Story Stamina: 7 Writing Prompts To Overcome "Sagging Middle" Syndrome in Your Novel

S.R. Beaston

Crafty with words, wit, and wisdom, just add caffeine to make it more interesting.

As children, we consume bite-sized stories that have a small but complete arc to help us learn morals, values, shapes and colors. As we get older, we crave nuance, challenge, adventure. We want novels with flawed characters, a full world, a more enticing and complicated plot.
Reading them is easy enough, but writing them? That’s a completely different task.
Why is the middle of a novel so hard? It provides us writers with the most freedom, the most creativity. There’s no "one way" to get to that satisfying end, but the middle is something many writers fight with in something known as the ‘sagging middle syndrome’. 
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What is sagging middle syndrome? "Sagging middle syndrome" typically refers to a challenge or issue that can arise in the middle section of a story, particularly in novels. It's a term used in storytelling and writing circles to describe a narrative that loses momentum or becomes slow and less engaging in the middle portion.
Sagging middle syndrome stems from the complications of writing a cohesive and tight second act of your novel, often dropping tension and losing the focus of your rising action.
If the stakes aren’t rising, if the pressure is not building, if the crisis seems easily avoidable, you may be coming down with sagging middle syndrome. 
Is the middle of a novel that important?  The middle of your story is just as important, if not more important, than the end. Writers always stress over the first sentence, the need to grab the reader's attention, but it is just as important to keep that attention.
If you are familiar with the three-act structure, the middle consists heavily of the second act, which will likely be over half of your novel. It holds the conflict and major character decisions.
The beginning and the end are nothing without everything that happens in between.
How to avoid sagging middle syndromeHere are some tips on how to best avoid a sagging middle while writing your novel.
OutlineLike it or not, planning your next couple of moves (if not the whole novel) is a great way to relieve stress down the line. You don’t have to have every question answered, nor every road paved, but having loose plans gives you the wiggle room to be as creative as you want, while keeping you from muddling through the middle.
This also helps with plot discovery. Writers can stumble onto great plot devices and character motivations through working out a loose and forgiving outline. 
Know your charactersWhen all else fails, when your back is against the wall, when you want to give up, your characters should always have the ability to "take the wheel".
I’m not one to believe my character ran off and did something without me in my story, but I create so much of my character that I know exactly what they’ll do in any situation.
The middle of your book is where your character has the most growing pains. They’ll climb that mountain and often slip. Are they the type to curse, to quit? What will push them further? What do they want, and what do they need? Considering your character's goals should give you a good direction in where the story should go.
Have goalsMake a to-do list of all the things your story needs and how to integrate them. Like outlining, this will help keep your focus on what is important.
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Think about your protagonist’s goal and what is trying to stop them. Tie in relationships you want to build. Know what the stakes are and the consequences for moving forward if your characters should fail. 
Checking these off can be used as a visual representation of when your conflict is coming to a climax and your characters have done their growth.
Prompts to help strengthen your storyHere are some prompts and ideas to help flesh out your story and strengthen your characters. 
Create a huge eventThink of the idea for your middle, the conflict, the hurdle, and create a huge event. You can make it a literal event or a big battle, but throw everything you’ve ever wanted in this event.
What causes the other shoe to drop? What causes that SNAP and all hell breaks loose? Even if this will never be in your novel, write out a couple of paragraphs of this big event and how your characters handle it.
From there, walk backwards. What could have possibly happened to stir this big event? An avalanche doesn’t just happen. What were the flakes of snow? What was that weak layer that gave out? What was the trigger?
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Start In Medias Res In Medias Res means ‘in the midst of’. Re-write the beginning of your novel as though it starts in the middle of the middle. 
The Emperor's New Groove starts with a llama crying in the rain. We don’t know why it’s a llama or why he’s in a rainy jungle, but the narration is telling us that he will explain.
Breaking Bad starts with pants flying out of a campervan driven by a man in his underwear with a ventilator mask.
Even if you don’t plan on opening your novel this way, using this as a prompt will put you in the action, forcing you to really think about what is happening in the middle to make it an interesting start.
To get an amazing break down on In Medias Res, check out In $ Medias Res: How To Hook A Reader$ ﻿
Interview your charactersGetting to know your character can give you direction for where the book should go next. Your character should have wants, needs, and fears that dictate their behavior.
As an exercise, "ask" your character questions as if you were interviewing them for a job or going on a first date. You can even ask more personal things that pertain to the specific situation you're trying to write.
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Here are just a few questions I’ve stored throughout the years that I ask every character I make:
What is your response in a fight, flight, or freeze situation?
Do you ‘pretend’ in front of people, put your best foot forward, or be your whole authentic self no matter the person or situation?
What would your best friend yell out in a crowd to find you?
How often do you apply the word ‘friend’?
What event made you a worse person?
Where is your moral line?
What is one belief you always stand by?
What is something you expected to enjoy, but actually hate now that you’ve done it?
Are you a reliable narrator?
Does the way you walk suggest “Main character” or “NPC”
How do you define success
How did you get into this career/ this situation / this profession?
What’s your body count? (apply however needed)
Remember, this is your character answering, not you. Some of my characters may think they are a reliable narrator, even though they're not.
Write that eventThere’s always an event before the event. Some people use this as a "prologue" to describe the thing before the thing, the happening before this happening.
Sometimes characters are the way they are because something happened to them. We’ll never see it in the story, but it’s important for you to know the history. Backstory might not show up verbatim on the page, but it makes the story feel richer.
Sometimes your characters experience the result of a past event, and even if they weren't there for it, they have to fix it or deal with it now. The Hunger Games series is a great example.

