How the Messy Middle Controls Your Story's Success (And How to Master It)

Most writers stumble through the messy middle—yet mastering it can be the secret to writing stories that captivate and resonate on a whole new level. In this episode, Sydney and Liza peel back the curtain on the second act — the often overlooked but crucial “playground” where your characters deepen, conflicts escalate, and your story gains momentum towards the climax. Discover why the second act isn’t just filler; it’s the heartbeat of your novel, and how the right approach can make it your most exciting part to write.
You’ll learn:

-How to think of your story’s middle as a “chemical experiment,” adding and mixing components to create tension and surprises.

-Practical frameworks like splitting act two into “before and after” a pivotal turning point — and how to leverage that to tighten your plot.

-The secrets of plotting the “messy middle” with specific tools, whether you’re a skeleton or blob writer, including asking yourself “What’s the natural next step?” to keep your story flowing organically.

-Why the midpoint is the story’s “truth shed light” moment — with examples from Jane Austen and Stephen King — helping your characters question their morality, beliefs, and goals.

-The delicate art of balancing knotty subplots, adding eccentric details, and pacing your climax so your story feels rewarding, rather than rushed or flat.
Tactical advice on editing to remove unnecessary scenes without losing essential character or plot beats, much like Jenga — and how to discover what to cut without breaking the story.

Whether you're a plotter, pantser, or somewhere in between, this episode offers concrete methods to make your second act a dynamic, engaging, and vital part of your narrative. Perfect if you want to keep readers hooked even in the “boring” middle, or if you’re eager to turn your messy middle into your story’s strongest section.

And for writers eager to elevate their craft, we discuss how strategic story layerings, wacky details, and deliberate pace will make every scene count. Get into the nitty gritty of story structure — because the difference between a good book and an unforgettable one often lives in the middle.
If you’re ready to rewrite your “messy middle,” this episode is your new secret weapon. Essential listening for anyone who wants to craft stories that stay with readers long after the last page.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I'm Sydney Kane. And I'm Lisa Petrov. And you're listening to Page Fright, where we talk about writing craft, the ins and out of the publishing industry, and our own personal journeys as authors. So let's dive in. I'm very excited because tonight the new Devil Wears Prada movie's coming out. Are you a big fan? Yes, I am. I loved it when it came out, and I'm gonna go and see it. Hopefully, maybe next week. But yeah, I'm really excited to see it. Are you gonna watch it?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I like the first one very much. I didn't think it needed a second one. Yeah, but agreed. But I I think the thing that I'm not looking forward to it is seeing everybody's Botoxed faces rehashing old plot. But like it's one of those things where it's like it's almost like a reunion episode. I saw the trailer and it just seemed like it was gathering old cast back together, and you know, we're just gonna say, I remember you said this. Woo! The thing I'm hoping for is an actually new plot and just fun things for the characters to do that aren't rehashing old jokes and and stuff like that. But I feel like I just rained on your parade.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Well, I what are you excited about? Well, I I remember us having a very similar conversation a few months back when I said I was very excited for Wuthering Heights and you were very skeptical and it blew your socks off. So maybe we'll be having another conversation in the future. This is a sequel. This is a sequel.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

How could a sequel blow my socks off? It will, it will. Because there's a general there's a general rule with this. The first movie, if it's good enough to get a sequel, it's good. Sequel sucks. Third one, they come back. The Men in Black one. Oh no, no. Men in Black one was great. The second one, just I don't know. I don't even know what they were doing. And then the third one? No.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Third one's if there's like a third movie, unless it's Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or something like that. No, there should not be a third one.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Actually, you know what? I just immediately thought of uh a series where what I just said was completely wrong. The Godfather. Godfather one was good, two was good, three is unmentionable. So who knows?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

I'll see it on streaming. How about that? Well, we can discuss this offline because I do not think that's an acceptable option.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

What? Wait. I I okay, you know what? We'll we will talk about this offline. I don't understand. Anyway, well, we have a really fun topic to talk about today.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yes, we do. The messy meddles, the muddling through the muck of the middle.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

