I took a break from the series last week because it seemed right to acknowledge that all of us have likely seen some kind of shift—great or small—in our lives with the pandemic going on. If you didn’t see Shan’s post on Friday, You Can Do The Next Thing, it’s a MUST READ. Especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

An update on us at the Morrill house: This week was much better. We don’t 100% love our new normal, but we implemented some structure and learning, and that’s really helped us all to be in a better headspace.

In essence, we’ve shifted from reacting to acting, which is an excellent segue into talking about Act II Part B!

It’s been a while, so here’s a quick recap of the previous posts about writing middles:

In my post about Act II Part A, we started with the analogy of your character taking a river ride.

 In the opening of your story, your character is paddling down a river they’ve traveled for a long time. This is their normal world. Out of the blue, they’re surprised by a waterfall (the inciting incident) and down they go. They’re thrown out of the canoe, and the canoe breaks. While they’re still dealing with this, the river divides into multiple routes and they have to make a choice, which represents the entering of act two.

The first part of act two is your character trying to get his or herself back into the canoe. They’re still reacting to what happened at the waterfall.

But the midpoint—last week’s topic—is what provides them with the opportunity (or motivation) to finally get in the boat and start steering. Depending on the type of story you’re telling, the midpoint should feel like some white water rapids, with a whirlpool in the middle, and a few more rapids before they’re spit out on the other side. They’ve had a lot thrown at them, they’re really not sure how the boat fared through that section of the river, and their sense of direction might even be a bit off after that whirlpool.

And now we’re at the part of the story—Act II Part B—where I struggle the most. Where I always hit a wall.

I’m guessing at least part of this is because of how I’m wired. When something earth-shattering happens to me, my natural tendency is to think, consider, ponder, gather opinions . . . and then just hang out with all those thoughts for a bit. I’m fantastic at planning to act. I’m not-so-fantastic at actually acting.

And since in my own life I struggle to move from reaction to action, it’s not too surprising that the characters I write struggle too.

This is why I’ve started to approach my midpoint with such intention. Because my characters need something really big to push them into actually acting, not just reacting.

Here are some things I’ve noticed a good Act II Part B typically involves:

Your character makes a plan.

This plan is nearly always misguided. Here’s what that might look like. Keep in mind this is all after your big midpoint:

• Your main character is positive Mr. X is the killer, so they decide to investigate and prove it.
• Your main character gives up being a victim to the bullies at school and decides to pay them back.
• Your main character is convinced the jewels are stashed in that Swiss bank, and they book flights.

Different stories require different choices, of course, but the days of your character just holding onto the boat as it careens down the river is over. They’re in the canoe, and they need to set the course that they believe will help them achieve what they really want.

Your character gets help.

Whatever course your character chooses, they probably need help from other characters, whether they ask or help is foisted upon them.

In Cars we see Lightning McQueen draw closer to the residents of Radiator Springs in the second half of the story.

In The Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta are again on the same team.

Look for ways your character can be making choices about relationships. Who to invite to row beside them, and who to push overboard.

Your character’s growth comes to light.

Often we see this in movies as the “learning stuff montage.” In Mulan, we see the battalion training for battle and improving. In Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, we see a montage of D.A. sessions. In the book it’s a more gradual development, but we’re still seeing fruits of their training in Act II Part B.

Sometimes we see hints of a character improving at a skill over the course of the story, and in Act II Part B, they’re offered an opportunity to show how well they do this thing now. This is especially effective when it mirrors a similar opportunity in the first half of the book when they failed.

Pressure to “get the job done” increases.

As your character works on their plan, you’ll want to increase the pressure or raise the stakes on them. Here are some ideas for how to do that:

A clock starts ticking (or starts ticking faster): Basically, the character has an idea of how much time they have to complete a task, and then they find out that they’ll have to do it way faster than they expected. To continue our river analogy, they discover a shark chasing them and need to paddle faster to stay ahead of it.

They can’t have both things they love: Hopefully your character loves more than one person, land, object, etc. (If not, you can fix that in edits!) Act II Part B is a great time to make them choose. Will they fight in the battle to protect the land they love, or go home to be with their beloved mother as she dies? Will they go away to college like they’ve always dreamed or take over the family business to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands? For Harry Potter fans, will they choose horcruxes or hallows?

Something they rely on gets stripped away: If you have a character who relies on her smarts, put her in a situation where she’s ignorant. If your character can always rely on his friends, make it so he must do this part of the journey on his own. If your character is strong in body, weaken them.

With each one of these twists, it’s essential to the success of Act II Part B that your character is making choices on how to move forward, not just being a victim when you throw new obstacles at them. They need to actively make a new choice or this part of your story will wind up meandering. (Mine always does!)

How are we feeling about middles? Where do you think you are in your story now?