave that to your ending). Pull the lids off all those broiling ideas and uncork the possibilities. You have room to do it!

These possibilites apply to everything. Introduce new settings to help refresh your story; with the space you have to spin out your story through your middle, you can take the chance to more fully develop and realize the locales in your world. You can introduce new characters or deepen the dynamics between current ones; there's space to add quirks, kinks or wrinkles to relationships.

Your beginning is what enables your middle; your ending needs to tie up everything you've developed in your middle. Those are big responsibilities. But during your middle? Take your time. You've got the room and space to do it.

What are the hardest/best aspects about middles for you?

-Yahong

Outlining: write with the end in mind

Write with the end in mind. That advice has been around for a pretty long time, I think, but it seems to me that in the writers' blogosphere, pantsers (a.k.a. people who don't outline) run amok, for various reasons: it's liberating to write without an outline; if you don't know where your plot's going, then neither will your readers be able to predict the plot. (Honestly, I'm not quire sure of the reasons. As you might've guessed, I'm not a pantser.)

But there's a reason, I believe, why "write with the end in mind" is valid advice. Every story needs a plot arc. If you know where your plot arc ends, you'll always have an end goal towards which you can work. It also saves you from wandering through your middle in one direction, only to realize that your story actually ends up over there -- and thereby rendering your first 10,000 words useless.

As an outliner, I like to go beyond figuring out the ending; I usually summarize the general events of my middle, too, so I always have a general idea of the scene I should be writing. But as long as you know where and how to bring your story to a close, I think you can go ahead and pants your way through the middle.

Do you follow this advice? Why or why not?

-Yahong