The Murky Middle

Thursdays with Banes - The Murky Middle

A good way to put together a story is to figure out some essentials, first - Elements of Character, Plot and Theme, and Building some World and all that. We've talked about these things around here a lot, and we'll prolly continue to talk about it!

Many times it seems like the Beginning and the Ending are pretty solid for a lot of writers. If you're doing a longer story and DON'T know your ending, at least somewhat, it can be easy for things to peter out about halfway through, or a little less.

So having a solid beginning/inciting incident, and a solid-as-possible ending (at least in outline form) is, in my opinion, a really good idea. And if that outline isn't enough to keep a complex plot together in your head, maybe writing it out completely is a good idea.

But what about that pesky MIDDLE section?

It's easy to get stuck here. How do we get from that beginning bit, with our intriguing questions surrounding our compelling characters, to the ending where we resolve it all in a satisfying way?

One technique I learned is to think about the FUN scenes. What are the scenes you WANT to write? Create those!

Is it the scene where the new lovers have their first fight?
Where the Hero's long-lost sister appears at the door?
The learning of a new piece of technology or spell in your sci fi or fantasy story?

It could be a jillion different things - and it's your choice.

I found that this was a cool technique when I tried it way back - it made me think about what scenes I actually WANTED to write!

This can be a motivator - and they are usually spread out throughout the story. These special scenes are a draw for you to keep writing, and a lot of them will probably be a draw for people to keep READING!

To be honest, as much as I enjoyed this process when I tried it, I didn't finish the story I was working on - I think that's because I did it without figuring out my beginning and ending first. This technique seems best suited to that murky middle.

But now that it's popped back up in my memory, I'm definitely gonna use it on my next story. I'm doing it now, in fact! So I'll see yuz later!

-Banes