You’ve likely heard both of the writing terms: midpoint twist and mirror moment. We’ve talked about them here before, but I don’t think we’ve talked about them together.

I’m going to talk about them together. 🙂 

The whole point of the midpoint twist is to keep you from having a sagging middle to your story. You want to keep things moving along. To avoid boring readers, many authors work hard to include some sort of plot twist in the middle of the book. It keeps everyone on their toes.

The mirror moment is when your hero takes an introspective look at himself and evaluates the journey he is on, both physically and emotionally, and how he has changed or remained the same. Is he succeeding or failing at the quest? Is he growing as a person? Or is he feeling like he’s not cut out for this?

I’d like to suggest combining these two elements. Also, keep in mind that a nifty trick with storytelling is to combine opposites or at least to alternate between them. You have a low point, then a high point. Up, down, up, down. And so the story goes. The character wins some and he loses some. With that in mind, combining these two elements might look something like one of these scenarios:

Negative Mirror Moment Leads to Positive Midpoint Twist

Your character has a mirror moment in which he takes stock of the situation, considers how much farther he has to go, and evaluates how he’s been doing thus far. He decides that he’s failing miserably. Just look how many things he has messed up already! He shouldn’t be leading this adventure. He should have stayed home.

But then, something happens. It’s your midpoint twist, and it forces your hero to act. He’s not feeling up to it, but he rises to the occasion and gives it his all. And guess what? It works! Your hero not only succeeds, he realizes that he is capable of getting the job done after all. He is motivated to keep on going and doing the best he can. Keep in mind, he’ll doubt himself again big time when he reaches the dark moment, but for now, he’s back in the saddle!

Positive Mirror Moment Leads to Negative Midpoint Twist

In this example, your hero takes a look at things and is overly confident. He thinks he’s doing better than anyone has ever done at such a quest in the history of the universe. He’s living large, feeling like he knows exactly who he is and what he’s all about.

But then something happens. It’s the midpoint twist, coming to put your hero to a major test. And because of his cocky attitude, he fails. He loses something or someone one and has to take a step back. This forces him to doubt his former confidence in a big way. Now when he moves forward, he does so cautiously.

You see where I’m going with this now, don’t you? You can do the same thing by putting the midpoint twist before the mirror moment. 

Negative Midpoint Twist Leads to Positive Mirror Moment

You start with a midpoint twist that doesn’t turn out so well. Your hero is left sitting alone, shocked at just how badly things have gone down. He starts to think about how he got here and why. What was his motivation, anyway? He reminds himself why he came. He reminds himself what’s at stake. Then something inside changes. He is not going to give up. He’s got to turn this thing around. He’s got to make it right! So he sets off, feeling good about himself and where he is headed next.

Positive Midpoint Twist Leads to Negative Mirror Moment

Or do the opposite. You start with a midpoint moment that is a huge victory. Your hero is living large, until he gets a moment to himself. That’s when the doubts start to creep in. Because really, what he just faced was nothing compared to what’s waiting for him at the end of this journey. Sure, he just had a small victory, but he’s only one guy. How is he going to stand against the entire army of the bad guy? There’s no way he can. There’s just no way. So your character knocks himself back a peg.

Play with this and see what works best for your story. You could also do two positives and two negatives, if you wanted. Which combination works best for your story? Share in the comments.

Will You Help?

I’m sure you all saw Stephanie’s blog post on Monday about our re-release of the Go Teen Writers book. *dances*

Well, we have a cover! *more dancing*

We’re so excited to show it to you, but first, we’ve planned a cover reveal for Tuesday, October 23. We want to get as many people as possible on board to help us spread the word. All you have to do is post the book cover wherever you hang out online, be that your blog, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or wherever. We’ll even have text that you can copy and paste, if that makes the process easier.

If you’d like to help us, please sign up at the link below, and we will email you the cover on Monday, October 22. All who help out will be entered to win one of two print copies of the new book.

Sign up here: https://goteenwriters.com/cover

And the winner is . . .

A couple weeks ago I ran a contest here for a copy of my new book Punctuation 101. The winner of that book is Grace S. Grace, please email me at jill@jillwilliamson.com with your mailing address and I’ll drop the book in the mail.

Thanks for entering everyone! 🙂