Tonight
I'm chatting with one of my online classes. Our topic is slumped
middles--not in our bodies, but our books. Many books slide down the
tension scale in the middle, as the initial action subsides and the
finish line is still far in the distance.
Keeping the middle
active and interesting is not easy. On our chat, we're talking about a
few proven techniques for brightening up the middle of your story.
Becky,
who reads this blog, sent a great question about slumped middles. She
called this the part where "your character rallies and makes some kind
of decision after hitting a low point, and things get a little better."
Yes, that's true, I told her. The character (or narrator in memoir)
will usually fall for a while after the story starts. Things often get
worse. The character hits a low point and there's a kind of leveling
out. Some writers call this the "first turning point" of the story.