I just did a whole series of writing posts about beginnings, and now it’s time to move on to middles. While beginnings are important for snagging the interest of editors, agents, and readers, the middle has a lot to do with whether a book sinks or swims. A strong beginning doesn’t help if the middle sags. Many authors find the middle to be the most difficult part of the book to write. It’s tricky keeping the pacing and tension going without resolving everything too soon but also while having very good reasons that things can’t yet be resolved.

You can generally divide the middle — the part that comes after the hero has chosen (or been forced) to take on the story goal and before the build-up to the resolution — into two parts. There’s the getting used to new circumstances, meeting new people, and figuring out the situation part, and then there’s the setup for the climax.

If you’re thinking about it in terms of the Hero’s Journey, the first part would be Tests, Enemies, and Allies. In a way, this is the “ordinary world” of the special world of the story. You probably don’t want to spend a lot of time in the beginning showing the ordinary parts of the ordinary world, but this is where you can play with your worldbuilding, showing how things are different now that the hero has taken up the challenge. The hero really may travel to a different place — going to Oz, Narnia, or some other fantasy world, or possibly just leaving the familiar to go on a journey or quest within his or her own world. Or the hero may stay in the same place but encounter different people and situations. It may be a new job with new co-workers, a new home in a new neighborhood, or a new group of friends or colleagues. The hero has to learn the rules of this new situation, how it all works, and who to trust. The protagonists will learn more about the villain, more about what they have to do to achieve their goal, and may pick up skills and weapons that they’ll need later.

In his book Save the Cat, Blake Snyder calls this part of the story “the promise of the premise.” It’s when the things you expect to happen in this kind of story happen. In a fantasy quest story, it’s when the questing party really comes together, and they may have a few lower-stakes adventures and encounters in which they learn what the dangers of their quest are likely to be. In a space opera, this is life on the spaceship and meeting the crew, maybe having a minor space battle that shows off the skills of the various crew members. In a romantic comedy, it’s the part where the hero and heroine are stuck in a situation together, with witty banter, and we meet their various friends.

Think of some familiar stories: In The Wizard of Oz, it’s when Dorothy has arrived in Oz and been given her quest by Glinda, and she sets off down the Yellow Brick Road, picking up her traveling companions along the way and having a few encounters with the Wicked Witch and flying monkeys. In Star Wars, Luke goes with Obi-Wan to the cantina, where he gets a glimpse of what Obi-Wan is capable of and meets Han and Chewbacca, and then they escape in the Millennium Falcon — a sequence in which we learn the capabilities of Han and the ship — and Luke starts his Jedi training.

The challenge is keeping readers interested after the beginning. There is a natural slowdown after the big bang of the opening, but you can’t let the pace or the energy lag. Things need to happen. There need to be some stakes, even if it’s not entirely do-or-die at this point in the story. This is a good place to set up the things you’ll need for the climax and resolution — the hero learning or gaining things, trying and failing at something he’ll later need to do properly to save the day, encountering the villain and surviving but not winning. The conflict that keeps the story going through this part needs to be real, not contrived. If the story would end if two characters who are capable of having a conversation just had a conversation, you need more going on. If the story would end if the characters just figured out a rather obvious thing, you need very good reasons for them not to know about or notice that very obvious thing.

If you’re struggling with a story that feels like it’s sagging at this point, look at the conflict. Is anything stopping the heroes from achieving their goals? Are there any intermediate goals on the way to achieving the story goal, and what’s getting in the way of those goals? Finding a good reason for the heroes to struggle will usually fix a sagging early middle. You can also have conflicts among the characters, like Han Solo’s disdain for Jedi ways and Luke’s disdain at Han’s greed.

Next time, I’ll look at the second part of the story middle.

I’ve been talking about writing beginnings. It’s hard to say what kinds of opening scenes you should write because a lot of that depends on the story you’re telling. It’s a lot easier to list the kinds of scenes you should avoid. Yes, you can probably point to successful examples of each of these kinds of scenes, but generally you’ll find that those are done by bestselling authors who could probably publish their grocery lists and hit a bestseller list (and, usually, those authors have learned how to do even these kinds of scenes well), are examples from decades ago when there were different expectations, or are done so skillfully that they work. If you’re just starting out and trying to break in, starting a book with these kinds of scenes is really risky.

