Wading Through The Middle: The Hardest Part of Drafting A Novel

All writers are going to have a different opinion on the hardest part of writing a novel. Some find plotting incredibly impossible and so take to pantsing their first draft, others cannot function without a plan. Some storm through the first draft but hate editing. For me, and many others, the hardest part of writing is the middle of your story. Where the beginning feels new and exciting, and the end feels like it’s speeding closer as you get excited to type the end… the middle can feel endless and sometimes a bit aimless.

We love our characters and our story – but we have every right to get a bit frustrated at times. It’s normal that we will struggle at some stages of producing such a monumental piece of work. I for one have always found the middle difficult – it’s where my motivation dips; where I receive less dopamine rewards for my productivity [I’m neither starting a new project nor finishing one]; it tends to be where I question plot points and things like detail: ‘am I showing what I need to for it to make sense for readers?’, ‘should I show more of these characters even though they’re only secondary?’, ‘is this bit going to read as boring because the pace has slowed a little?’

wading through the middle of a story can be like trying to march through a bog, or push water uphill with a rake…

So what are you meant to do when you reach this inevitably hard middle? The obvious answer is you keep wading – but it’s not exactly helpful advice. So here are a few tips that really helped me to push through the middle of The Wayward Damned even when I was desperate to just give up for a few months…

• Print off chapters as you go – this helps me with motivation SO much. By printing off each one it’s a reward and physical proof of my productivity. There are many ways you can store you first draft, my preferred method is using these folders. They look awesome, they’re easy to flick through, it’s super satisfying when you begin to fill it up and it makes editing easier later on! By printing them off one chapter at a time it gives me extra motivation to get those words in to finish the chapter. Since I plot quite extensively, I know how many scenes and exactly what needs to happen in them per chapter so this helps me speed up my work and get the words down on paper.
• Writing Sprints – writing sprints are like gold dust, not only do they help you make progress on your work but they provide you with a community and even some writer friends [I certainly wouldn’t be where I am without my writerly friends, they are so supportive and crucial to the process]. Writing sprints can be organised by yourself or you can find hosted ones. They are either done in person or more often online, where a timer is set and together you quietly get down as many words as you can – don’t worry about editing or thinking too much, just write! If you’d like to take part in 3x weekly sprints with a lovely group of writers, why not join the Write. Publish. Impact. Community [with even more added bonuses on top of the sprints!] for less than £10 a month.
• 4TheWords – this site was introduced to me by other authors midway through this year and it has been INVALUABLE. I am so much quicker with a little added incentive of time pressure. For a long time the only way I could apply this pressure was by doing writing sprints with others [sprints are fantastic and I love them], but this site has allowed me to keep going and get much bigger word counts in each day on my own. The timer adds pressure and the monsters you battle gamify the entire process making it positively joyful. Come and join me, you’ll find me under the user: smmitchell.
• Planning things out before hand – even if you’re not a plotter, you can have a think and plan what you’re going to do before each writing session. Whether that be a detailed outline of a scene, or simply planning to work on a specific part of your book that day, it will help you to get focused and organised on what you’re doing so that you’re not wasting valuable time.
• If you are a plotter make use of these worksheets – the workbooks created for this website have been tried and tested with both experienced and newbie writers alike to ensure that they are beneficial to the plotting process. Whether you wish to develop more well-rounded characters, build out your fantasy world, or plot out the story structure of your novel, these workbooks will help you to do that.

Which part of the drafting process do you find the most challenging?