My blog has become impossible to use. For whatever reason, whether I access it using Internet Explorer from work or Chrome at home, the entering visual window doesn’t work, especially on the first paragraph, and I have to type in the html window. That works fine, except entering line breaks in the html window doesn’t work, so I have to switch back to the visual window to hit [enter] then back to the html window to type. As I’m at the end of a paragraph, I’ll do that now.
Back, with a code included in the html window that I assume is a line break code. Excuse me while I go back to visual and see what gives…. Well, something looks funny in the visual window, but it doesn’t appear when I preview the document, so I’ll keep going. Part of the problem is I installed this theme (or more precisely my son did) back in 2011 using the then-current Wordpress 3.1.3. The now-current version is 3.8.1. Maybe that’s the problem, that older versions of WordPress don’t work with current browsers. I’ve hesitated doing the upgrade because, being a technophobe, I’m scared of what will happen. Will my blog disappear? Or will everything from before the upgrade be messed up? Those who know more than I do say no, that won’t happen. Alas, when I finish this post, I’ll do the upgrade. If you never hear from me again….
But my post today is supposed to be about something different. There comes a point in the writing of just about every novel where the writer encounters and must overcome…the Sagging Middle. Most advice about novel writing is that there are three parts to a novel. The beginning is a period wherein the main characters are introduced, conflict is established, and the protagonist moves through a point where there is no going back.
The ending action begins with another point of no return, typically caused by the protagonist him or herself, something that causes the protagonist to have to save the day. From that point on is the rising action to the end and eventual denouement.
Between these two is the long middle part of the novel. It’s a place where, if the novelist isn’t careful enough or good enough, the action will sag, causing the middle and thus the novel to fail. It should be a series of actions that pit the protagonist against whatever evil he’s facing. But keeping the interest up during this time is difficult. How do you keep coming up with events that move the action along? How do you keep raising the stakes, getting the protagonist into new kinds of trouble, yet leaving room for the major conflict at the end?
This has proved difficult for me in Headshots. Ronny Thompson begins this book lying on the mound at Yankee Stadium, severely injured and bleeding. The possibility of him never pitching again is on everyone’s mind. He was just estranged from his girlfriend, Sarah, and had been barely speaking to his parents. Meanwhile two groups of Mafia figures have been crossed, and are out to get that person. I have a hard time saying much about it without revealing the plot, but it turns out that it’s Sarah that the Mafia is after.
The thing I turned to last week and weekend to prop up my sagging middle is baseball. That was lacking in the first part of the book, as the action then takes place in the off season, when there’s not much baseball going on. I need to see if there’s a way I can work more baseball into that, maybe have Ronny watch films of the World Series. But the last writing I’ve done is of baseball scenes: pitchers throwing bean balls, batters making outs or driving in runs, strategy with pitchers and pinch hitters. The baseball fans that read the book should, I hope, be pleased with this section.
I’m not through with the mid-book baseball action yet, but another plot line that’s helping prop up the sagging middle is the three Cubs who had been bribed to throw the World Series in the first book. The Mafia feels the three double crossed them, just as Sarah has, and they must pay the consequences. This has given me several scenes of good action.
At this point I’m almost through writing the middle section. I’m not sure how long the book will be, but I think around 80,000 words. This weekend I crossed 54,000 words. I’m thinking that the end action will take 20,000 words or so, so if my estimate is correct on how many words it will take to tell this story, I haven only 5000 to 6000 words left in the middle. I have enough action planned for the rest of that middle to finish it out in, hopefully, good shape.
So maybe my middle isn’t sagging too badly after all. I won’t know till the entire book is finished, I’ve let it sit for a while, and then come back and read it as a whole. But I’m reasonably pleased with it at this point. That’s better than the alternative.
Now, I’m off to upgrade. Hopefully I’ll be back….