Even the newest writers have heard of the dangers when writing the middle of a novel. The middle makes up the bulk of the story, and like an unexplored jungle, it can swallow writers whole, leaving them hacking away at useless subplots and extraneous characters without the end in sight. To avoid this catastrophe, here is the key plotting technique to save your novel from the sagging middle.

The Roller Coaster Method of Plotting

In my post on the 3 steps to mastering your novel’s beginning, I stated that the beginning chapters have two jobs: introducing and establishing the story. The middle also has two jobs: exploring and complicating what we’ve introduced and established. We can do that through the roller coaster method of plotting.

We plot events that are both favorable and unfavorable to the protagonist’s quest to reach her goal. Below is a graphic of the roller coaster method for plotting a mystery.

The turns of the plot not only have to be favorable and unfavorable, but the events need to grow more intense as we reach the climax. Using the above chart as an example, the detective isn’t in danger until toward the end. If one of my first unfavorable events put the detective in danger, then by the end I have to have a climax that’s even more intense, has even more at stake.

So we should plot our favorable and unfavorable events with increasing intensity or higher stakes. We also need to decided how fast these events should occur within the story and how much time we need to give the reader to consider what they’ve learned from the last event. Even in a thriller, a writer has to hit the brakes at some point, even just slightly, so readers have time to digest what’s happened.

So the middle is a combination of events that help and hinder the protagonist to achieve his or her goal as well as breaks for the protagonist to consider what’s happened. And while the protagonist is trying to make sense of events, so is the reader.

But how do I know how fast to pace my novel?

First, we should read the books in genre we’re writing. The genre will guide us in the pace readers expect. Historical fiction usually unfolds at a more leisurely speed than a contemporary mystery.

Second, if as the writer, we find ourselves bored with our own novel, we need to pick up the pace.

Here’s my review of Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell, which is another way to shape the middle.