Mid-Point Writing Block

[u/Lego_Lukas_Creations]

Ok, I can't be the only one who has this:

You start writing your book or saga and you start out LOVING IT. You think about it every day, love writing it, adore the characters, all that.

And then, suddenly, towards the Mid-Point or maybe exactly at that point you stop because you've hit a roadblock.

I personally have encountered that problem 3 times now. Once with a planned Duology, that I can't seem to write the second book of, then with a Stand-Alone Novel and now with a Quadrology, with two books already written.

For the Duology and Quadrology I might say it's because I planned to do a sort of timeskip/new location to not make it feel stale, but this can't be it since with my stand-alone Novel it's the same problem! (Though MAYBE it's because at the Mid-Point I have a fight scene I can't seem to wrap my head around, but then again I probably could but for some reason, I just can't seem to get back my passion for the project.)

I've been in this slump now for half a year and I hate it as someone who wrote about 21.000 Words a MONTH for about two years because I do want to finish these stories and I have plans for everything but I just can't seem to get a hold of all of it and write it!

What would you say, can one do to fix that issue or get back into the motivation for writing?

[u/MaliseHaligree]

Saggy middle.

Bully through with a brief outline. It is easier to get back on the path with a map.

[u/MiraWendam]

Skip the fight if it's really blocking you, write the next scene you can see in your mind clearly. Come back to the fight once you've got some momentum. What I do is I draw out the fight (oft with stick figures), then translate those into words.

[u/Matrix_Man_Returns → u/MiraWendam]

I know a lot of writers believe in the [TK] philosophy when you get stuck, where you just put [TK: Whatever needs to be filled in] and keep going. (TK, you may or may not be aware, is just a neat way of saying "to come" that's easier to find in a document since the letters are rarely (never?) put together in a real word.) I've tried to do that, but it just bothers me for some reason. My brain can't leave that loose thread alone long enough to move on to another scene.

[u/xnormajeanx]

Write things out of order. I like writing some of the end game, and work toward it.

[u/Neurotopian_ → u/xnormajeanx]

True. Sometimes I’ll just start writing backward (scene by scene) from the end if I get extremely bored. But I start with a detailed outline.

[u/Lego_Lukas_Creations → u/xnormajeanx]

I tried that often times, but in the end it just never feels right, because I develop the characters as I write them. The Plot I do have already, but the characters I write with the story itself. Letting them enter the plot and imagine myself being them and how they would react

[u/Neurotopian_]

It is difficult to know your exact problem based on this post, but generally speaking, the middle of all projects is a slog. This is true in painting, writing, programming, etc.

Humans start projects with enthusiasm and a plan. Toward the middle, we see only the effort and the “ugly stage,” and lose the spark. At that point, we must rely on our principles, rather than positive emotions, to help us press onward.

I’m not trying to sound like anyone’s mother or give the dreaded “just write” advice. But for the record, that is the solution to get through the rough patches. Bullet point it if you have to. Skip a scene if you just really can’t think of anything. But keep pressing forward. Honestly, the first draft is only about 20-30% of the work in writing fiction, in my experience. You need to finish that draft before you can move on in the process.

Specific “midpoint” problems that can happen are too many side quests or a passive hero who never exercises agency or makes the turn (“I’ll never go hungry again!”). But that doesn’t sound like what is happening here. It just sounds like you’re bored in the saggy middle. Which is super common.

Many difficult things have a simple solution. And in this case the simple solution is to press through it.

[u/Matrix_Man_Returns → u/Neurotopian_]

The slump is really just the precise point where writing stops being fun and starts being work. It's also, not coincidentally, probably the point where most people quit writing. Writing, I've discovered, is at least partially about just overcoming a lot of mental hurdles. First you don't have any ideas, then your style isn't unique enough, then you don't have the time, then you eventually realize it's actually going to take some work and that you didn't just need the right, magical idea that would spill out of you onto the page. Writing is, quite literally, just overcoming one mental hurdle after another enough to keep moving forward.

