Blogger: Rachel Kent
Author Rene Gutteridge’s new novel, Misery Loves Company, has a clever Chapter 17. It discusses how manuscripts often sag around Chapter 17 and indirectly warns writers to be cautious when they come to this place when writing a book.
The sagging middle is a common flaw in manuscripts that come across my desk at Books & Such, so Rene’s observation is spot on. I think many authors have a really good idea of how a story is going to start and end when they brainstorm a book, but the middle isn’t as thought out; so when the author gets to about Chapter 17, things fall apart. Connecting the beginning and end begins to look impossible.
How can you prevent a saggy middle in your manuscript? I suggest, when you are approaching what you’d guess is the beginning of the middle of your book, that you stop writing and plot out how you are going to create that middle section to connect beginning and end. Don’t rush forward to try to finish. Take your time, discuss plot ideas with critique partners, and run ideas by test readers to make sure the plan for your middle is detailed and interesting. Consider scheduling enough time in your writing plan so that you can devote more energy to the middle than other sections of your book. That way you can be sure to have time to get that feedback from others. This may seem like a waste at first but ultimately should save agonizing over that slumping middle it comes to rewrites.
Have you ever struggled with writing the middle of your manuscript?
What ideas to you have to add to help combat a “sagging middle”?
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Sagging Middles–A common manuscript flaw. Via literary agent @RachelLKent. Click to tweet.
Have you struggled with the middle of your manuscript? You aren’t alone! Via @rachellkent. Click to tweet.
Jennifer Major
In ch 17 of my MS, I ratchet up the comic relief because the previous few chapters were emotionally brutal. I let a chicken loose in a kitchen, and have 2 grown men try to catch it, which is a scene I based on a real life event. (Only the chicken was let loose in an office and managed to shut down an entire green house by stepping on the keyboard while the master controls were pulled up on-screen. Yes, the owner of the chicken was roasted by his wife. He also owned the greenhouse. No, it is not me and my husband.)
The actual mid-point of the book is a page by page increase in tension until she finds herself at the cliff’s edge of sanity and secrets and he can no longer deny how he feels and she finds a gun and…oops, sorry, can’t tell you any more.
Muahahaha.
Rachel Kent
That did NOT really happen did it? Crazy chicken?
Jennifer Major
Yes, it did! My missionary colleague owns a very swanky green house/garden centre in New England. He was entertaining his 3 year old grand daughter and brought a huge chicken(from the petting zoo) into his office, which also housed the master computer that controlled EVERY function in their greenhouse.
He was called on the intercom, left the office AND the child and the chicken, ALL ALONE.
The chicken hopped up on his keyboard and one by one, shut down the lights, the intricate system of hoses and timed water functions, alarms, everything.
His wife was LIVID. This was during a hectic business day.
He never brought another chicken to the office again.
Kathy Boyd Fellure
Still laughing, Jennifer.
Comedy works ~ what a visual!
Cheryl Malandrinos
I guess some of us are running off to check our chapter 17. 🙂 In mine, one of the main characters is woken in the middle of the night by a phone call from the police. Her soon to be ex-husband has been in a horrible car accident, which could change her life in ways she could never imagine. She had just sensed freedom from this abuser and know she’s drawn back in if she must take care of him.
While I’m happy with that part, I definitely see there’s a rush to tie up all the loose ends. It really needs work. I’ve purposely stayed away from it for a year so I can look at it again with fresh eyes.
Rachel Kent
Good idea to come back to it with fresh eyes.
Lindsay Harrel
Ah, yes, the “muddle in the middle” as I’ve heard it called. A great plotting tool I’ve found is the Book Buddy from My Book Therapy. Susan May Warren is brilliant at helping you plot events that can fill the middle–and everything is connected to the character’s goal, helps them reach a point where he needs to make a decision, etc. Really good stuff. Before I just had stuff happening willy nilly. 🙂
Jeanne T
Yes, I LOVE the Book Buddy, Lindsay. I was going to mention it too. 🙂
Jill Kemerer
I still haven’t tried The Book Buddy, but I’m tempted!
Jill Kemerer
I’m definitely a connect the dots type of writer! The middle is something I brainstorm before writing a word. I tried a few new things with my last book, and one was a set of flow-charts–they really helped me explore various ways the book could go, plus they made it fun!
Meghan Carver
Flow charts sound cool! Love that idea, Jill.
Jeanne T
What a great idea, Jill! I’ll have to consider that with a future manuscript.
Kathryn Elliott
Oh, the flow chart speaks right to my type A heart. 🙂
Jill Kemerer
When I tried it, I thought–why in the world haven’t I done this before?? It kept my brain firing every time I sat down to write. Give it a go!
