We are at the middle of your book, and the middle can either make or break thee entirety of your story. The middle of your novel will easily be the hardest part of your story to write, simply because the beginning is to get shit started and your ending is to shut shit down and tie every end with an answer.

But the goddamn middle... it's the soul of your story and it needs everything—curves in the story, pre-climaxes and maybe even the climax(s), tension build-up, subplots, and escalation.

Imagine having to do all that shit—all that—while maintaining the momentum of your ending, keeping everything alined with your plot-line, and making sure your middle don't end up turning into shit. Like I said; the middle is hard, but I will try my best to help you out and give you some pointers.

CURVES & (CLIMAXES)
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This is mostly being directed towards the conflict in your story. Heighten that. Make things harder or make the goals trying to be accomplished hard to reach. This can also coincide with climaxes.

• False victories

• Misunderstandings between characters

• Discoveries that change characters' understandings or goals or actually causes uncertainty about said understandings or goals.

By increasing plot complications and character obstacles, it creates a turn of events and setbacks; this is also used to build up your climax with dramatic tension and suspense. Your readers will start to get a little wary about the story, (obviously) and become less certain about the outcomes they thought were going to occur referring to the previous chapters of your story, but that's what a good middle and good book should have—a little bit of uncertainty.

You shouldn't think you know exactly what's going on in a book; you should be prepared for surprises and unexpected discoveries. At least in a well-written novel... as for that other bullshit y'all be calling "good reads"... hmph.

SUBPLOTS
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Creating subplots add interest to your main story arc, and they are very useful. It helps you slow down on your main plot-line. What I mean when I say this, is that you can easily give entirely too much plot.

Too much plot means all you're giving is plot; there is no development in the characters as well as little to no communication with other characters or the setting of the society.

Filler chapters are chapters that take a detour from the main action and plot to instead focus purely on characterization, it's also sometimes used as just some simple comedy, sex or fun for the readers to calm the tension for a while.

You use these when,

(a) You have writer's block.
(b) When you're giving too much plot.
These would be good filler chapters; they take a detour from the main action, but you're able to learn more about the characters, the setting, and the conflict as well as strengthening the plot in the process.

They can give characters the knowledge or skill they need to achieve an aim, the subplots in your novel in the middle should give characters what they need to progress further towards their goals.

TENSION BUILD-UP/ESCALATION
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You may be tempted to keep a constant stream of exciting things happening in order to ensure that the interest of your readers never flags. Yet this will in fact have the opposite effect.

When you're writing your story, one of the few things you want is your reader's attention. There are many ways you can grasp that attention, but one of the main one's is keeping up a constant stream of exciting moments, so your reader's interest won't deter. But in all honesty, too much excitement can give them the opposite effect.

Too much excitement with very little explanation or escalation, and no proper plot and tension build up is a disaster waiting to happen.

Not only do you need those quiet periods to build thing up like your characters, if it's all tension, all the time, your readers will get tired, chile, tie-yurd!

You have to pace your suspense, and while all the extra big moments in your story start to grow until you reach that main climax at the end of the book, along the way, there should be smaller moments of tension and ease, too.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Lemme' know about some of y'all experiences with stories that got weak in the middle and made you want to stop reading the book all together in the comment section.