You get enough M's in there? Yes, it's a difficult part of a book. I think a lot of people, I mean, each each of the kind of acts have their own difficulties. So the first act, you have to hook your reader. You don't want to bore them, and you have to introduce your characters uh in a way that is not cumbersome, not too much, but also, you know, it's kind of just like a Goldilocks section where you're like, okay, you better get it right, or else people are gonna fall off, and it's the beginning of everything, and you have to include all the information. It's just like, ah, and that's it. Well, info dump, you know, you have to tell them everything, but don't info dump. Exactly. And then act three is difficult in its own way because you have to land that plane, you've set up all these problems, and you have to solve all of them, and you have to be exciting and fast-paced, and then end that book. And not predictable. Yes, and not predictable. And, you know, even the the most famous writers among us, Stephen King has been attacked over and over for having bad endings, for example.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Oh, my dad constantly goes on about how much he can't stand the endings. He like actually gets angry about them.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

I mean, but here here's the thing. I feel like uh Stephen King is the proof point that shows maybe the third act doesn't matter. That's you know, everybody seemed to buy those books anyway. That is a yes. Maybe it's just the second act because man, he has some scary stuff go on in the second act of his stories. He really, really beefs up his middle. Maybe it's all in the second act, how you play around with the setup for your story, the tropes that you've chosen, and how you deal dealt with all the mess, you know?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

So that's that's why we're concentrating on it today, I guess. Um that's so that's such a good point, and it's so strange that I've never thought of it like that because literally most of the book is the second act. And so we all dread it, but I mean, maybe that's because that is the book. It's the second act. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Let's so let's go in and and define the second act. So if the first act is where you introduce and you hook, the third act is where you uh, you know, have big climax for your plot, and then you wrap everything up. The second act is, or I've heard it called a playground, a sandbox, the place where you are taking all of the concepts that you have introduced for your book, all of the dilemmas or the basic overarching dilemmas for your characters, and you play around with them. You move your characters in different ways that are not necessarily conclusive for your story or story ending, but are aggravating in some way, that create that kind of conflict or friction that pushes your story forward and pushes your characters deeper and deeper into a messy state where your reader is questioning how do they get out of this, how do they fix their problems. They're either making it worse or creating new issues for themselves. This is that place where you have your characters constantly or where you have your characters just playing around.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

It's like the adult version of playing with Barbies that you just Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yes, exactly. Um and I think the the thing that at least one thing for me, my hardest struggle with it is I wouldn't okay, and this might be tooting my own horn, I might be speaking too soon, but I don't think that my act two necessarily gets boring. I think that my struggle with my act two is figuring out where to cut. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Well, we had talked about this, how you're the blob writer and I'm the skeleton writer. Mine is how to beef it up, yours is how to cut. Yeah. And I think it's because our approaches are very different and how we approach the messy middle. So I was thinking it could be really a fun idea for us to talk about our own process and how we go about creating the middle because I always found as a new writer very it very frustrating to go to conferences or classes where they would talk about the second act, and then they would never give like practical tools. It was always kind of like more of this like abstract talking about it. So I was thinking it might be fun for us to actually get into the nitty-gritty of it. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Okay, go for it.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

So give give me the tools. My tools won't be good for you because I'm a skeleton writer. You're gonna think, you're gonna think, no, no, this is this is not beefy enough.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

I think I'm I'm going to annoy the crap out of you when it comes to me my turn.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

You tell me your your your ideas. I I'll I'll take notes. I have a very methodical process on this. So I have my inciting incident, I know what my hook is, I know my ending, and I know in the middle, well, not even in the middle, just somewhere in there, I'm getting to this like big turning point. So I have like my I have my beats of the story, which is what we've talked about.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