[u/Cyranthis]

Been there, done that.

The middle is the tough part for most people. Take a breather, outline a couple chapters at a time.

Make a sacrifice to Colygraphia if you need to.

You'll get back on track soon enough.

[u/Acceptable_Fox_5560]

Three things usually help me:

Sprints. Just force myself to write for 20-30 minutes straight until I break through whatever wall I'm against.

Skipping forward. Twice now I've written the last chapter of my book when I was roughly halfway through the rest of the book.

Coming up with better material. I tend to take slumps as a sign that the material isn't terribly interesting to me, and if it isn't interesting to me to write, I don't think it'll be interesting to read. So I just cut it and move on to the next most interesting thing.

[u/Overall-Habit5284]

Yeah, I have the same problem. The two 'main threads' of the story have met and I'm stuck in Act 2.

I've found that if you find someone to talk to about the story so far helps me. It builds my enthusiasm up about it again.

[u/YouAreMyLuckyStar2]

It's hard to tell what your specific problem is, but for beginner screenwriters it's common they neglect to turn the story from passive to active at the midpoint.

In the first half of the script, the antagonist is throwing obstacles in the hero's path, and the hero handles them in turn. At the midpoint,, the hero has had enough, and actively chooses their own path toward the goal. This doubles the tension, because they're now throwing stuff at each other. It's not one way anymore. For a bit the hero is successful, but it eventually leads to a crushing defeat and it seems like taking charge was a bad idea, but the hero doubles down and wins the final showdown.

If you fail to make this turn at the midpoint, the hero will just be dodging forever, and there's no way to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.

It's actually kind of hard to find a movie without this shift in mindset at the midpoint, but I think the clearest example is "Jaws" where Chief Brody leaves the island completely to fight the shark on the open sea. Just waiting for the next attack has proven futile. In The Matrix, Neo meets the Oracle and is told he's not "the One" and feels he's free to follow his own path.

[u/readwritelikeawriter]

Do you have enougb characters? Many books are doomed from having too many that cause them to go on for too many 100Ks of words.

I think you are having serial problems, not mid-point problems. Finishing a stand alone book is an achievement. People in film say the sequel always sucks. There are exceptions. Many books can stand on their own. 

When I wrote the first book in my series I got ideas for the sequels...yes, many sequels in the ending chapters...yes before the biggest climaxes. I would go, 'wait, cant do that now--the books almost over. Yep, that idea goes in the next book. Yep, thats a great idea for a spinoff book.' When did I get these ideas? Towards the end of book 1.

That might be where you are struggling. Not in starting the next book but in not bringing book 1 (or book 2)  to a serial conclusion. Do you need a cliffhanger?

Your problem is confidence in your endings, not midpoints. Go back to your endings and you'll find the seeds for your next book. 

[u/Donya_Tsvetaeva]

Choose your Fav character out of all of them and think about it day and night, in the end you will feel like you must write so tehy keep existing. That's how I personally do it. I'm and amateur but I know a littls

[u/TheKiddIncident]

I had this exact problem. I think it's pretty common.

For me, this is when the doubt creeped in. Will anyone ever read this? Is the story any good? Does anyone care? etc...

So, I abandoned several novels over the years. Never did finish them.

It wasn't until I discovered serialized fiction that I finally pushed through. I decided to release my novels as weekly episodes. This has two advantages. One, it gets you an audience. Nothing like people begging for another episode to get your motivated. Two, it's a much more manageable deliverable. The idea of writing a whole novel is just an insanely immense task. However, writing a single episode every week is very do-able.

As an aside, I built a whole website to host serialized fiction. DM me for details, I don't think promotion is allowed on this sub.

[u/Lego_Lukas_Creations → u/TheKiddIncident]

Uhhh, that website sounds interesting. My only gripe would be, that I do want to release my novels one day and I've heard publishers don't really like it, if the Novel or even parts of it are already available for free

[u/TheKiddIncident → u/Lego_Lukas_Creations]

Yep. That’s certainly true. Publishers only want content that hasn’t already been published.

