Here's a question I face on every project: 

I have a question about pushing through when the story gets bogged down. It always happens to me in the middle. Do you have any tricks that help you stay engaged and not wander away from the manuscript when the writing gets tough? Is it a matter of discipline? I really want to finish more novels. I'm not sure what stands in the way.

Like a lot of writing questions, there's no one answer. To make matters even more confusing, I'm probably going to give some contradictory advice here. You've been warned.

So, the first thing to know is that it's normal to get bogged down in your story, especially in the middle section. One metaphor I keep coming back to is the feeling of pushing a boulder. 

When you first start your story, the boulder isn't too daunting. In fact, it seems worthy of the push. Plus, you've got a lot of energy and enthusiasm, so it's not too difficult to get the boulder rolling. (Whether or not you've got it heading in the right direction, or if it's the right boulder, are questions for another essay!)

Anyway, once you get going, you've got momentum. That's a great feeling. You're doing a lot of setup work and it's easy to fall in love with your characters and the world. Plus, everything feels fresh to you. So, just as the reader turns the page to see what happens next, you're eager to write the next page to see what happens next. 

But eventually, you get to a point where the terrain becomes more difficult and you start to get tired. You've laid down some markers in your story, and while they open up possibilities, those choices have also closed off potential storylines and characters. Meanwhile, your main character is starting to feel like a house guest who just won't leave. This is that middle section where it's normal to get bogged down. But before we address this section, I want to talk about the end.

To me, finishing a novel feels a lot like pushing a boulder downhill. Actually, you don't push a boulder downhill, you chase it! And as you're running after it, your job is to shout at people to get out of the way, or watch them get crushed. In other words, the cake is baked, to mix metaphors, and you're basically along for the ride. Personally, I love this feeling. If you've done the setup properly, picked the right boulder, and pushed it in the right direction, it can be really satisfying to see the boulder fly down the hill. (Of course, it can also be a total mess, depending on what the boulder hits and where it lands, but once again, that's a topic for another essay!)

OK, so back to the question. How do you work your way through the messy slog of the middle?

The first thing I do when I get stuck or run out of steam is go back to the start. I read what I have, think it over, then rewrite that material. There are two advantages to this approach. First, you're going to save yourself time and agony on the next draft. Second, you're rebooting your momentum. Essentially, you're running through material that (mostly) works, improving it, and then when you hit that middle point where things bog down, you've got a full head of steam to carry you forward. I do this multiple times on a project. In fact, on Not Safe for Work, I think I did eleven times before I finally finished the first draft!

But sometimes, this approach doesn't work. You go over your previous material and you're unable to build up steam. Or worse, you look at what you have and it's just not that interesting to you. When this happens, I try to tough it out, but only for a little while. I give myself about a week to make progress. If I can move the boulder forward or rekindle my spark, great! But if I can't, I don't see the value in continuing the misery. 

So, do I abandon the story? Well, abandon is kind of a strong word. I put the story down and I move onto something else. But that doesn't mean the story is dead. To paraphrase Miracle Max from The Princess Bride, a story you put down in the middle, is mostly dead, which means slightly alive. In other words, you can come back to it whenever you want. 

Does that happen? Sure! I'm doing it right now! And I did it with a story called Who, What, When, Where, Why, Bot. It's a short story that actually took me longer to write than most of my novels. The reason? I kept getting bogged down in the middle. Each time, I'd go back to the beginning, give it a go, get stuck, and put it down. I repeated that process about a dozen times over the course of two years. Eventually, I finished it. And along the way, I questioned everything: whether my story was worth telling, whether I was capable of writing science fiction, and whether I was capable of writing at all?  That's right, every time I put the story down, I had to confront self-doubt. But self-doubt wasn't the end of the story for me, and it shouldn't be the end of the story for you either. 

Which brings me finishing, to typing the two words every writer dreams of: THE END. The writer who asked this great question wants to finish more stories. The best way to do that isn't to stick it out no matter what, or to become more disciplined. The best way to finish one story is to put yourself in a position to make regular, incremental progress on another story. You may not finish the story you want to finish, but if you keep pushing enough boulders forward, one of them will eventually reach the end.

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to share what you do when you get stuck in the middle of the story.

As always, if you have a question, leave it in the comments or DM me!