Stuck in the Middle? Getting Past the Middle: A Novel Project, Step 1

Stuck in the middle of your novel? Start again here.

When the path through your novel becomes obscured... (Image courtesy of Dianne Lacourciere "When Life Is Foggy" (Public Domain) by Artistic-touches)

Remind yourself of your novel's story question. Don’t go looking up your notes from the past to see what you wrote way back when you first started this project. Write what you see the moral question as

Getting Past the Middle: An Invitation to a Novel Project

I can start novels all day. I’m full of ideas, full of intriguing starts, lines, scenes, dialogue. I started writing my first book when I was 12. I also started writing my second book when I was 12. The problem has always been getting through the second half to the end.

Words. (sigh.) Image: Jim Pennucci "Words" (CC BY 2.0) by pennuja

I did finish one novel. It didn’t make much sense, in terms of traditional storytelling, but I was young (like 30), full of myself, and not really sure how to revise this tangle of words and scenes and