I’m late for my update. Well, I won camp! Woo Hoo! (Since I didn’t technically win April’s camp.) I’m currently well ahead of my goal! 40K done of a goal of 31K and I still have 7 days left this month. (Which is good, because I still have 10 chapters of my 27 chapters to write.)
I’m approaching the climax now. The middle of the book is HARD! I was stuck earlier and took a day off from writing to plot the story out. I obsessed about it and couldn’t function in the real world as I tried to figure out how to get from point A to point B.
To get me out of this, I put myself in the mind of the villain, forgetting my protagonists. I wrote a few chapters of the middle of the story from the villain’s perspective. (I planned on putting then in the novel, but cut them when I realized it took away from the mystery/suspense.) This was an amazing technique to keep the story moving and add some depth.
My brother tells me he loves the villains. I never understood, but now have a new appreciation. They are flawed. They take action to make things go their way. They make the story happen.
How do you get through the endless middle section/act 2 of your stories?
Joynell Schultz, Author 
I just plod along, trying to stay awake, knowing I can and will fix it in post! 🙂 It has been hard, but I have come to accept that first drafts won’t be perfect! God Bless Editors! 😛
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Yeah, plodding along can be difficult if you don’t know which way your going! Luckily, I tend to only get stuck a few days at a time before I find the guiding light home. Thanks for the comment!
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That’s okay, you can do it!!
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I think the middle is tough, but my philosophy has always been to throw something else at the characters!
Depends on the villain, but there’s a reason why Darth Vader has always been so popular.
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I’m definitely going to try your philosophy the next time I’m stuck in the middle. I love “Throw something at them”. I’ve never thought of it that way. Thanks for that idea!
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Congratulations on winning Camp NaNoWriMo! I won Camp NaNoWriMo too and I published my poetry on my wordpress blog.
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Good job winning! That’s awesome!
Getting through the middle of my books is one of the things I struggle the most with. Usually I just keep writing or I add new stuff in (though that tends to make my writing pretty random, haha). I think one thing to remember (and something that I really need to keep in mind because I’m not very good at it) is that the conflict is always building, so rather than there being a “sagging middle” it should always be an upward climb to the climax.
Villains though are awesome! My “villain” of the novel I’m working on wasn’t really ever developed until today, when I spent some time developing him. It was really amazing to do so because I discovered how blurred the line between good and evil really can be (which is going to hopefully be a theme of the series). I guess you could say that he’s “doing the wrong thing for the right reasons” because what he’s trying to do is good and he has a good desire…but the way he goes about it is all wrong. I felt a lot of sympathy for him, and like you said, I think it adds a lot more depth to the story.
Anyway, sorry for rambling. Good post!
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Great reply! I forget that part about the conflict always building. “Sagging middle” is a neat phrase, I’ll remember that!
I like your theme about the line between good and evil. My current book’s theme is the same… That there are many shades of grey (and not fifty of them! That’s a completely different type of book!). I actually wrote a few scenes from my villain’s perspective on my current novel, we’ll see how my beta reader likes them. I’m a little nervous.
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I forget it too, so you’re not alone!
Ahh, that’s awesome! The shades of gray between evil and good are so interesting to think about. I think they’ll like the scenes…I always like seeing what’s going on in the mind of the villain.
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