How to Let Your Characters Move The Story Forward

by Stephanie Morrill

Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and the Ellie Sweet books (Birch House Press). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website including the free novella, Throwing Stones.

Announcement for those who are participating in the Summer Writing Challenge: The challenge ends TODAY. Please make sure to email me (Stephanie(at)GoTeenWriters.com) and tell me how you did so I can enter you to win one of our prizes. Prizes include a paperback copy of Go Teen Writers: How To Turn Your First Draft Into A Published Book, ecopies of both The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet and The Unlikely Debut of Ellie Sweet, and one of these super cute tote bags—with your choice of design—that my sweet friend, Olivia, makes: 

Onto talking about middles!

(This post is part of the Writing A Novel From Beginning to End series. You can find other posts from this series on the Looking For Something Specific? tab.)

It struck me several years ago that middles are hard to write because it’s where all the story stuff happens. Unlike the beginning of the novel, I’m no longer just foreshadowing, hinting, and setting things in motion. Now I have to start paying off those promises I made in the first few chapters. My main character and the love interest need to fall in love, she needs to suffer for her just cause, and I have to figure out what, exactly, that “big secret” is that made the end of chapter three so intriguing…

Whether you’re building an outline, working from an outline, or writing from the seat of your pants, I think you owe it to yourself after every scene to ask two big questions:

1. What’s been set in motion?
2. What are you guys (the characters) going to do about it?

Even if you’ve already created your outline and you’re working on a first draft, I still think it’s a good idea to ask these questions and double check that the story is progressing in a way that feels logical and organic.

Let’s take a look at each of these questions:

When I find plot holes in my manuscripts, it’s largely because I didn’t evaluate everything that would have been set in motion because of a scene. Either I didn’t pause to think it through from every angle (Well, sure, my main character is grieving. But why is my villain just sitting back and letting her???) or I was just flat-out oblivious at the moment. Staring so hard at trees, I missed the forest.

Returning to the scene in Tangled that we touched on two weeks ago when we talked about the first test for your character, Rapunzel is now on her journey to see the floating lights. She has faced her first test by being put in a situation she had feared—a roomful of “ruffians and thugs”—and she’s overcome. Excellent.

Now it’s time to look around the Snuggly Duckling and examine the repercussions of Flynn bringing Rapunzel here and Rapunzel belting out, “I’ve Got A Dream.” Here are the four that I spotted:

• The ruffians recognize Flynn from the wanted posters and send someone to fetch the palace guards.
• The singing is loud and attracts the attention of Mother Gothel, who now knows what Rapunzel is up to.
• The lead ruffian (not sure if his character has a name, but the concert pianist) is endeared to Rapunzel and her dream.
• The palace guards arrive and they bring the already-arrested Stabbington brothers with them.

See how this leaves us feeling like the story builds in a logical way? It feels like the characters are pushing the story forward rather than following the story around.