Video of a Novel: Day 31

Entering the messy middle...

Today I’m talking about how the writing is going, what it takes to get the story from Act I to Act II, and I read from Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water about the truth and importance of fiction.

Moving from the beginning to the middle of the novel means putting your protagonist in a place where they accept the “mission” of the story and reach a point where they can’t turn back, or won’t turn back. Even in literary, slower paced stories, this is the case—there is always a point of no return at around the 15% - 20% mark. So I’m exploring what I can introduce into the story that will bring about that “no turning back” scenario for my characters.

“Those of us who struggle in our own ways, small or great, trickles or rivers, to create, are constantly having to unlearn what the world would teach us; it is not easy to keep a child’s high creativity in these late years of the twentieth century.” Madeleine L’Engle