Ironing Out The Problems of Your Story’s Middle

Now you must begin to fulfill the interesting promises of your story opening as you clarify the why or motivation of your main character and reveal how he or she copes with his or her situation.

The moment the character leaves the safety of “things as they are” he or she must be confronted by a barrier of opposition. Each obstacle, wherever it comes from, presents a problem to be solved, a disaster to be averted, or an opponent to be overcome. Such is the nature of successful storytelling that the solving of one problem must immediately bring on more difficulties. The hero or heroine, must leap from the frying pan into the fire.

In your story middle you must have a course of ups and downs that help further character’s ultimate goal, but there must be hindrances that thwart and frustrate attempts to succeed in his or her purpose. These must occur at irregular intervals, so that the reader will not be able to anticipate success or failure on your character’s part and lose the excitement of suspense and curiosity as to how it will come out. He or she will never stop reading as long as there is an incomplete situation presented.

One simple device that will keep him or her reading from chapter to chapter is never to end the chapter on a completed incident. Break it off at a crucial, suspenseful moment, and pick it up again in the next chapter.

Other articles on writing.

In The Beginning… Get Your Fiction Story Off to The Right Start

Seven Crucial Things to Accomplish in Your Story Opening

Character Motivation: The Why Behind The What

Character Motivation: Three Powerful Urges

Outlines and Summaries: How Important are They?

Writer’s Block: Every Writer’s Nightmare