The Magical Middle

cross blogTime for some writerly discussion on craft. Today, writing mentor Sydney Smith and I discuss a novel’s mid-point.

JENNIFER –
I’m approaching the middle of my new manuscript, although still a few thousand words away. Since reading Sydney Smith’s wonderful new book, The Architecture Of Narrative, I’ve been giving a lot more thought than usual to structure. So many writing gurus emphasise the significance of the magical midpoint. James Scott Bell, in his clever book, Write Your Novel From The Middle, calls it the mirror moment, when the main character looks at himself, and takes stock.  What kind of person is he? What is he becoming? How must he change in order to achieve his goals?

Humphrey BogartMy favourite film example of this is Casablanca with the fabulous Humphrey Bogart. At the exact midpoint of the film, Ilsa comes to Rick’s bar after closing. Rick is drunk and bitter, remembering how Ilsa left him in Paris. Ilsa tries to explain, pleads with him to understand, but Rick essentially calls her a whore. She leaves in tears. Rick, full of self-disgust, puts his head in his hands, thinking, ‘What have I become?’ Will he stay a selfish drunk, or regain his humanity? This goes to the central theme of the narrative, and the second half of the film answers that question.

Alexandra Sokoloff  calls the midpoint the Call to Action, or Point of No Return. It heralds a major shift in the story, and is one of the most important scenes in any book or film. Something huge might be revealed. Something might go disastrously wrong. A ticking clock might be introduced, heightening the suspense. This fits in well with James Scott Bell’s analysis. In Casablanca, Ilsa reveals something huge at the midpoint―that she found out her husband, Viktor Lazlo, was still alive. This information leads Rick to a moment of self-reflection, then locks him into a course of action, thus linking the external and internal conflicts.

SYDNEY –
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The midpoint of a novel can be a powerful place where change happens. In Pride and Prejudice, the midpoint is the chapter where Darcy first proposes to Elizabeth and she rejects him, citing his pride and arrogance, his interference in her sister’s romance with Bingley, and his cruelty to Wickham as her reasons for rejecting him. That propels him into writing the letter in which he reveals the truth about Wickham but admits to meddling in Bingley’s business. That in turn leads Elizabeth to realize she’s been prejudiced toward Darcy, which had blinded her to the truth about Wickham. And it leads Darcy to modify his behaviour toward others. That’s a powerful about-face for both of them, and a vital hinge. All that follows is a consequence of that. It’s interesting to note that this hinge is also the most memorable part of this time-honoured novel.

Gregg Hurwitz, thriller writer extraordinaire, uses the midpoint in his novel, Don’t Look Back (dull title but don’t be fooled―it’s amazing!). Eve Hardiman has lost her nerve in life after her husband leaves her for a younger woman. She gives up the low-paid nursing job she loves and takes a highly-paid post with an insurance company, turning down applications for medical treatment by seriously ill people. She goes on a holiday in a distant outpost in Mexico, and for the first part of the novel, she collects clues that point to the mysterious disappearance of Teresa Hamilton, and hands them to others to deal with. Then smack in the middle of the novel, something happens. A member of the holiday party is seriously injured. Eve takes charge of the situation and the threat to all their lives, and she doesn’t let up until she’s destroyed the villain. High-octane is not the word for it.

Lesser novels can employ the midpoint effectively, too, though in a different way. Philip Pullman uses it in his Sally Lockhart mysteries. For the first half of each novel, questions pile up. After the midpoint, they’re resolved one by one.

JENNIFER –
All these examples show just how crucial the midpoint really is. The sagging middle is a frequent trap for novice, and not-so novice writers. A lot of brainstorming is usually put into the start of a story, and to the climax, but the middle is neglected. It meanders, becomes boring, and loses the reader’s attention. As a manuscript assessor Sydney, you must have had a lot of experience with this all-too-common problem.

SYDNEY –
Don't Look BackThe thing to understand is that, if a story sags in the middle, it’s weak at the start. The weakness is the lack of a character flaw in the protagonist. In many, many examples of the midpoint, the critical moment is the protagonist’s realization of their character flaw. When Eve recognizes that she lost her nerve, that’s the moment she gets it back. The midpoint in Casablanca is the moment when Rick realizes his character flaw―his bitterness over Ilsa. This kind of self-knowledge always leads to a dramatic change in direction for the story because the protagonist is now able to change internally and act externally without the nagging hindrance of their character flaw.