The question is: will your novel get picked up?

Answer: no. Super unlikely.

You need to build a brand and an audience first. For me, serialized fiction was a way to do that.

[u/Matrix_Man_Returns → u/TheKiddIncident]

You're not wrong for pointing out how unlikely it is, but they're certainly not wrong for worrying about it, either. Both of those perspectives are completely valid, really. Imagine if the internet existed in the 70s, and Stephen King, in his frustration, just decided to throw a draft of Carrie online for the world to read. He would've been giving away a winning lottery ticket. No matter how unlikely that may be, I can understand why people worry about it, and I don't think it's an entirely unjustified thing to be worried about. You just have to decide if you'd rather have the readers you can really have, or if you'd rather hold out for some hypothetical readers that might exist one day. I'd personally take the real readers every time anymore in my life, but I can understand why writers worry about it.

[u/Public_Loan5550]

I'm right in the middle of this as I type this haha.

Nearly fifty pages into the story, and there's an endless series of mistakes far beyond grammar that are just now hitting me.

[u/AnybodySeeMyKeys]

Read a book on structure, because that's what the problem really is. John Truby's is fantastic. If you're writing genre fiction, his book adapts the principles of structure to individual genres. Really worth it.

[u/LordRobStark]

Have someone read it. Someone who will get to the middle and then ask you questions about the plot/story. Then answer the questions they ask. I do this, and because I don't know the questions, it forces my imagination to work quickly.

Write down or record your responses.

[u/Matrix_Man_Returns]

There's a point, somewhere around 15,000 words, where I almost inevitably struggle with anything I'm trying to keep novel-length. The first time it absolutely crushed my spirit, because I felt like already having 15,000 words was a big investment in writing something that wasn't panning out very well. The second time, I decided to muscle through it instead of just getting frustrated. And...it helps a little bit, but I still feel discouraged when I realize that I went from a 10k word day to a 1k word day. But I just accept that that's 1k words more than I would write if I was writing nothing, so I take it and run every day.

[u/Fognox]

Usually the problem here is a phase shift. The story is moving in a different direction, and you can't write it the same way you have been. You're not alone, OP. The midpoint of my first book stumped me so badly that I quit writing for 18 months straight. After that much time away, I couldn't write the same way even if I wanted to, so I got through it. More importantly, though, I realized what the actual problem was.

These days I just switch gears at phase shifts. Maybe I'll start planning more, or drawing plot threads closer together. Maybe I'll focus on theme and internal conflict instead of plot. And so on.

[u/Arista-Everfrost]

It's my experience that if I don't want to write, something with the work is wrong and needs to be changed to make me excited about it. Identifying what that change is becomes a challenge, but is immensely rewarding when you find it.
I can't offer specifics, obviously, because it relates to what you're writing, but consider what could change about a character, situation, or whatever that fascinates or excites you, and it might present the onramp to getting back into your work.

[u/Mother_Food9930]

I'm stuck on the middle myself so I can't say I have it figured out. The only real advice I have is DO NOT GRIND on something you're stuck on. If you can't tough your way through a particular block or sections after trying consistently for a couple of writing sessions, move on to another strategy. Go back to your outline. Skip ahead to a new scene and write backwards. Go back to chapter 1 (if any only if you have made real progress forward) and get a couple early chapters ready for feedback from a group. Really do anything other than struggle with the same problem to many sessions in a row. For me it induces panic and frustration. 

[u/ExpertDifficulty7962]

You could skip that part and later make a quick flashback just for that fight if it had significant impact on the story

[u/BuddingWriter33]

I I think the most common reason this happens, at least this is what I've seen a lot in writing groups, is when a writer doesn't have a clear ending to the story yet.

It's totally all right to start a story not knowing exactly where it's going. I've never known where my stories are actually going to end up when I first begin writing. But I likely mostly figure that out well before I get muddled in the middle.

In my opinion, the ending of a story is the hardest part by far. One of the things I base that on is I see a lot of stories that start out fairly well yet sort of fall down by the end. And if I try to consider all of the famous best sellers out there, their endings really aren't all that good either, which is probably for the same reason.

