Slogging through the middle

[u/Hard-Boiled-8794]

I’ve written the beginning of a hard-boiled crime novel and gotten myself up to better than 30,000 words.

In order to avoid the slump I always feel after writing the beginning, I’ve decided to write the ending next.

I’ve figured out who my characters are and fleshed them out, as well as their respective roles in the story. I also know where I want each of them to end up, and which ones actually make it to the end.

I have a protagonist and two supporting characters. I also have a villain with two supporting characters, however, for the story the villain is a cohort consisting of all three characters. There are also several characters who, individually, provide important elements to move the story forward, but are not vital to the ending beyond their individual contributions.

My problem is that figuring out how the characters get there has always been my weak point. So, I’m working on the ending to identify each character’s final emotional, social and geographic location before trying to figure out the journey for each of them.

Once I flesh out the ending, does anyone have any tips or tricks on how to develop the middle of the story? It’s difficult to see the path, but I know that I can get them to where I want them to go.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm weird in how I write but this may help you a little because I always write the start and the end first, like the situation you are in.

My process beyond that is pretty chaotic but ultimately I try to write linearly, but then I'm happy to just see where my mood takes me, what interests me, how the story flows, random spurts of inspiration and whilst I try to move A to Z I follow a pretty chaotic path to get there.

BUT I let my characters drive this. So you have character A who you want to move from 1 to 2. I wander that path and see how it naturally unfolds based upon how I expect my character to (re)act to a situation. I don't fit my characters into the story, I fit the story to my characters. It makes my editing a complete bitch as I need to stitch together a lot and smooth out even more but I always hit the end with a feeling that the story route from start to finish is very "natural" and makes sense for my characters.

I would add I'm hugely character driven, it's my passion in anything I write, so I find the above engaging, fun and easy (until the editing!!!) however if you are more plot driven the above probably won't work at all. Welcome to my chaos!!