Good morning lovelies,
How are you guys this morning? I’m doing great. My week has been off to a fantastic start. I already finished two of my weekly goals and Wednesday is only beginning. So I’m excited for getting lots more done today and tomorrow to end the week as well as it started. I’m actually hoping to finish another chapter this week if I can manage it, but we’ll see.
Now onto to topic at hand. Yes, I’ve done a post or two already on the marathon that is the middle and how difficult it can be. Now, this is a tip here on how you could possibly avoid it. Now, please take this tip with a grain of salt as it does require that you change your process of writing a novel and it can be confusing to write this way if you normally write linearly. But I’ve found with my newest project, that I cannot write it linearly and so I’ve been writing the scenes out of order and I’ll have to go back and put them into their rightful places.
This, I find, is an excellent way to avoid the long-drawn-out middle section that tends to be the most difficult to write as you are writing some of the middle scenes, but not in order so you’re staying engaged with the current scene and not struggling through it. but if you are, you could always switch to a different scene.
This also helps with the sagging middle as you haven’t written any of the sagging parts yet, all the scenes are more or less engaging as they are the action or dialogue parts. The middle sections connecting each scene to the next will be written later on so you won’t have to worry much about that as when it comes time to connect each scene you know how to better connect them in a more interesting way than if you had struggled through the middle in a linear manner.
Now, I’m normally a linear writer myself. I start at the beginning and write straight through the middle to the end, often not knowing what will happen before I get to the end. I’m a discovery writer. But this new project is different, I know how it’s going to end and where I’m headed when I write each scene.
So the draft so far is quite disorganized, but once I have all the scenes I want to be written, I’ll be able to order them properly and then begin adding in any missing scenes or connecting pieces after that.
Now, this method may not be at all compatible with your writing process and that is totally fine. It just means that you may have to work through the struggle of the middle. I personally use stream of consciousness myself when writing linearly. I will actually be doing a post about that later on if you’re interested.
But so far this method has been helping me with this new project. Also, remember that if your writing process feels like it’s not working for a certain project that could be because that particular project requires a different method. This can depend on the complexity of the plot, story, characters and any number of things. But as with this project, I could not write it linearly. I was getting nowhere. So I tried by writing out all of the scenes that I know are occurring in the story and that’s been helping. I’ve also come up with new scenes to added this way too. And more of the story is forming inside my head the more scenes I write. So this was the best method for such a complex idea.
Well, that will be it for me today guys. I have lots to get to, very busy today. But thank you so much for popping in. It’s so great to have you here. And I hope this helps those who try it. Also, if it seems too complicated or confusing for you, then please don’t worry about it. You don’t have to use my tips, they are just tips for those who haven’t thought of these things and would like to try them to see if they’ll help the issues they are having with their writing. I just know of some writers who do write like this often and it works well for them as they focus on individual scenes at a time and it helps them separate from the rest of the work and dive into one particular scene.
Lots of love! Happy reading and writing to all! Until next time, bye guys.
