How to Make It Through the Middle of Your Book

by Colleen M. Story, @colleen_m_story

The middle of the book.

For readers, it’s often the most enjoyable part. For writers, it can be hell.

The beginning is full of bliss and promise. The end is often a rushing-forward, emotionally wrangling but satisfying experience.

But the middle? That’s where it gets tough. Unfortunately, it’s also where most writers give up.

If you’re in the middle of your book and you’ve been struggling for a while, you may be thinking about abandoning it. I’d encourage you to think again. Unless you’re a seasoned author with many titles under your belt, leaving a story unfinished is most likely a mistake.

Here’s why.

Why Writers Need to Finish Their Books

I wasted a lot of my early years as a writer on unfinished manuscripts. Each time I got stuck in the middle, I believed it was because the idea was not good enough. A new idea would occur to me and I would start over again.

Of course, it would turn out that the new idea was no better than the old one, as inevitably I would get stuck in the middle. Still, I was convinced that if I landed on the right idea the story would flow easily from beginning to end.

So I would choose another new idea and start over.

As you can imagine, I wasted many years of my writing career stuck in this frustrating loop. It was only when I attended a writing workshop and heard my mentor say, “Finish the darn story!” that I finally realized my mistake.

My manuscripts were unfinished not because they were based on bad ideas, but because I hadn’t trained myself to take a story from beginning to end. There’s a big difference between writing a few scenes or a few chapters and writing a novel.

We writers tend to think that if we have a knack for the written word, we should be able to write a book. What we fail to understand is that this is a unique skill that needs to be developed.

After that workshop, I change my mindset and started finishing my stories no matter what. I learned that for many writers, the middle of a novel is often difficult. It’s a normal thing! And it is our responsibility to push past that difficulty and find our way through the story to the very end.

Thus began my experience of wrestling the middle of the story. Though each one is different, I’ve learned that the process a writer must go through to finish stays the same.

5 Steps You Must Take to Finish Your Book

First, understand how critical it is to your career to finish any project you start.

The authors that stand the biggest chance of succeeding in today’s market are the more prolific ones. The more finished books you have out there, the better your chances of finding a readership.

Don’t waste time chasing after one idea and then the other as I did. And by the way, it’s okay if you’re feeling discouraged. When you’re trying to find your way through the middle, it’s often a slow, arduous journey. For that reason, I call it “the slog.”

The good news is that once you get through the slog, everything is usually downhill from there. So strap on your high boots and let’s get going.

1. Expect that it’s going to be difficult.

Initially, I kept abandoning my stories because I thought there was something wrong with struggling. I had this belief that a good story idea would flow easily, so a struggle meant something was wrong with the idea.

I have since learned that most writers struggle in the middle of a book. “For many writers, there is nothing worse than coming up with the Middle of the story,” writes author and Language Arts teacher David Safford. “If you’re anything like me, the Beginning is easy. It’s fun to come up with a cool premise for a story….The End can seem easy, too….But for some reason, there’s something about a story’s Middle that’s a pain in the neck.”

So when you come up against that brick wall, don’t panic. It’s perfectly normal, and it’s your job to find a way around it.

2. Keep yourself motivated.

The strongest emotion you’re likely to feel while going through the slog is discouragement. This beautiful story you were so excited about has lost its sheen. Suddenly it doesn’t seem to have as many possibilities as it did before.

Here’s where it helps to know how to motivate yourself. How do you keep yourself going? All of us respond to different types of motivations, most of which fall into three different categories:

1. People
2. Power
3. Achievement

Support from other people may be what keeps you from quitting (people). Or maybe it’s the thought of seeing your book published that spurs you on (achievement). Or perhaps you’re hoping your book’s message will reach people and influence them (power).

Think about what motivates you in other areas of your life, and then use that type of motivation to keep yourself writing even when you may not feel like it. Here are some ideas:

• If you’re motivated by people, lean on those who want to see you finish your story, or get together with your writing friends to talk each other up.
• If you’re motivated by power, think about how your book may influence others, or publish part of it on your blog to get feedback from readers.
• If you’re motivated by achievement, track your progress with a visible calendar, or think about getting a frame in which you’ll hang your book cover when it’s done.