And then I and just to just to slide in there, that turning point is also on my mind too. Okay. Like I I am always going towards that smack dab in the middle, my 50% mark, where there is a big turning point as well. So I kind of split my act two in two. There's a before the turning point and an after. So I definitely follow that structure.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Okay. So I have my beats, and then I don't, I cannot follow like act one, act one A or one B, C, B, whatever. I can't follow that. So this is just the way my mind thinks of it. I have the beginning, middle, end. And then from there, I don't really have a plan. This is kind of where my pants part comes in. So I will start from the beginning, and it's kind of the same way I come up with ideas of books where I ask questions. So I always ask myself, what is the natural next step? So something happens, and then I think about that scenario and put myself in the character's shoes. And I'm like, okay, what would happen next? You know, if you said this to me, how how would I respond? And then what would be the next logical step I would take? You know, and so then I will take that step. Then I'll get into the next scene and I'm like, okay, what's the next thing that could happen if this were to happen in real life? You know, like let's say, just to give some, you know, a tangible example. Let's say I'm writing a story about um a character who finds out her husband is cheating on her. And now I'm like, okay, how would this character respond to that? Maybe she won't believe it. Maybe she wants to get evidence. Okay, how would she go about getting that evidence? And then I just kind of follow this logical train of thinking. And I'm like, okay, now she gets the evidence, but what if something were to go wrong? And, you know, she gets herself into a bad situation. And that's how it I follow it along. So it's almost like there's somebody is in front of me laying cookies on the ground, and I'm just following the cookies along. And and just I know eventually I have to get to this middle point, and then I'm just kind of following the cookies around until I get there. And that's the main storyline. Then on top of it, I'm thinking, okay, now I'm gonna have subplots. What are things that are contributing to this main character that the main character doesn't know about but are influencing the story? So now I'll start kind of coming from the outside. I have this main through line. Now I'm gonna be adding layers to it. And so I'm like, okay, what if there's a lover that wants to come back into her life and tempt her? And how would that play into the story? What if, you know, there's a doctor who is like hiding that her husband's new girlfriend is pregnant and is actively messing with her? You know, I add in like that. And so once I have these layers, now they have to interact with each other in the story, and they all have to come into the midpoint. And how are these layers going to interact with each other and change at the midpoint? And then what will be the major twist at the end? And so that's how I play almost like puppets on this thing, like, okay, let's add something else in and add something else in, add something else in.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, it's not it, it sounds like almost like just a chemistry experiment where you're adding in all these components and you're waiting to see, like, does this have a reaction? Does this have a reaction? And you kind of go off of um just I don't know, the bubbling and the canisters. You're like, okay, yeah, this this seemed to work and this seemed to work. I'm gonna move forward. But here's a question. So if because it actually sounds almost like you're the blob writer in this situation, like you are you are definitely going, you're you're you're very reactive, which is I I think is really interesting. Do you ever think about, do you have specific rules for your midpoint, for example? Is it mainly based on how explosive the subplots were when they came together? Like are you are you kind of looking more for like, okay, was the explosion entertaining enough? Or are you kind of looking for something more like there's a thematic turn? There is a moment where question the characters start to question themselves, like question either their place in the plot, their place in the world, their own morality, um, answering bigger questions like that. Because that's that's kind of my my rule of thumb for uh the stories that I like to write at least, are it's the the midpoint the of Act Two of the whole book is where to me it's it's an event that's kind of sheds light on things, sheds a certain truth on the way things have been going in the story that compels characters to change their actions and a categorically. Like they've been going in this one direction all the first half, and now something has happened that's made them have to question themselves on some core level, either the morality again, their their place in the world or the plot, and then they start to act differently for the rest of the book. It's not the it's like they're in the core struggle that's going to lead into act three. Like they haven't fixed all their problems, but they're addressing deeper issues. So a great example of this um would be Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice in the middle of the book. You have Mr. Darcy, he does his first proposal to Elizabeth, and she turns him down. And that is a crisis moment for both of them because his character changes for himself, but he's just been turned down by this woman that he didn't think he would be ever. And he starts to question the the way the world works like around him. Everything that he says in his speech is the world works this way, and she says, No, it doesn't. I'm not gonna marry you for status. Uh you're the last man on earth that I would marry, and he has to deal with that emotionally. And through this interaction, she also finds out the um the twist with the subplot about her sister in Mr. Bingley, and her view on this man fundamentally changes after that interaction as well. Also, she realizes that he has been in love with her in some capacity that she can't accept, and she starts to question things too. And they fundamentally change the way they act in the book with other characters and all this kind of stuff, and it and they go in this new trajectory because of the midpoint of the book. So I always think about that as the fundamental change that I'm looking for in my characters. Do you try to employ that kind of fundamental change in your characters, or is it again more of a I'm looking at the the kinetic entertainment that I've accumulated and I'm not necessarily looking for a change in theme or character morality?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

