And then Stuff Happened: How to Figure out the Middle

Hello humanoids. Have you ever started writing something absolutely brilliant and get a few chapters into it and then realize you have no idea what to happen next? You have an idea for the ending and you've written the beginning but you have no middle. This problem happens to me often. Its annoying. Over the years I've figured out how to fix it. My suggestions may not work for you but they might help.


1. Make an outline. This is something I hate doing. I find outlining boring and I rarely end up using it but sometimes it can help. If you like planning it might do wonders for you. Even if you don't end up using the outline it'll at least give you ideas for a middle.

2. Ask yourself, does the beginning work? Do I really want it to end that way? How many Red Hots can I stick in my mouth at one time? That last question isn't really necessary. Sometimes when you write you need to rewrite. Maybe your beginning is the problem. Maybe you need to change something. Reread what you've written so far and see if there's anything that should be fixed. If you change somethings you'll get ideas for your middle.

3. Be evil. Grab a piece of paper or open a new document and just write down awful things that you could do to your characters. Figure out what obstacles you could give them to make their goal harder. Don't be afraid to hurt your characters. Maybe getting shot in the leg forces your main character to go to an underground city to get help where they run into their evil twin. You don't have to use everything you write down. I definitely don't. I'm never going to have my characters get abducted by aliens, drowned in coffee, and then revived by a group of magical bunnies. I have used some of it though, such as the main character getting arrested (she totally had it coming. I'm amazed she went as long as she did without getting caught) or finding out their best friend is an assassin. Have fun with this. You never know what might happen.

4. Do you need to just shelf this idea? Sometimes that does happen. Its happened to me several times. You may not want to put away this idea but it might be for the best. Maybe you'll get a new and better idea. Maybe one day you'll return to it and know exactly what you need to change. Or maybe you just need to take a break from this idea for a little while. So if you've been struggling with this for a long time maybe it is time to move on. Find a new idea. You never know, your next idea might be the one you publish.


Hopefully one of those helps you. If not I'm sure that if you watch cat videos long enough you'll get a brilliant idea to fix everything. This is all I have to say for today. Hope all you readers have a great day. Good bye, humanoids.