In some sense, it’s best not even to think of your Middle as a middle. Do this and your story will be the equivalent of an F-5 Tornado blazing across the Kansas landscape. In this manner, every part of the novel is churning and moving everything toward it’s thrilling denouement. The chapters violent wind storms within the novel. Then the paragraphs spinning dervishes within the chapter. Make these sentences miniature tornados rotating around each other within the paragraph. Every sentence should be interesting, tense and packed with meaning. I’m very satisfied at the end when my story line resembles the Gateway Arch. I close my eyes, grip that proverbially steel bar, and use all my strength to bend it for the sake of the plot. At every step in the novel, I try and Bend the story Bar, meaning that I need to ramp up the tension in every scene. I repeatedly have remind myself in the Middle to keep “Bending the Bar” as I write. If it remains straight while you’re writing, the story remains flat and uninteresting. One visual I use during the writing of my novels is that of a steel bar. In real life it’s fascinating to observe, but in crime fiction it can really drive the internal forces in your crime story, helping you ratchet up the dreaded Middle. People often talk past each other to put themselves in a better light. A mother sends out an annual Christmas letter filled with half truths. Your wife asks how she looks in a particular dress. Your doctor asks how many drinks a week you consume. If you really listen to a conversation between two people, the dialogue is merely a device to establish social etiquette and increase status, with varying motivations n between, and not necessarily an honest representation of what’s really happening in their lives. They don’t want to tell you about their painful hemorrhoids or the fact that their spouse has a drinking problem. And what a tool it is! Ask someone how it’s going and they invariably respond with, “Fantastic.” But we know from the law of averages that not everything is always fantastic for people. This happens so often in our real lives that we take it for granted. A useful tool is misdirection, meaning that what a character says is not always what they mean. Every line of it should have meaning and be able to move your plot along. Visually, envision your novel as a hurricane racing across the Oklahoma plain, and within it spins hundreds of smaller tornadoes all churning and driving the larger, more destructive storm that is your killer story.ĭialogue is key to creating this ongoing tension. Now not all chapters need to be as thrilling and exciting as your opening and ending sections, but there needs to be tension and some expectation of a payoff. Think of each chapter as a story arc unto itself. Break down your novel into smaller components. The key to conquering the dreaded Middle is first not think of it as the middle. So how do we avoid this problem as writers? How do we keep the arc of the plot rising to its exciting apex? Then to have the story accelerate like a rollercoaster down its steep tracks, and heading toward its shocking ending? Suffer through these boring plot devices and we finally get to the climax and denouement. Oftentimes, what constitutes the Middle of a novel is too much exposition, ill-advised detail, excessive dialogue and nefarious subplots that add nothing to the plot. In the worst case scenario, it’s rudderless filler meant to pad the word count. The question is: how do we strengthen the dreaded Middle part of the story in order to keep the reader’s attention? Believe me, it’s difficult for us writers, too. How many times have you started reading a crime novel and it starts out with a bang, only to have the story start to drag halfway through? It’s disappointing and a reason why many readers skim through this part of a book. Where the birth order can go very wrong (only joking). The Middle is where the tent starts to sag. What I’m referring to is the writer’s journey into the dreaded middle of their story. But the song is not what I’m talking about here in this post. It played prominently in Tarantino’s classic crime move, Reservoir Dogs. Everyone remembers the great song Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel.
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