1) The main character wakes up in the morning and starts the day
You’re better off starting the story when the action begins, not when the character’s day begins. There are exceptions, such as the character waking to a frightening situation, coming out of a coma, etc., if the normal daily routine is an important part of worldbuilding (in a fantasy, say, if a flock of fairies washes and dresses the main character that might be different enough from the normal to be interesting), or if there’s something about that “normal” that will very soon provide a stark contrast with the rest of the world. But you have to know what you’re doing to pull off those exceptions. If your story starts with a character waking up in the morning, look at where the action in the story actually starts. Would your story lose anything if you skip to that point and let the reader assume that the character woke up, got out of bed, and dressed that morning?

2) The story opens with an exciting action sequence with the character in peril — and then the character wakes up in the morning and realizes it was just a dream
This is a cheat — a way to open the story with a bang and then go back to that “normal” life beginning. Most editors and agents are well aware of the tactic and will eye it with suspicion. Again, there are ways you could possibly make this work, such as if the fact that the character has that dream actually is the inciting incident, but it’s a risky move for a beginner. Unless it’s handled really, really well, the action of the dream may seem like a bait and switch for the reader, especially if it leads into the waking up in the morning and getting dressed kind of scene. In a way, it makes the start of the book even slower because that action fake-out further delays the real start of the story. As before, look for where the story really begins. What do you lose if you cut the dream and the waking up part?

3) The story opens with an exciting action sequence with the character in peril, ending on a cliffhanger — and then cuts to “3 days ago” (or whatever time period)
Again, it’s a cheat, a way of squeezing in something exciting in the beginning. It’s like admitting that you don’t have a lot of faith in the opening of your story. This device is frequently used on TV series, and I think it’s a cheat there, too. At least with TV series, they can play with audience expectations because they have established characters and situations, and the opening is usually some action or situation that’s unusual for the show, with the flashback working to explain how these characters came to do something they’d never do. You don’t have that with a novel unless it’s a later book in an established series. Readers won’t know that this opening situation was odd, so they won’t care about how it came to be. This opening gives the same effect as the dream, in that it may open with a bang, but then there’s a big letdown, so it affects pacing and delays getting to the start of the real story. With a book there’s also the problem that readers can just flip ahead to the part of the book that opening scene comes from and see the resolution of the cliffhanger. You’re better off finding an interesting way of starting your story rather than turning your whole book into a flashback.

4) The story starts with the main character thinking about her backstory and how she came to be in her present situation
This is a deadly way to begin a story. For one thing, there’s not much happening if the character is able to just sit (or stand, walk, etc.) and think. For another, it tends to be an infodump — a block of information dumped on the reader, who doesn’t yet know enough about the world and the characters to know what parts might be relevant. You’re better off revealing that information by showing the character interacting with her world. She can have thoughts along the way as they’re relevant. Is there something in the character’s thoughts that you can dramatize? For example, if she’s thinking about how she doesn’t really fit in, instead of her thinking that, show her trying and failing to fit in — she can’t find a place to sit in the cafeteria because everyone turns their backs to her or glares at her, so she goes to sit outside, where she has a thought about it being like this every day. It doesn’t improve matters if the character has a conversation about the backstory instead of just thinking, especially if the person the character is talking to already knows the story and there’s no real story reason for the character to be telling the story.

5) The story starts with a character traveling to the destination where the story will take place
This gets even worse when combined with the thinking about the backstory, so the character is traveling, thinking about where she came from and where she’s going and why. Unless something happens on the journey, you’re better off starting with the arrival in the place where events will happen, or even when the character is already there and things are happening. As always, there are exceptions. Things can happen on the journey that are important to the story. The last time I wrote about this, I came up with a snarky example about masked bandits robbing the coach where the heroine was sitting and thinking about why she was making the journey. I ended up getting a book out of it (though Rebel Mechanics starts with a train robbery, not a coach robbery).

