Stuck in the Middle

Don’t you hate when you’re reading a book that is absolutely riveting – and then the author runs out of ideas? Subplots fizzle, plot devices repeat, and each chapter seems endless.

The last thing any writer wants is for readers to start singing this song.

At some point, all writers get becalmed in a sea of motionless prose, and, like the sailors in that endless section of Moby Dick, we get desperate. Some writers try to move the story out of the doldrums by cranking up the action, but the new action must be essential to the plot. Adding random acts of violence, disconnected scenes involving bad people with bad manners or lengthy chase scenes won’t fix the problem. The story needs a big new idea.