To highlight my point by contrast, why is it that many, possibly most, series novels don’t employ the midpoint this way? Because the series hero will lose the very character flaw that drives him or her to do what they do. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch is obsessed with catching murderers. But his obsession keeps him from connecting at a deep level with others. He’s single and can’t be with the woman he loves. His friendships are superficial. If he lost his obsession, he would no longer be driven to solve crimes. Karin Slaughter’s Will Trent is ashamed of his dyslexia. He is driven to compensate for it by solving crimes. If he lost his shame over his disability, he might become a more balanced human being, but he would lose the drive to compensate for it by being a super-duper crime-solver.

Look at the Sally Lockhart series: the midpoint is the hinge where the questions amassed in the first half begin to be answered. It’s cute. It’s obvious. It works. But it lacks that power-pack oomph that comes from a midpoint resting on the protagonist’s recognition of their character flaw.

JENNIFER –
Love these examples Sydney. They illustrate the importance of mid-points and character flaws in such a practical way. I’ll be sure to keep this discussion in the front of my mind as my manuscript grows.

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Plot Thumbscrews

cross blog

Time for our monthly chat about writing, with fellow Penguin author Kathryn Ledson, and mentor extraordinaire Sydney Smith. This month we discuss plot thumbscrews.

Sydney:
I love a plot thumbscrew. This is an event where two or more storylines intersect and the difficulty escalates for the protagonist – they find it much harder to get what they want. Characters and their attendant storylines meet all the time in a narrative, but the difference is that a plot thumbscrew escalates the difficulty. The plot veers off in an unexpected new direction because of this difficulty. The protagonist struggles to resolve the conflict in their own favour. I call these tension points “plot thumbscrews” because they tighten until it hurts.

Plot Thumbscrews 1When a novel doesn’t have any plot thumbscrews, the story is monotonous and one-note. People who say that nothing happens in literary fiction are referring to the lack of plot thumbscrews – either too few or none at all. Plot thumbscrews energise a plot by increasing the difficulty. I think of what happens when someone touches an electrified object – they stiffen and are helplessly stuck to the object. This is what happens to the reader when they reach a plot thumbscrew – they stiffen and are helplessly stuck to the story. It hurts the protagonist and it hurts the reader – and the reader loves it! Good plot thumbscrews keep the reader turning the page into the small hours.

Jenny:
I’m sorry, but every time I try to write about plot thumbscrews in my current work in progress, I risk giving away spoilers. It’s a novel of romantic suspense. The tension grows gradually, one plot point building on another, each one vital to the next. I’ve analysed my whole story (as much of it as I know so far anyway) and can’t think of one squeeze point that I can discuss without giving the game away.  I’m rather pleased actually – it means no dead wood in the story. Either that or I’m paranoid!

The FirmSo, I’m going to contribute to this discussion by using an example from another book that has some similarities to my story – The Firm. In this novel by John Grisham, Mitch, an idealistic young lawyer straight out of law school gets his dream job and discovers he has sold his soul to the devil and must fight to get it back. No, seriously, there are parallels!

A scene that really ratchets up the tension occurs at the midpoint. Shortly after Mitch passes his bar exam, an FBI agent confronts him. Mitch learns that the firm he works for is actually part of the white collar operations of a vicious crime family. They lure new lawyers from poor backgrounds with promises of wealth and security, involving them in multi-million dollar tax-fraud and money laundering schemes. By the time a lawyer is aware of the firm’s actual operations, he cannot leave. No lawyer has escaped the firm alive. The scene brings together three storylines. His suspicions about being followed are confirmed. His search for answers about the other lawyers’ funerals is at an end. And his meteoric career rise is explained and tainted. The scene escalates the external conflict because he is now caught between the Firm which will kill him if he betrays them, and the FBI who will send him to prison if he doesn’t help them. It escalates the internal conflict because he is also caught between ambition and idealism. I’m aiming for something like it in my new book.

Now tell me, Sydney, is that a plot thumbscrew?

Sydney:
That is a fabulous plot thumbscrew! What I didn’t say, and should have said, in my description of what a plot thumbscrew is, is that a plot thumbscrew hands the protagonist a new problem to solve. This is a twist on the old problem. You see how Mitch now understands things better and that hands him a problem that twists the old one. In the old one, he’s trying to find out what’s going on. The new twist is that he’s trapped and has to find a way out. He was always trapped. He just didn’t know it. Now he knows it. AND he knows that getting out is life-threatening. He knows because other lawyers who tried to get out lost their lives. What a terrific plot thumbscrew!