It depends on the type of book I'm writing. But I took this amazing class by Rebecca Ross, and she, it was actually about fantasy, and I don't write fantasy at all, but I love learning. And she really kind of blew my mind and talked about this about how she makes her world building, her magic system all serve the character, like mirroring what sh mirroring what she wants from her character arcs. And so that really changed the way I think. And so I see my stories as the plot and the character as like two lines, parallel lines that are interacting with each other. So yes, I do do it that way. Like the plot is serving the character.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

It's like the plot is sometimes it's things happening to the character and forcing them in a direction, and sometimes it's the character moving the plot exactly in a direction. And they have this symbiotic relationship.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

There's some action in the plot that changes my character or my character chain. Well, usually it's always something happening and then the character changes. So the plot, the midpoint is usually some event that causes my character to change. So however deep that is, you know, it might just be like for my more commercial books, it's much more plot-driven. There's not as much of the character arc, it's more of the entertainment factor. But then maybe for my psychological horrors, it's these subtleties in the story, and then you're just noticing a change, usually in the character, mostly. So it's just kind of I think that's kind of more fun too, because that's the art of it is like, what is my focus here? Is my focus on this character? Is it on the plot, or like what's the purpose of this? Is this to entertain or is this to change a mind? And that makes it more fun too, about the impact and like what needs to happen in the story to get to that point.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Okay. Interesting. So then what do you do after your midpoint?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

I actually, after the midpoint, it's like then you're just going, it's like a you're on the roller coaster, you were climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing, and now it's the fun part. Now it's where you have to tie up all these loose ends and the the cruising to the end of the, I guess the third act, right? That's what people call it. Then that is like the easy part for me because I've had this whole buildup. I have all my subplots, I have all the layers, and now I look at it like I need to tie up all of these loose ends into bows. So I'm like, how am I gonna resolve this? How am I gonna resolve that? And then they're all gonna come together at a point in the end. And so from there I don't really have to do much thinking. It's just I've followed the cookie crumbs, and now there's the big cookie at the end where the crumbs are coming from, and I just have to get there.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah. Yeah. For me, after the midpoint, there's this special space between midpoint and act three where I agree I would be, it's almost like I'm prepping my characters for the final showdown of act three. The final boss. Yeah. And I think that that's a that's a dangerous place for writers. And I think that that is often a place where writers start to worry about boring their readers and their act two being flat. I think that that's the most dangerous part of act two because you have you have you have act one, it's full of hooks, it's full of setting things up. At the beginning of act two, you're creating all these messes, which are often very fun for readers to go through because they're creating problems and readers go, oh no, oh no, oh no, and that's it's enjoyable, and you keep on turning the page. I think that for I think in romance books, the the end of act two is very easy because you you are kind of cruising for some sort of romantic payoff, whether it be a kiss, a confession, a a sexual scene. And oftentimes readers are compelled in some capacity to keep turning the page. Genre books, I don't think, struggle with this as much. But uh yeah, like because you are it's this preparatory period. You're like, your characters are almost like resting. You know? Yeah. And like they're they're having conversations where they almost make amends and they're like, Yeah, we had this problem, it's gonna be okay. And you know that there's a storm coming in act three, but you just don't want to lose your readers. I I I actually think that maybe the second half of your act should like if there's a place to cut, it's the second half of act two.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

