Review of Write Your Novel from the Middle

This is a revised repost from several years ago, the revision due to that fact that I’ve learned a lot more about writing in the past four years. So please enjoy again a review of Write Your Novel from the Middle.

At 84 pages, the book certainly wastes no space in explaining how to create the middle point of your novel and then writing backwards and forwards from it. Mr. Bell begins by explaining this approach will work for Pam Pantser, Paul Plotter, and Tammy Tweener. The key is the Mirror Moment, and it really is a moment, which come in the middle of the story. The main character (MC) reflects on what kind of person he or she is.

To make this moment meaningful, the writer must write a backstory for the character in the first half of the story and a transformation in the last half. Mr. Bell states that the moment is key because it’s what the novel is “really all about”.

He gives examples of mirror moments from books, like A Christmas Carol, and movies, like Lethal Weapon, Sunset Boulevard, and Moonstruck. The author also goes into details about story structure, like the three-act structure, and the components that make up that act. He also provides ways to ignite inspiration in your writing.

Although he states that this approach will work for any writer, I think it works best for plotters. When I wrote my first novel, A Shadow on the Snow, I put in a mirror moment naturally, before I read Mr. Bell’s book. After I read it, I went back to the moment and fleshed it out. I’m not sure it works as well. This may be because I really, really, really don’t like to write to a formula. So if I put something in that adheres to a formula and didn’t grow organically from my writing, it doesn’t feel natural. Or maybe it does work, but since I know the how and why of where this scene came from, I think like the formula draws attention to itself while readers wouldn’t notice anything. I find it very hard to judge my own stories objectively.

That’s why I think this technique works better for a plotter, someone who can write to a formula without their book appearing like it follows a formula. I also think the mirror moment works better for stand alone stories. It makes more sense for the main character to have this mirror moment once, one time when she is seriously questioning what kind of person she is, than for her to have that kind of deep questioning in every single book in a series.

For more tips on plots, click here.

What books do you recommend for writing plots?