Rachel Kent
Sounds great!
rachel
i often skim to the middle of a novel when i pick it up to look at it to see if the middle is strong and the writing there peaks my interest as much as an opening line and chapter would. with that in mind, i made sure to do the same thing with my completed manuscript before i even thought of my first query. then, just before submission to publishers, i worked on the middle again: finessing it a bit and making sure that there was a consistency at all three major points: beginning, middle, end, with the lead up and denouement as strong as i could make it .
Meghan Carver
The middle truly is the most difficult part, Rachel. I asked that question on the ACFW e-loop several months back and received some excellent answers. The one I remember best — “Subplot, baby.” 🙂
I have become a total plotter and typically have a 50-page detailed outline before I begin. (Thanks, Randy Ingermanson!) If something sags, I can fix it before I start by brainstorming with friends and family.
Jeanne T
Like a couple people mentioned, I like having my plot pretty well figured before I begin writing. I write a synopsis of my story and send it to a preferred reader and a mentor. They often help me see weaknesses so I can fix them before I begin writing.
Jaime Wright
I have a sagging middle but I blame that on my two babies. Other than that irreparable issue, it’s usually my beginning that gets off to a slow start. My last crit read through said they got interested in chapter eleven but until then they yawned every 60 seconds. Yeah. So that took a rewrite there but I think we got it now. I think. (no yawning please)
Rachel Kent
It only takes 1 baby to cause a saggy middle! 🙂
And it’s good that you know which part of the manuscript you struggle with. I assume you were putting too much back story in the beginning?
Sarah Sundin
You speak to my outline-oriented heart 🙂 I’m always in awe of seat-of-the-pants writers, but I need a detailed road map before I start my rough draft.
At some point in my early plotting stage, I see the sagging middle, and I panic. That’s why I’m a huge fan of story structure. I love to do a Hero’s Journey analysis (Christopher Vogler’s “The Writer’s Journey”), and this helps me flesh out my story. Knowing my character’s fears and flaws and dreams helps me torture them – I mean, challenge them – in the middle of the story. This is where the true character growth occurs, and it’s actually one of my favorite parts to write.
Jenni Brummett
Sarah, I almost feel guilty about the tormented pasts I heap on my characters.
Judy Gann
I’m writing my first novel and Nancy Kress’ “Beginnings, Middles, & Ends” helped me when I reached the stage of sagging middle panic. Includes practical tips and examples.
Stephanie McCarthy
Right now I’m sagging at Page 235, the end is in sight but not close enough. The scene is at a hotel and I’ve been w/ these characters so long I feel like they’re doing and saying the same things over and over. OY. The ending is already written, so I just have to get them out of this hotel. I don’t like this scene, I added it to get more character development but it’s… boring. I’m bored. My readers will be bored.
I think I’ll murder the hotel clerk. I never liked him anyway, he called me “m’am.”
Sharyn Kopf
Sounds like a good scene to cut, Stephanie. Can you take those elements of character development & weave them throughout the rest of the book? Often when I freeze on a scene because it seems boring, I have to step back & see if the scene is even necessary to move the story forward.
But if you still want to kill the clerk for calling you “ma’am,” that would be fun too. I certainly got a chuckle out of it. On the other hand, it would initiate a subplot you may not want to wade into this late in the story. 🙂
Rachel Kent
Lol! These are the sentiments that every writer must have at one point or another in the process of writing a book. love it! Kill off that clerk!
Kathy Boyd Fellure
Murder, she wrote…Sorry, I couldn’t resist!
(I just stayed at the Hill House Inn in Mendocino where they filmed the show. It’s on my brain.)
Jacqueline Stefanowicz
As I writer I know how my manuscript needs to begin and how it needs to end, but the middle can be a confusion section! I know what needs to happen, but how do I make it happen? I find if I put myself if the character’s shoes and asked “what would they do” in a situation, it helps the middle along and adds character development.
Kiersti
I think I did have some trouble with a saggy–and just not clearly defined–middle in the first draft of my first manuscript. ‘Twas before I knew much about a helpful tool called Snowflaking. 🙂 The notion of a “second disaster” or turning point right in the middle has been really helpful to me, and now I find myself watching for and catching it whenever I read a novel or watch a movie–sometimes I think I must annoy my family by my constant excitedly pointing it out! 🙂
Rachel Smith
What a coincidence! I’m on chapter 18 and officially in the middle of my current WIP. And gearing up for a murder trial, so I’m not at all worried about it sagging. I have one character in jail, falsely accused, and the hero has all hell breaking loose everywhere he turns.
I write romance, and I also like to put the first kiss somewhere in the middle. Gives me lots of tension to work with since I also like to make it happen where it actually makes things worse for them. They’ve given in to the growing love and said it out loud, but he’s the one falsely accused of murder and it doesn’t look good for the real killer to be caught before it’s too late.