That's so interesting. I feel like after this after the midpoint, now the roller coaster is going up again. Now you're building again to the climax. So you're building, building, building, building, roller coaster of the midpoint. Now you're building, building, building, building, building to to the the finale, the climax. So to me, it's like that's not uh a hard place for me. And maybe it's because that's a genre difference between us because they're usually the midpoint in thrillers or horror is like some kind of twist, and that leads the character and now with this newfound information, how are they gonna take that information to get to the final resolution? So with this with these new clues or this new twist, now they're following the breadcrumbs again to the climax to the final twist.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

I mean, it also might not be a genre difference between us. I could just be thinking about this in an incorrect way where if if I do reframe it instead of resting as almost like a roller coaster ramping up again, getting ready, like you're going click, click, click, click, click up to the third act, then yeah, I could, I could definitely like I would just need to think about it that way. And if I'm doing that while I'm writing, then I'm definitely like thinking about okay, how am I constantly amping up tension for a future drop? Because the third act essentially, Brandon Sanderson does this very well.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

One thing that I think newer authors do is they've spent so long on the messy middle, and then they're like, done, now we're at the climax, and let's just zoom through it. And then they finish it way too quickly. Whereas actually, you really want to take your time. Okay, my mind just went somewhere like kind of naughty. So I'm gonna like change this. Like you just said your metaphor was naughty. My metaphor was naughty, so I gotta redirect, redirect. Okay, but you're at this climax, you're at the ending point. You don't want it to be over so fast. Like you want it, you want to draw it out. You want it to be rewarding to you. Do you know it's go straight to the dirty place? But yeah, you want it. You want it, you don't want it to be over so fast, you know. So in the end, don't just try and like be like, okay, and then here's the end, and then this person's dead, and this person's alive, and the whole time it was this person and you didn't know. Okay, the end. No. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

You know, like I have read some books that I thought were legitimately amazing and and wonderful, but like I could definitely tell when the writer was just done. Yes, with the characters. It was so funny because like it literally the last page is just like, and then they were all happy. And they almost said, like, bye!

SPEAKER_00 21:36

It's like I have nothing more left to write. You can especially with newer writers, you can see this. It starts off so it the build-up is always so good. And then it's almost like they're like, Okay, I have got to end this thing. I've had enough. I want this to be over. Let's move through it. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And yeah, yes, maybe all the pl the beats are there, but the payoff's not as nice because you've just Like, okay, and now they're being poisoned by this person. And now that person was actually their boyfriend, and and now it's the end. And so, like, yes, you had all the points there, but you didn't make us feel it. We weren't in there with you. And that's when you're really gonna like have that payoff in the ending, is you have to slowly bring it there. A f a full play of sorts.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Well, I I would say that one thing that definitely is important to think about in your act too. So this is the difference. This is this is why I kind of reacted to the way you were describing your second act, where I was like, I think you're gonna dislike what I say, or let's hear it. Or at least like, no, actually, it wasn't that you're gonna dislike what I say. It's uh it was it was more the reaction of, I think that you're the blob writer. Because for me, the second act, I'm constantly thinking about the third act. I am thinking about everything is tied to the final climactic payoff. And is there essentially a chemistry between the thing that is happening right now and the thing that will happen definitely at the end? This is why I always know the endings of my books. No, this is the same for me. I'm the same way. Okay, okay. So basically, like my second act is in constant relationship with the ending of my book. The middle part of my book is I am thinking about like, okay, if my characters are changing fundamentally, when they change to this new direction, are they going to is that new direction uh is it interesting in relation to where they're going to finally end up? Uh whether it's a sad ending or a happy ending, uh it it doesn't it doesn't really matter. It's just like what is what is the relationship and is there almost a rereadability to it? One of my favorite uh things to do is or what's a lot of my favorite books are ones where I I recognize that if I were to read this again, I would still learn something new and discover something hidden in the in the plot, something thematic or something plot-wise, where I didn't I like I can't see it now because it's my first time through, but I absolutely have that feeling. I know that the writer has thought about the relationship between first, second, and third act in such a way that when I go back through I'm gonna find something very interesting to sink my teeth into. Yeah. And the only way that you can accomplish that as a writer on the other side is by thinking about that relationship actively as you write. And that that doesn't mean that you have to think about it in a plotting sense where you are, you know, you you're skeleton writing. You don't you don't have to be a hardcore plotter. But even if you are a panther, you uh have to think about it when the idea pops into your head. You just have to ask yourself a question. Does this have an interesting relationship with where I want to take my readers, essentially?

