Wednesday 20 November 2013

THE DREADED MIDDLE!


The beginning has gone fine. Filled with enthusiasm, I am having difficulty tapping the keys fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. This is going great! All I have to do now is fill the pages between that wonderful beginning and what I know is going to be a simply spectacular ending.

The first three chapters have hooked the reader: she is not going to be able to put the book down.
The characters are beginning to take on a personality of their own, the heroine is coping with everything I throw at her and the hero is strong and manly enough to win her love in the end.

 Then everything starts to disintegrate for no reason at all.

Although the first few chapters looked pretty good to start with, I know they are really a load of rubbish. No one is going to want to read a book that is so boring even the characters have given up and gone to sleep. Their names are all wrong too, they keep telling me that, and the setting is dull and uninteresting. The plot? I have no idea what possessed me to think an idea like that would make a readable novel.

I have come to the middle.

I know I will get over it. At least I think I will get over it because, somehow, I always do. I can leave the bit in the middle and write the end, then try and fill in the middle bit. That might work. Or I can scrap everything I’ve written so far and start again. That is probably the best idea. But it won’t help, because the next story is going to have a middle as well, and I’m going to get stuck all over again.  

6 comments:

  1. Now that sounds familiar. A saggy middle! Why does it happen? You'll get through it, Fay, and produce another wonderful story.

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  2. This happens to me in everything I write - last year I wrote between 10000 and 20000 words of five separate novels and gave up on them all for the reasons you wrote above. I just could not get into the middle without losing heart. I think though, that I've solved the problem. In my latest effort I simply ground on, hating the book and hating writing but doing it anyway! Once I hit the last quarter, I picked up speed once more and got back my enthusiasm.
    What does anyone else do to get round 'the wall'?

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  3. Thanks for your comments, girls. I am just plowing on and I hope I can produce something halfway decent. I shall let my characters do what they like for a bit before I reign them in. They know what is going to happen next better than I do.

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  4. I find if you get to the middle and get stuck, pretend you are at the beginning again. It sounds strange but it sort of works for me. Also grit your teeth and keep going. Whatever you do, don't stop. You can always rework your writing but you can do nothing with an empty page.

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  5. I always remember Freda Lightfoot at a conference panel when asked what to do about soggy middles, in her broad Lancashire accent saying "Put in a rape". I always laugh at the memory. Obviously she was joking as DCT would never acknowledge that! Love Chrissie (anon again!)

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  6. The middles can be such a mental hurdle to overcome. But I find the only way is just to keep on writing. Don't be distracted to do other things :) just plough on because, as we discover each time, it will all come together in the end.

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