Rachel Kent
You are creating emotional tension and tension in the plot. Perfect!
Christine Dorman / @looneyfilberts
Rachel, your post is spot on. At least for me. From the early stages of writing my WIP, I thought I had the story plotted out in detail, and thought I knew exactly how my character was going to get from the start to the middle to the end of her journey. But as you and everyone here knows, characters and novels have wills of their own. I had planned a big confrontation that would send my main character determinedly and irrevocably on the path that would lead her to the arms of the true (but still masked) villain of the story and, ultimately, force my protagonist to make the life-altering decision that would resolve the book. I even wrote the confrontation scene. That’s when the Keena, my main character’s aunt and the one who was supposed to cause Siobhan, the main character, to run away, convinced me that I wanted her to over-react and that that was out of character for her. Phooey! So then I had to come up with another reason for Siobhan to run into the arms of danger. Also, by the time I had finished Chapter 19, I realized that there were so many subplots going on that I had never intended, and they were taking focus off the main plot and slowing the narrative momentum. I started to write Chapter 20, but the writing was horrible.
At that point, I knew I had to stop and evaluate. Usually, I am fairly disciplined about working regularly on the novel, but I stopped writing altogether for a bit. I talked about the problems with a couple of critic partners, and thought and thought and thought about the story and possible solutions. It did feel as if getting to the end had become impossible. Then I prayed (took me long enough!) and God gave me some answers and the grace to start writing again. I completely rewrote the beginning of Chapter 20 and I am revising some things that happened prior to it. Siobhan is now ready to make her journey to the Dark Side and trees in the subplot forest have been cut down to clear a path for her. Some weeding will still need to be done when I revise this draft, but at least now the roadblocks to Siobhan’s journey have been removed and I feel I can get her to the end without any artificial constructs.
Thank you for the encouraging news that most writers get lost in the middle. The important thing is to fix the sagging bridge before continuing. Thank you for the advice and for the affirmation.
Have a great weekend! 🙂
Rachel Kent
Thanks! I’m glad that you learned that you aren’t alone in your struggles. 🙂
Have a great weekend too!
Christine Dorman / @looneyfilberts
Thank you!
Morgan Tarpley
This post is quite timely, Rachel! Thanks for the advice! I’ve just finished writing Ch. 17 of my second book. 🙂 I’ll beware of the sagging middle! Have a great weekend!
Sharyn Kopf
Fortunately, I have three main characters in my first novel so there’s always something happening to at least one of them. I never worried about the middle because the story kept moving forward.
But this is a good heads-up for future manuscripts!
Kathy Boyd Fellure
I’m on chapter 26 but my middle was saggy. Went over my critique group suggestions and jazzed it up a bit by having Mr. Handsome get shot on the job while protecting my protagonist. It’s the dead of winter at Lake Tahoe, nothing else much is going on after Christmas and tourist season. it’s a bit more involved than what I am describing, a blizzard, a car theft, the stalking of a bookstore owner…
(Of course the bookstore owner is the heroine!)
Jenni Brummett
Sounds great Kathy.
Martha Ramirez
Great post, Rachel! Save the Cat by Blake Snyder has helped me tremendously with the sagging middle!
Elaine Faber
What? What? Cat? I’m all over that. Will have to google that. Is it a writing aid book? or a novel?
Black Cat and I thank you for yet another direction to take our sagging middles…. not from babies, but from old age and decrepitness.
donnie nelson
Oh wow Rachel.
I’m glad I read your entire posting. When you wrote about the problem of a sagging middle. I was offended.
Sure I’m a little over weight but what the heck, I’m a writer and I sit down a lot.
I’m Just glad you were talking about “literary sag and not physical sag.” Thanks.
Rachel Kent
haha! 🙂
Anna Labno
Act 1 sets up the next act. Act 2 should be fun. It’s the sfuffing you put inside.
Anna Labno
Sherry Kyle
The middle is usually where I insert another character to add a whole different twist to the plot. I do admit, however, it’s where I usually freak out and think there is no way I can finish the book. But once I get over the mental roadblock, I enjoy the process and keep going. Thanks for the post, Rachel!
Mandi Barber
Chapter 17 is a little past the middle for me; that was somewhere around chapter 14, where I had a pretty good outline. But chapter 17 was where my story started to drag. It was only in revision this week that I realized my problem. I’d resolved too many conflicts too early. The protagonists had escaped a near death encounter but hadn’t yet set out toward the final confrontation.
You know it’s bad when you write an entire conversation – in an action-oriented fantasy novel – about skirts.
Once I realized I needed more immediate conflict, though, it was easy enough to come up with a plan to revitalize that pesky chapter 17. It really just boils down to, “Keep the antagonist breathing down their necks.”