Writing Excuses: Writing Excuses 10.30: Q&A on Middles, with Marie Brennan
July 27, 2015 2:46 PM - Subscribe

Marie Brennan joins us again, this time to help us field your questions about middles. Here are the questions we collected from the various social media feeds:

* How do you maintain interest without having something explode every other chapter?
* In short fiction, how do you prevent try-fail cycles from bloating the story?
* How do you prevent the introduction of POVs during the middle of the story from being jarring?
* How do you keep subplots from turning into side quests?
* In longer stories, how important are “breather” chapters that ease the tension?
* Do you have methods for weaving plot and subplot threads together? Do you outline this, or keep it in your head?

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson, narrated by Rebecca Mozo and Lincoln Hoppe

Writing Prompt: Murder the Middle Darling: Remove an element (subplot, side character, location) from the middle of your story, and see how that changes the pacing of your story.
posted by restless_nomad (3 comments total)
 
A solid Q&A, and Marie Brennan remains a really solid guest. Next month: pacing!
posted by restless_nomad at 2:47 PM on July 27, 2015


I'd never heard of this podcast before! I downloaded a bunch of episodes and have been working my way through. I'm finding them really interesting, and definitely useful.

The big scary middle is big and scary for me, so I'm glad I jumped in where I did. This is definitely a solid group that cares about helping other writers, which is very cool.

My only issue with these podcasts is their fairly low production values. I listen in the car, and volume moderation is a problem. Either I'm straining to hear them, or they're cracking each other up and it's so loud I jump right out of my skin.
posted by kythuen at 7:26 AM on July 29, 2015


Really? I listen on a headset and the current ones are just fine for me. Huh.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:04 AM on July 29, 2015


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