SPEAKER_00 25:09

It's hard because I feel like we talk about all these pieces in each episode. And it's hard to bring it all together. You kind of have to take what we've said from previous ones about like when you make a scene, what is the purpose of a scene? How do you create a scene? And so you have to kind of take our bird's eye view and get our nitty-gritty and kind of take all of it and piece it together to kind of understand our process because we do have these beats, these points in the story. We always know the ending, we always know the midpoint. I think I mentioned this in one episode about Harlan Coben. He talked about it like you have a rope tied around your waist and you're going into a forest and you can always find your way back. That's explain it. Kind of flush it out. I'm interested in hearing. So what does he say? What is this? Let's walk everybody through it. Okay, so uh Harlan Coben, the way he thinks about it, the messy middle, is he has these points, these beats in the story. He knows how it's gonna end, the midpoint, the beginning, and he sees it as like a rope tied around his waist. And so the the second act is you kind of going around in this forest discovering new land. And you know that you can just feel free to play, feel free to go and explore, but you always have this rope still linking you back to where you're gonna go. And so you won't get lost in the forest or like in this big, big, messy middle, because you have a place where you're trying to go. And so that has really stuck with me too, is that every scene that I write, I'm thinking, okay, I'm following this cookie crumb. Yes, this is the logical next step. And now I have this scene. How can I tie it to the end? How can I drop clues? How does this propel my character or the plot forward? So every every scene, everything I write, and I'm just now realizing it, has so much thought that goes into it. I don't realize it at the time because I'm just writing so quickly, but it's actually very methodical, like everything that I write. So this I never realized that before until write this moment.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

That's why that's why a compliment for a story often is tight. It felt tight. There were there were no gaps. There was no time ill spent. You felt like every move the writer made was intentional. Yeah. And conveying that feeling to your readers, it helps them feel that the world is real, that the writer knows where they're going and they're not wasting their time.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

I actually, that made me think of the best compliment I got in um, you know, I'm I'm cheating on you in another writer's group. And Oh yeah, I know. How how how is that going, by the way? It's going, it's going great, but you're you're still my number one girl. Uh one of them told me that they aren't really into horror. Um, it's not really their genre that they they work in. And one of them told me this book was so weird, the beginning of it, but I know you as a writer and I just trusted you. And I allowed myself to be to forget everything I know to be real and just went with it. And she's like, and now I feel like I'm turning into a horror reader. And so that made me feel so good that they know my stories are usually it's gonna make sense by the end. You just have to trust me and go with me. And that was probably the best compliment is that this book was so weird, but I I knew I would trust you enough to go with it.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

That is that is a great compliment because essentially that's what you want to accomplish with your reader. You want to take them on an adventure that feels unusual, takes them out of their regular world and yet is somehow believable. But like believability is kind of boring.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Yeah, you know?