6) The story starts with two characters discussing the history of their world
This one was really big with epic fantasy novels in the 1970s-80s, but it’s hard to make it work now. Even if it’s a conversation, it’s still an infodump, and readers have no reason to care about this history until they know some of the characters. Chances are, readers won’t retain much of this information, if they even read it instead of skimming. Talking heads — two characters just talking, without anything else going on around them — are also dull. And you have to have a reason for these people to be having this discussion at this time. How often do you sit around and talk to your friends about the history of your city or state? When it happens, it might be in a more contentious political discussion, not, “As you know, the railroad came through here, and several farming communities formed into a larger city as more people came through with the railroad.” Before you try writing characters giving us backstory in a conversation, think about how people really talk about these sorts of things.

It’s time for another Writing Wednesday post, and I’m following up on my previous discussion of beginnings.

One good way to start a book off with a bang is with some kind of action. This sort of beginning is called “in media res,” which just means starting in the middle of action. You don’t really know what’s going on, just that something is happening, and the combination of action and curiosity about what the action is about serves to hook readers. But it doesn’t always work that way. I’ve heard agents complain about getting too many submissions that start with the protagonist running through the streets, being chased. The problem is that if you don’t know who this character is and have no reason to sympathize with him, why should you care if he gets caught? Reading about a random person running through the streets isn’t actually all that entertaining. We’re pretty certain that the main character in the story isn’t going to get caught and thrown in jail in the first scene, or there’s not going to be much of a story — unless the story is about him in prison or this is a prologue and the story is about what happens after he gets out of prison — so there isn’t a lot of suspense about whether or not he gets caught.

So, how do you make this kind of opening work? (And, really, these tricks apply to any opening, but if you can make them work with running through the streets, you can apply them anywhere.)

First, the character whose viewpoint we’re in needs a goal. It may not be the story goal at this point, but there needs to be something the character wants — other than not getting caught — and a reason for him to want it. Something needs to be at stake, and not just his freedom. Is he a thief escaping the police? What did he steal, why did he steal it, and what will happen if he gets caught? Will his daughter/mother/wife not be able to get medicine if he doesn’t get the money from this theft? Was he stealing a magical amulet from the evil wizard? Reclaiming his family’s heirloom that was stolen by a more powerful person? This goal gives us some suspense — we’re pretty sure the hero won’t get caught, but will he succeed in what he’s trying to do? Will he get into some other kind of trouble? It may not be the story goal and main plot at this point, but it should lead into the main plot in some way — say, the person who helps the hero evade the police then demands that the hero take on some other mission as paypack for the help, and he won’t be able to carry out his initial mission until that’s done.

There also needs to be some kind of context that draws us into the story. A chase scene is a good way of showing what the world looks like — is it a futuristic world with robot cops on flying motorbikes, a fantasy world with guards armed with swords, a contemporary world? Is it an unjust world with the rich and powerful not answering to laws while poor people are oppressed? Is crime common or unheard of? Is it an oppressive regime, and the hero is being chased just for being a rebel?

Beyond these plot-related things, you need to create empathy for the hero so that we care what happens to him as a person. There are some tried-and-true tricks that can be used here.

• Make him an underdog — an ordinary guy fighting against forces that are far bigger than he is
• Show him being extremely competent — he knows his way around the city, is able to hide, climb walls, or disguise himself
• Give him a sense of humor — he tosses quips at the people chasing him or has an entertaining internal monologue during the chase
• Show what other people think about him — the people in the city step up to help hide him or send the pursuers in the wrong direction, which shows us that people like him and are willing to take risks for him, so he must be a good person
• Have him “save the cat” — that’s a Hollywood term for doing something we associate with being good and kind. This kind of action makes people quickly like a character. If our hero in the chase scene stops to help someone else in spite of his own danger we’re more likely to warm to him.

If you think about popular books and movies, you can probably think of examples of these. The opening of almost every James Bond movie has Bond being extremely competent and tossing off quips during an action sequence. When we first meet Indiana Jones, he’s expertly navigating an obstacle course, and the sequence is capped by the revelation of his fear of snakes, which humanizes him. The opening of the animated Disney version of Aladdin manages to include just about all of these. He’s an orphaned street rat being pursued by the city guards, so he’s an underdog. He clearly knows his way around the city and is clever at evading capture, so he’s competent. He does it all with wit and flair. He hands over the food he stole to a starving child, for a “save the cat” moment.

The action beginning can work if there’s a reason for the action and if you can very quickly make readers care about the character.