Thu 19 May 2011
My story is broken in the middle
Posted by PJ under middles, stories, writing
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Not the WIP. I think I fixed that. Only time will tell.
No, it’s one of my short stories that’s broken in the middle. And I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve rewritten it ever so many times and every time I think, “Okay, I think that’s got it.” I let it go, send it out into the world again to garner more rejections. Then after many months (sometimes many, many months) I read it again and I think, “Dang. It’s still broken in the middle.”
The beginning is good, the ending is good, I’m very fond of this story, but I know in my heart of hearts why it keeps garnering rejections. There’s a clear drop off point in the middle where the opening momentum collapses and the oomph doesn’t pick up again until the closing pages.
But I don’t know how to fix it. And it makes me very sad.
I seem to always have trouble with middles. I can grab with openings, I can satisfy with endings (if anyone reads past the middle to find out about the endings), but middles slay me every time. Sometimes I can figure out how to make them work, and sometimes I can’t.
Dang.