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Yeah. You want you want to take them out of their comfort zone. Right. But that's actually really difficult. It is. People like their comfort zone. They're like, don't take me out of my comfort zone. They just have to understand against it.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Yeah, they have to just understand the world that you've created. And then if they can understand the rules of your world, even if there's no rules, they have to understand your world. And then if they do, you can do anything you want in that world, and they're gonna be like, makes sense, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Well, so okay. So now I wanna I want to bring us back to a question that I asked earlier because well, for selfish reasons, it's for it's for me. It's for my own writing. Teach me. So when you're editing and you're looking at that second act, really, what tells you that something doesn't fit in the second act? Something is unnecessary. What are you looking for in order to cut? Because for me, like I'm and I am being very intentional, I just write long, which is unfortunate. And to me, it almost feels like a house of cards. Like I put all my subplots in, I have everything going. And there are some sequences where it's just like I have timed it down to like the minute, where I have like five different characters moving around simultaneously, like in the background, and I've had to figure out like, okay, so they did this at 4 30 a.m. And a car travels uh a car of this time can travel at this speed along this road, likely reached this place at this time of night, and then was able to reach this other place by this time in the morning, et cetera, et cetera. So it's like when you have, you know, thriller plots or like plots that have a lot of movement and a lot of people doing things, it almost feels like a house of cards. Yes. When you go into that second act and you're like, I think I'm gonna remove this card right here, and you're worried that the whole house is gonna fall down. Yeah, exactly. So how do you go about making your decisions when it comes to going to that second act, deciding what to remove? Because it's not just a question of was this boring? Did it not move something forward? Sometimes there are things that's just like it wasn't boring, it did move stuff forward, but I need to find things to cut.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

So what do you do? Like, how do you choose and then how do you suture it back together?

SPEAKER_00 31:21

This is a difficult question for me to answer because, like I said, I'm usually adding at the end. I'm usually never taking away. Shoot. But what I'm Okay, well then never mind. But what I can think is I can kind of like reverse it. Like, how do I plan a scene and how would I decide to be able to take it out? Basically, you know, we have, and I feel like you're very good at this. Like you always have a purpose. So I think the way I would handle it is I would think, okay, what it what was important about this scene. And let's say maybe it was developing the relationship, or maybe something was said during that time, or a clue was dropped, or I would pick out what was important about this card, what was on this card, that if I were to take it out, it would cause harm to my book or it would cause the book to fall. And then I would figure out how can I, where can I replace those elements taking out the scene.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 32:12

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

That makes complete sense to me. It's so it's basically what you're saying is to you might have a scene, for example, with luscious dialogue, tension-filled dialogue. It's really fun, it's a really cool setting, and you take your characters on this nice little mini arc, and you you're totally in love with it, but you just you gotta break it down for parts. You know, you gotta treat it like like a like a car. Exactly. You're breaking it down, you're gonna take those parts and you're going to sell them to other parts of your book, and the other parts of your book are going to reap the rewards, and you will keep that house of cards intact, essentially. Like your your plot intact. So that that does make sense to me. Um okay. Well, yeah, like for that.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Like that's a perfect example of like, okay, that scene was really good for relationship building. And then I so okay, so I need to have their relationship develop more. I would take out that scene and then I would find other scenes and then I would just lengthen dialogue in those scenes to make them closer or something.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, yeah. That I mean, we'll see, we'll see how it works when I apply it. Uh, but for you, you have the opposite problem. So you need to add things in. Well, I'm not gonna okay, I I have advice, but I am curious just what's your what's your baseline for for doing that? Because you're about to get a book published, you've obviously had to do that. So what was something that what was a tool that you used in order to lengthen an act two?

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Well, the I am very lucky that I have an agent who tells me, I want to know more about this, or you need to tell me more about this here, add in backstories here, add in flashbacks, which makes my job much easier. But if I don't have someone, that's more difficult for me. And maybe this is a good opportunity for you to offer your advice.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

