The Dreaded Middle

Getting from the beginning to the end

I wrote the first full draft of Beyond That, the Sea in a year-long novel generator class taught by Lynn Steger Strong. One of the (many) things that Lynn taught us was that middles are notoriously hard. There’s a lot of energy surrounding the beginning of any project, excitement and ideas and development. But then there’s a moment when things seem to plateau, when you can’t quite figure out how to move forward, or where to go. That E.L. Doctorow quote—“writing a novel is like driving a car at night.  You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”—comes to mind, but it’s as if those headlights have burned out. The energy seems to drain out of the project and, if you’re like me, you may well walk away for weeks (months?) at a time. All that enthusiasm that was there at the beginning is now gone. Doubt and fear creep in. This is a stupid idea. It’s boring. I can’t think of what to write next.

Somewhat unknowingly, I think, I figured out a loophole for this problem with Beyond That, the Sea. For a long time, I had been convinced of its three act structure, and I created a middle section that’s different in every way from the first and third. There are eight POV characters in the book but there are only two in the middle. The first and third sections are written in present tense, with the dialogue embedded in the paragraphs. The middle section, though, is written in the past tense, with dialogue held within quotation marks and represented traditionally on the page. The middle section takes place over a few days; the other two sections span five years each. These changes mean the section is more tense, more full of conflict. It’s charged, in part because of these structural changes. It feels completely different.

When I got to this section, and made these decisions, it was as though the slate had been wiped clean. It was challenging and yet fun to write because so much was changed. It wasn’t simply another set of chapters. I had shaken everything up and that brought a new energy to the page. In no time, it seemed, the middle section was done, and I was in the final third. I could start to feel that downward slope toward the end. The finish line was in sight.

In the project that I’m working on now, I felt my interest in the project start to wane when I hit about 90 pages. I have a vague outline, which is less about content than it is about form. The structure of the thing. In this book, there are three POV characters, and the book alternates between them: 123, 123, and so on. I had decided I wanted the book to have 21 chapters, with each of the three characters having seven chapters apiece. But as I approached the end of the first nine chapters, I felt that dreaded middle coming on. Like I was stuck in the mud. “Ugh,” I thought. “Now what?”

The three characters are connected but each of their stories takes place at a different time. I had known, early on, that there was one day when the three of them would be together, in the same place at the same time. I had assumed that the day in question would be presented as a flash forward or as a flashback, held within the present moment of each story. Instead, I wrote the first character’s middle chapter wholly on that day. It wasn’t terrible; it was liberating. And then I wrote the other two POV’s, also on that day, breaking the timeline of all of their stories. “Can I do this,” I asked my workshop mates. “Is this okay?” They looked at me as though I was crazy. “You can do whatever you want,” they said.

Something cracked open. I was so excited to write those chapters. I couldn’t wait to get back to my document to write. (Perhaps it is clear by now that this is rarely the way it works for me.) I hurried through other tasks and obligations. I wrote on the train. I wrote on a plane. I wrote late into the night. I didn’t want to do or think about much else.

I feel stupid that I didn’t remember how I had tricked myself with the first novel; essentially, I did exactly the same thing this time around. I changed the structure. Brought energy where there was none. Made myself look at the project in a different way. Because, this is the thing: the middle is not only hard—it’s also crucial. Alice Elliott Dark taught me that middles are the places where the core of the book lives. Almost always, you can find the middle of a novel or a story and realize that the whole thing pivots on that point, on that hinge. And Lynn, too, talks about the importance of the middle—that an ending is only as good as the middle that precedes it.

Time will tell if this middle works, if this book will come into being. But, for now, the middle is done. Those three chapters form the middle into a bright band of color, not a muddy plateau. And now I’m working on the second half, starting to feel that slow decline as the book inches toward its conclusion, as various threads start to tighten. It feels different now, on page 130, then it did on page 90. The middle has changed everything to come.

If you’re looking for something new to read, I highly recommend The Postcard by Anne Berest. I’m not done with it yet, but I’m already looking forward to rereading. Always the sign of a good book.