I didn’t write ONE sentence of my current book project this week. Not a single word.

But man did I make some progress!

I told y’all how I like to outline the entire story in multiple levels of detail before I really get to writing a manuscript [Planning: The Importance of Outlining (for me, anyway)], so you probably don’t see anything wrong with that first-line declaration, given the fact that I’m still in the outlining phase. But that line is more attention grabbing than, “I didn’t add a single bullet point to the 30th scene of my outline this week.”

Go back to the second line of this post, though. How can I say that I made progress, on the outline or the manuscript, if I didn’t write a damn thing? Well, folks, that’s what I’m gonna tell you.

I read a short book this week by thriller writer James Scott Bell titled Write Your Novel From the Middle: A New Approach for Plotters, Pansters and Everyone in Between. Mr. Bell offers a new way of looking at writing a novel that, as the title states, will work for anyone, no matter which method an author uses to pump out a 120,000 word manuscript, regardless of where they are in the writing process.

His idea is really focused on that single moment in the book (the middle), where the protagonist comes to grips with who he/she really is, and who they want to be going forward. Bell calls this the “Mirror Moment.”

Bell uses the example of Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) in the movie Lethal Weapon as an example of a character having a “mirror moment.” I love Lethal Weapon, so it was easy for me to follow his line of reasoning when he points out that smack dab in the middle of the movie (Bell literally went to the middle of the film and, lo and behold, there it was), Sergeant Riggs has a moment of reflection–his mirror moment.

Standing by his truck after having dinner with his partner’s family, Riggs tells Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) about a time when he shot a guy in Laos (during the Vietnam War) from a thousand yards away in high wind. “It’s the only thing I was ever good at,” Riggs says.

Riggs finally called himself out. He’s a killer.

But now he has a partner, he had dinner with the family, met the kids…he’s not a loner anymore. Riggs has to decide if he is going to remain a suicidal killer who doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, or if he is going to change, because now his actions may affect not only his partner’s life, but his partner’s family’s lives as well.

Bell doesn’t pretend to know if the film writers were thinking of this portion of a scene near the middle of the movie as a pivotal moment in the character arc of Martin Riggs, setting the stage for the action to follow, but he does explain how that’s exactly what it was.

Write Your Novel From the Middle suggests that authors need to know that “mirror moment” for the main protagonist in order to keep the entire story on track. By knowing ahead of time when a character will make a crucial decision about where they want/need to be, the author can move the beginning of the story to that point.

The remainder of the story, and the protagonist’s actions after that moment, will then be justified because the reader will have experienced everything that lead the character to make the choice(s) he makes in that critical “mirror moment.” Because the author wrote it that way.

 

[Related: Want to know where your book is falling short? Get a free book coaching sample.]

 

So how did this help me?

I was making great progress on my story outline. I knew the beginning. I knew the ending. I even knew most of the scenes I wanted to put in the middle.

Then I read James Scott Bell’s book.

I took a step back and looked at my outlines (<–note the plural there). Here’s what I saw: a Rubik’s cube.

I saw a story that looked good from one angle, but in reality, it was a disaster. Like the picture suggests, I only had one side of the three-dimensional puzzle figured out, and the rest of the story was an incoherent mess.

So how do I solve this?

(I don’t mean the Rubik’s cube. I gave up trying to solve that damn thing a long time ago. As “Dirty Harry” Callahan said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”)

To sort the loosely-connected jumble of scenes I had written so far, and to put all the pieces together in a way that made sense, I started over. From the middle.

 

When I looked at my story’s main character through the lens of a “mirror moment,” everything changed. I saw that I needed more conflict, both internal and external, that would:

1) drive him to get involved with the story’s events in the first place,

2) flesh him out as a truly three-dimensional person whose struggles readers could relate to (and want to keep turning pages), and

3) allow for a more realistic or plausible story arc where everything happened for a reason.

 

I realized after examining the story outline this way, that my main character had it too easy. The background I created for him, and his resulting personality, were really thin. I didn’t think so when I developed it at the start of the project, but now, with a fresh look ala a “mirror moment,” I saw there was really nothing that would push him to the point of no return where he had to make life or death decisions–physical and psychological–that would affect not only him but everyone around him.

Bell calls those decisions, or the circumstances that inform those decisions, “death stakes.”

With a proper knowledge of what those death stakes are for the character, the author can decide how that character will respond to trials and conflict in the remainder of the story. For Martin Riggs, he chose to put his suicidal, “don’t care if I live or die,” killer persona back where it belonged–the past. Instead, he decided there was much left to live (and fight) for–his partner, his partner’s family, putting the bad guys away (without just wantonly killing everyone he comes into contact with), etc.

For the main character in my work-in-progress, I didn’t have any death stakes. Well, I sort of did, but they weren’t near as defined as they are now. I also looked at those stakes with an eye toward believability. Would the reader believe the main character was really dealing with stakes so high he had no choice but to respond the way he does? Or were the choices I put in front of him merely boilerplate drivel that weren’t choices at all, but merely props to move the story in the direction I wanted it to go?

Now, after re-examining my outline, I’ve given the protagonist more flaws (with compelling explanations for those flaws), created more conflict in the story, and raised the death stakes, not only for him, but for everyone he grows to care about in the story.

In short, I have a more complete story now. It’s not done, but I’m almost there.

Perhaps Mr. Bell will write a book on solving a Rubik’s Cube that is as simple, compelling, and spot-on as Write Your Novel From the Middle: A New Approach for Plotters, Pantsers and Everyone in Between. Then I might be able to solve that stupid cube once and for all…or not. I know my limitations.

 

 

 

This guest post was contributed by Matt Frick. Matt recently retired after twenty years as a Naval Officer, during which time he self-published three geopolitical thrillers. A prolific writer outside his works of fiction, Matt is also the author of several published articles and conference papers about the Middle East and maritime piracy. His non-fiction works have been referenced in journals, theses, and other media in over five different countries; including India, Russia, and Iran.