3. Start over again and again.

When you’re struggling with the middle of the story, you may try putting it aside for a few days to see if your creative brain comes up with a solution.

You may get discouraged and set the book aside because you simply don’t know what to do with it. Or life may interfere, forcing you to leave the story behind for a little while.

Whatever the case, realize that through the difficult middle of the book, the journey is likely to get bumpy. You’ll work on the story, then you’ll set it aside. Then you’ll need to pick it up and work on it again.

The danger is that you won’t go back. It is always difficult to get started on a project you’ve set aside. You lose momentum and may forget exactly what was happening in the story when you left off.

This is where you must trick yourself into getting started again and again. There are many ways you can do this, but here are a few suggestions:

• Tell yourself you’ll work on it for only five minutes. Anybody can work on a project for five minutes! Once you get into it, you’ll likely want to continue.
• Tell yourself you’ll put something else off if you work on your story. You won’t have to clean the house, for example. This can make working on the story seem like a more rewarding choice.
• Tell yourself you’ll do only 1% of the project. If you need to write the next chapter, 1% of that might be only 100 words. That’s a small enough goal that you’ll be able to get over the hurdle of getting started.

Stop, start, stop, start. That’s often the way it goes in the middle of the book. It’s okay. Just keep returning to the manuscript.

4. Get help!

This seems like an obvious step, but unfortunately, it’s one that writers often neglect to take. I think it’s because many feel insecure about their stories, so they hesitate to reach out for fear of criticism.

Start with websites and books that can help. Here are a few suggestions:

• Blueprint Your Bestseller, by Stuart Horwitz
• Story Structure Architect: A Writer’s Guide to Building Dramatic Situations & Compelling Characters, by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
• 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters, by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
• The Art of Character: Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV, by David Corbett

Another option is to look at how other authors and screenwriters do it. I often find my breakthroughs at the movie theater. If I see a particularly good movie that puts me into a reflective mood, it jolts my creative muse out of hiding so she gives me the answers I’ve been searching for.

If you have a writers group or a writing friend, simply talking out your struggle may be enough to inspire some solutions. And of course, a writing mentor can be of invaluable assistance, and you can find them in many places.

If these ideas don’t work, there are many quality editors of book doctors out there willing to read your work and give you their feedback. Yes, it could cost you some money, but this is your writing. Surely it is worth the investment if it helps you finish your story?

5. Trust yourself.

This one may be the hardest of all, but it’s also the most important. This is your story, and no one but you can figure out how it needs to be told.

When you’re struggling in the middle of the book, you may feel like you’re the last one to come up with a solution. You may feel inadequate, unqualified, and like you don’t know what you’re doing.

All of these feelings are perfectly normal. They’re also difficult, which is why many people never finish their books.

Separate yourself from the pack by accepting these emotions and continuing to work on your story anyway. Trust yourself that you will find the solution eventually if you put your mind and energy to it.

Millions of other writers have been right where you are and have managed to push through to the other side. Why not you?

Finishing Matters No Matter What

One final thing: remember that finishing the story is important no matter what. Even if you never publish it, it never garners a good review, and it never places in a literary contest, if you finish it, you will have given yourself the experience of writing and finishing yet another novel.

Writers must practice their craft. Just like a musician must play a piece hundreds of times to master it, so a writer must complete a book-length story many times to become proficient.

Each novel you finish is another achievement on your resume, and another step to becoming the writer you want it to be. Don’t deprive yourself of these accomplishments because it gets a little tough in the middle.

As William J. Brennan, Jr., said, “We must meet the challenge rather than wish it were not before us.”

You’re a writer. Go forth and meet the challenge…and finish your book!

Note: For more guidance on how to finish the creative projects you start—including the 5 things you must have to complete your book—get Colleen’s FREE mini-course here!

Colleen M. Story inspires writers to overcome modern-day challenges and find creative fulfillment in their work. Her latest release, Writer Get Noticed!, was the gold-medal winner in the Reader’s Favorite Book Awards (Writing/Publishing 2019). Overwhelmed Writer Rescue was named Book by Book Publicity’s Best Writing/Publishing Book in 2018, and her novel, Loreena’s Gift, was a Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Book of the Year Awards winner, among others. Find more at these sites:

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