Kath:
Well, Sydney, as you know, my problem is always that I want to protect Erica, my protagonist. Which doesn’t make for very exciting reading, not at all! So for me, writing a plot thumbscrew can be agonising. Probably more so for me than for Erica. But it must be done if we want our readers to be satisfied!

Here I want to talk about a plot thumbscrew in Avatar, a science-fiction/fantasy movie I loved. It’s about paraplegic human, Jake Sully, who is given the job of learning about the Na’vi people so they can either be persuaded into leaving their home (so the humans can mine it for a precious mineral) or, if they refuse to leave, work out how best to drive them off or kill them, as is our human wont. Jake is offered a leg-restoring operation in return for his cooperation.

Avatar 2A plot thumbscrew occurs when Jake is separated from his crew and finds himself alone and in grave danger in the jungles of Pandora. There he meets a Na’vi woman who’d quite like to kill him (two storylines clashing), but she receives a sign from their goddess and chooses to help Jake instead. She introduces him to her family, and Jake comes to love the Na’vi people.

This of course increases the difficulty for Jake to achieve his goal, which is: drive out the Na’vi or find out how best to kill them. He is falling more and more in love with the Na’vi people, and one lady in particular *sigh*, and so becomes torn, and is eventually forced to choose a side.

It’s not over yet, though. The Na’vi discover Jake’s true purpose and no longer trust him. They leave him for dead. And so, with a new mission in mind, Jake must push through another couple of excruciating plot thumbscrews to save what’s left of the Na’vi and be with his true love – 3½ metres of blue-tailed gorgeousness.

Sydney:
Well, I can see why you call it a plot thumbscrew, Kath. And it is. But the way you describe it de-emphasises the plot thumbscrew. This is how I would put it: Jake wants more than anything to get the use of his legs back. He’s prepared to do anything, which includes finding ways of getting rid of the Na’vi so that an evil corporation can exploit the resources on the Na’vi’s land. He is sent to find out all he can about the Na’vi. But when he meets 3½ metres of blue gorgeousness, he finds himself falling in love with her. He gets to know her people and like them. Now he’s stuck in a bind: if he goes through with his mission, he will get the use of his legs back, but he will lose Blue Gorgeousness and her people will be driven off their traditional lands. But if he saves them, he will be a paraplegic for the rest of his life.

You know what? This sounds like a plot trigger. Plot triggers can look like plot thumbscrews sometimes. Quite often, actually. But this looks like a plot trigger because it kicks off the problem he has to solve. That problem is not his paraplegia but his dilemma: me or the Na’vi?

That just goes to show how tricky it often is to identify plot thumbscrews, even though they arrive with fireworks detonating everywhere. When we remember a film or a novel, we will often remember a plot thumbscrew – like Jane Eyre finding out Mr Rochester is already married, and to a mad woman he keeps in the attic.

Plot Thumscrews 3So here’s one way of thinking about it. Remember that old circus trick about the strong man holding up an inverted pyramid of men. The protagonist of the drama is the strong man. His plot trigger happens when two men climb up and stand on his shoulders. His aim is to stay on his feet, supporting the men standing on his shoulders. Then some more men climb up and stand on the shoulders of those two men. Now it’s harder for the strong man to stay on his feet. He staggers this way and that. But he continues to uphold the growing pyramid of men. Then another group of men scale the inverted triangle and mount the shoulders of the men, forming a new row. It is extraordinarily hard for the strong man to hold up all these people and keep his feet. His legs tremble. He grunts with the effort. He stumbles from side to side. But he goes on holding them up because he has to stay on his feet. Each time men climb up to form a new row, that’s a plot thumbscrew. But the first two men who climbed up – that was the plot trigger.

Kath:
Geez. Jenny gets a gold star. I get to sit in the corner.

Sydney:
Reader, Kath awarded Jenny the gold star and put herself in the naughty corner. She didn’t consult me or, as far as I know, Jenny. It’s all her.

Kathryn Ledson is the author of Rough Diamond and Monkey Business (Penguin), part of the Erica Jewell series of romantic adventures. You can visit her website and find her blog at www.kathrynledson.com
Sydney Smith is a writing mentor, teacher and author of short stories, essays, and The Lost Woman, a memoir of survival. She is currently writing The Architecture of Narrative, a book about how to plot and structure fiction. She offers writing tips at www.threekookaburras.com. If you have a question on any aspect of writing, feel free to visit her at The Story Whisperer.
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