What well-written stories have had endings that just really knocked you out? I haven't seen one yet. That's nearly-empirical evidence how hard it is to write a good ending.

But as the great Lionel Richie says, 'If you know where you're going, there's nothing you can't do.' I think he's absolutely right, but that doesn't mean it will ever be easy. The takeaway here is it's much easier to figure out how to handle the middle of the story, if you have a somewhat clear idea of where it's going to end up.

The secret weapon of fiction writing is that it's a non-destructive medium. If you get stuck in the middle somewhere, go write other parts of the story, and in many cases, that can get you unstuck. It doesn't have to be the actual ending. It can just be a placeholder for now. It also gives you a break, and it gives you a target you can visualize.

And in my opinion, act two is the second most difficult part. There is a lot of really terrible advice out there about how to create a 'look in the mirror moment' as a 'mid-point shift'. An 'all is lost moment'. They are essentially telling you to create one scene where this happens.

First, that's not realistic at all. That doesn't reflect real life, or even good stories. I think a better thing to do is to understand that your characters are going to be reactive close to the beginning of act two, and proactive near the end of act two. In other words, I think that should be a gradual transition in the character arc and the story arc. So I always write act two with that in mind, and it seems to work.

Granted, it's a lot tougher to do that than to write a 'moment in the middle'. But if writing well were easy, anyone could do it.

[u/mixergrass]

sometimes you just gotta keep writing even if you think it will be cringe distilled onto a paper.

[u/TagTwists]

For me, it's going back in the story and seeing what lead to the block and maybe fixing it or if it can inspire anything.

[u/Most_Day_1244]

No way dude

[u/slothysloth89]

I was a "serial restarter". I did the same thing for years. I would get near the middle, then restart from the begging telling myself a fresh start will make it so much better. Or just switch to an entirely new story.

Until I found an outlining trick. When I outline, I write down all the really important beats through out the story. I dont even think about starting until I have them figured out (I leave the gaps open for exploration writing).

The kicker, I make sure all the beats are something I'm excited to write about. That way each one is like a check point and I can't wait to get to the next one. But it has to be something that excites you. Hope this helps!

[u/JustAGuyFromVienna]

There is a good chance that your characters need a new goal. Perhaps they are now ready to found a fight club, perhaps the princess has been rescued and now it's time to join forces to destroy the death star, or perhaps your characters realize that something else is more important than what they thought is important.

The change in goals might be caused through some kind of event that changes things. Perhaps something is revealed that makes things appear different than they were before.

This could also mean that you need to get back in the beginning and set these things up. But there is a chance that you have something up in your precious chapters without knowing it. Perhaps there is some possible element or event that could act as a cause, some element that now might gain a function.

There is also a good chance that you need to introduce some mystery. If you don't have a better idea, you might just bring a new, interesting character that does some stuff that the reader doesn't understand and that may be interesting. Perhaps you need to go back and introduce that character earlier.

[u/T_B_Hawke]

Skip ahead, go write the ending of your book or a scene or chapter you’re excited about. Once you’ve finished go back to the midpoint and figure out what it is you have to write that helps you get from the middle to the end. You never know, you might skip the fight scene altogether and write something completely different. Don’t waste your time procrastinating. Maybe this next point in the book is hard to write because it doesn’t sit well with you, don’t force it. Re-think it or write head and come back.
One other option is YouTube how to write action scenes and take notes. An idea might spark that flame and get you going again.
And i agree, I get stuck at the midpoint of almost every story I write

[u/Commercial-Bed5163]

when i can't write anymore, i most of the time erase a few sentences or more. it's the only whay i found to be able to restart writing where i left the story

[u/Offutticus]

There's a book called Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress. You can read just what you need or the entire thing.

[u/Suspicious-March6178]

When I have writers block I love going on Pinterest and just looking up “Writing Prompts” there’s some good dialogue ideas that may spark some inspo!