Write a page (or a few) on that event for your book. It can be written in prose, like a history book, or even as bullet points, but figure out that event and think about how it ties into the middle of your story. This can give you a new direction to flesh out your middle.
Scene swapIn The Princess Bride, Buttercup accuses The Dread Pirate Roberts of killing her love, the farm boy, and she curses his name. He indulges that yes, perhaps he has killed her love, for he has killed many.
He says he may remember him, all the while he is that farm boy. She only knows this when he yells the phrase she knows so well, "As you wish."
But what if these were characters who hated each other in their childhood? What if your character's family had died by a pirate, and he fell into the life of a pirate?
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﻿$ ﻿$ Take your favorite scene from any piece of media and rewrite it with your characters. Write the scene as it pertains to the problem at hand in your novel.
What has changed? Who is involved? What is vital? Exercises like these can give you a new perspective that might fix your problem!
Write from the antagonist's point of viewProvided this isn’t some George R.R. Martin, multi POV story, write from the opposing force's point-of-view.
A good book will always have backstory the readers never know about. One piece of this is the opposing force, be it a villain, the environment, or an eldritch entity. The antagonist is always working to prevent the protagonist from reaching their goal. What are they doing when we're looking at the main character? How do they see the situation?
This is another exercise that can give you a new angle on your story.
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Write a simple resolutionThink of your character’s desire and what prevents them from having it. They could be big or small, but make sure at least one of them is the main conflict of your story.
Start your writing exercise with a resolution to the simplest conflict. Have your characters either live through it or talk it out, however best fits your quick-writing style. As each conflict gets more personal, more intense, and more meaningful to the story, write just a little more about their emotions as they try to figure out a solution.
For example:
Problem 1 - A young man seeks to avenge the murder of his mother, but he doesn’t know where to start. How does he figure out where to look? Resolve that problem.
Problem 2 - Oh no! He found out it was his sister who caused the whole thing. How does he feel? Do his desires change? What’s the resolution to this new development?
Problem 3 - Turns out their father found a way to control and manipulate the sister. What changes?
Again, just write the resolution to each significant story beat, not the conflict.
Resolution for problem 1: 
Josh gets a call from the police department. They have a lead. They are not supposed to tell him what they know just yet, but the officer is his best friend Adam, who saw Josh’s mom as his second family. It’s a conflict of interest and they both know that, but Adam has confidence in Josh. "Hey man, do with this information what you will, but if you get caught, I don’t know you. Look into your sister. She knows more than she’s letting on. We don’t have enough to bring her in just yet. Maybe you can find something."
Not only have you built a bridge to connect act one to one of the conflicts in the middle of your story, but now there is building tension with the cop friend who could lose his job over this, and now the sister is more interesting.
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We hope this breakdown of sagging middle syndrome and how to avoid it succeeds in stopping the problem before it starts, but even if the syndrome is deeply embedded, we’re sure a little tweaking with these prompts and tips can get you out of that valley and into peak success.