3.1 The middle bits
First post for the new year and now we're looking at over a year of blog posts! I'm actually shocked I've made it this long for blogging. Anyway, recently I conducted a poll on twitter to find out which part people found the hardest for writing their manuscript. Unsurprisingly, it was overwhelmingly 'the middle.' I know some folk struggle with the beginning and end, I certainly fall into the 'endings are tough' category and have a tendency to rush them as a result. Why is the middle of a novel so hard? Would it surprise you to learn that pantsers and plotters alike share this same problem? Those who are exploring their universe, those who know the next chapter down to a T, all share the same trouble around the middle-point of their novel. Whatever steam they had when they started the novel, it now runs out, or blocks up and words become a grind to produce. I hate to tell you this, but that problem never goes away. Your momentum may push you throu...