Weave the Romance: How I Avoid the Sagging Middle
The joy of being a developmental editor and story coach shows itself with every word I add to my WIP. Every time I take a step back to study my newest scenes, I see whether a section is either too thin or too stacked with events. On the other hand, the problem with being a developmental editor and story coach is accepting that I can’t fix all those holes in the first draft. I have to prioritize weaving different levels of scenes at different points in my drafting and revision stages.
Heidi M. Thomas reminds authors, “Writing is a lot like building a bridge. Each scene serves as scaffolding or supports for your entire story to rest on without sagging.”
For that reason, I plot only to the extent that I can see the bones of that particular section of the story. I actually create a running list of events that seem appropriate for each quarter or so of the narrative arc in progress.
I certainly don’t use all of these scenes, even if I take the time to write them. Still, I thread each and every one of my scenes together using Gwen Hayes’s “Romancing the Beat” and the Fichtean Curve frameworks.
In using both structure types, I more easily identify where I need to either bolster my story or slow things down. I’m going to go into more detail as to how weaving causality and continuity allows me to create a seamless queer romance reading experience. Equally important, I’ll share how I judge whether a particular scene is critical to the story.
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
Weaving Causality
I always stress that causality is built into the very foundation of an author’s story. Something happens because something caused it. In essence, story threads are one long literary equation. Authors have to balance both sides for the arcs to make sense to readers. Developmental editor Harrison Demchick reiterates this in no uncertain terms:
Causation is the driving force of narrative. Each plot beat is in some respect the effect of what precedes it and the cause of what follows.
(emphasis in original)
Now, I work with words because numbers are stupid. Once letters got added into the mix, my brain’s higher functions short-circuited. But I digress. Being a plantser means I have no choice but to solve for the literary equivalent of x.
The biggest way I weave in causality, of course, is through transition scenes. Truthfully, I regularly get stuck between major events. When that happens, I take a step back. I’ll read a scene upwards of twenty times over the course of up to two weeks. Despite this, I eventually uncover the hint, that all-important thread, that weaves itself naturally into the next stage of my characters’ external and internal journey.
Given this, I always keep in mind that just throwing obstacles at my protagonists by no means provides that previously mentioned scaffolding. Each obstacle they face, small or large, happens because of a decision the characters previously made, whether that was one page or seven chapters ago.
Weaving Continuity
As a story progresses, little decisions start to have major impacts throughout the middle of a story. Indeed, this is most often where I find those all-important connective threads. In queer romance, this can be as simple as accepting that first date. It can be as complex as working through all the reasons a relationship has disintegrated.
I structure my scenes in a way that brings the cause-and-effect principle squarely to the surface. More often than not, I know what I’m trying to accomplish in a scene, what that scene’s true purpose is. This makes drafting a little smoother, especially when weaving the end of one scene into the beginning of the next.
In a way, causality and continuity go hand-in-hand. A character has a decision to make. That decision directly affects their path going forward. Sometime later, that decision will turn out to be either the right one or the drastically wrong one. K.M. Weiland emphasizes, “Ideally, your story’s structural throughline (as revealed by its major structural beats) will show continuity.”
Accordingly, I work from a very rough first-draft outline that is constantly in progress. It’s impossible to plan for the unforeseen, and never is that clearer than when I look back at a recently written scene to find my character has done something that has me shredding the next three pages of my outline.
I’m left with unresolved tension, a question I have no clue how to answer, and conflict that’s thrown a wrench into my nicely weaved design. The solution, though, is simple. I analyze the chapter to make sure the overall gist of what I intended to cover is on the page. I can pull the loose threads free during the revision stage.
How Critical Is This Scene?
With my first draft, I throw everything at the literary walls. Scenes as long as 3,000 or more words perch next to scenes barely over a thousand. Right now, every scene seems critical. Every scene moves the story forward or creates suspense. Every scene has a purpose.
And yet.
With 60,000 words down, I already see one or five that don’t fit. Vital threads are missing—meaningful revelations, new problems or obstacles, and the general plot.
Scrivener lets me set word count goals for a scene. I give myself an overage allowance in the event my characters decide to take over. With my drafting notebook, I average between 550–600 words per page. Surprisingly, once I transfer the handwritten words into Scrivener, I’m just a bit over my target goal.
There are times, though, when I get close to the overage allowance and stop typing midsentence. I know I’ve lost the thread of the scene at that point. I force myself to see where exactly I went off the path, even just by a hundred or so words.
The revision stages are where I’ll cut the total word count, undoubtedly. But in the drafting stage, in the moment of weaving a particular scene together with the one before and after it? I follow Christine Wells’s advice:
The best way to tighten a scene for better pacing is to know exactly what the protagonist of that scene wants, and what is stopping them from getting it.
I know the character archetype I’ve built on, and the changes my POV character needs to experience in that scene. If I have to take out a scene for the whole story to weave together more naturally, I bite my tongue and move that scene into a Spare Scenes folder. I take it to heart that every scene offers something, even if that something isn’t critical to that particular story.
Photo by Lareised Leneseur on Unsplash
To Sum It All Up
Even in my early Hawaii Five-0 fanfiction writing days, I struggled not to overwrite. I mean, I went where McDanno took me, as many shippers did. Even plotting the major scenes of the last story that I wrote leant itself more to a patchworked story than a seamless reading experience.
On the whole, my writing patterns haven’t changed. As I’ve mentioned several times before, I’m a Scene Sewer. Weaving and threading a story together are second nature only because I prefer writing the major scenes first. I have no choice but to then figure out how to fit them together so the narrative and character arcs meld.
My story’s external and internal conflicts feed off each other in a symbiotic relationship. Neither can exist without the other.
TD Storm says, “A story is a big consequence machine. Problems go in, reactions come out. Reactions go in, problems or solutions come out. The reader wants to see cause/effect chains.”
Every author struggles with the middle of their story. As a plantser, I constantly have to remind myself of a major drafting principle. Big scenes aren’t all that big if all I’m doing is dragging things along between them.
It takes consistent effort, yes, and it’s supposed to challenge me. Weaving causality and continuity together, then, are the necessary and painful tools I use to build out a better story. For myself and my readers.
Reflecting On Your Story One Word At A Time!