So I think that your agent is giving you something essential uh that's kind of like it's half the stories. The your agent is telling you, I need this information. So it's kind of like the reverse of what I just described, where some treating your act two as a car and you're breaking or that scene um as a car and you're breaking it down for parts. So your agent is giving you the part and is telling him to build a car. That's true. And so my advice for building the car um is to fall in love with the details, really. To uh and to loosen yourself up and think about weird ass shit. That's how I would that's how I would describe it too. So I was talking about here, here, okay. I was talking about this movie last night with my boyfriend. Everyone knows it, the Big Lebowski. And uh, you know, the dude. You've seen the Big Lebowski, right? I mean So I I couldn't tell you one thing long ago. Yeah. Okay. Well, epic, epic movie, epic act two. If you if you look at that act two, that is one hell of a playground where it just wacky ass shit is happening all the time. That's what I would try to tap into when you're when you're writing. So, for example, one of one of my favorite things, one of the characters dies and the his friends, and this is now here are the details to fall in love with. It is ashes. What are the ashes in? That's the detail. A Tupperware. A Tupperware casiner. And like, it's just so like what what an icky, amazing, hilarious detail. And then they go to this epic place to release him, and then they try to release him, uh, the ashes, and then the ashes all blow back in their face. Oh God. But but what what's happening to you when you're listening to that? You're squirming and you're going, oh my God, but it's memorable.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

You know? So when I say fall in love with the details, tap into that wacky ass shit place, that's the kind of thing that's going to uh give the the details, not the details, give the components of the story that your agent is asking for life, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Well, and one other thing is that, you know, I write thrillers, so romance is not always my thing, but in one of my thrillers, there is a romance element, and I tend to just push, push through those quickly. And my agent was like, you know what, I think we need more of this romance to make your ending land harder. And so I was like, okay, I guess I'll go back and talk about this romance stuff, you know? So it's just like it's like just these elements just make your ending hit more, you know, kind of what I was talking about earlier, with like letting your audience.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Like I love, I love sinking into what makes two characters feel like there's some sort of chemistry between them or they're meant to be. I like yes, I like that t building that tension for the audience, but it seems like you don't like you like it as a reader, but it's like you don't you don't really want to recreate that as a writer. You're not really interested in that anatomy.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

I would love to challenge myself to do that, but I and I love reading it, but I find myself getting impatient when I'm writing it. This is why I'm dying for you to write a contemporary romance with with some kind of thrillery element, because I think you would nail it.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Oh, thank you so much. I do have some uh contemporary romance ideas. Uh I'll tell you them offline. Okay, I can't wait. But uh yeah, I mean, I you're not alone. I have another friend. She she absolutely does not have fun writing romantic tension between characters. And I don't know what it is. I it's something I just can't relate to, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah.

unknown 37:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Well, I think that we tackled the messy middle, at least a part of it. Yeah, we completely solved it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

And anybody that listens to this episode is just like, yeah, they'll never have a clean hack. Yep. Yeah, no problems whatsoever. But uh yeah, I I the act two is it's possibly my favorite act. Like it's too bad. Yeah. Yeah. I think I do know so act one is the runner-up for me. Act three is my least favorite act to write. That's my favorite. I do not like writing act three. I think it's an interesting project, but it is difficult in ways that I find grating. Act two is the one where I just I don't know, I luxuriate and I luxuriate too much.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

You take a long bubble bath in act two.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Yeah, it's it's it's bad. Um anyway, we'll we'll see. We'll see if Lisa can fix her life problems and become a better writer.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

The more we talk and the more we work together, I mean, I think that we make each other better. Yeah, I think so too. So time to throw some tomatoes where we say one or two star reviews on books that are bestsellers to show you that no matter how successful you are, you will get bad reviews and to not let that stop you. Exactly. Okay. So I have one. Everyone knows that Frida McFadden is a major author, best-selling movies being made. Her success and her the ability to write good books cannot be denied because people love them. So this person, however, did not love one of her books. The Housemaid, two stars. Good story. Is that the movie? That's the movie. Yeah. Okay, okay, great, excellent. You've seen it? I've seen the movie. Okay. I had a lot of fun. You're gonna love this review, it's insane. Okay. Good story, but if I could sum up Millie's character in one word, it would be new money, and not in a good way. While the housemaid had a gripping storyline with mystery and emotional depth, the portrayal of the upper class was so exaggerated and off mark that it completely threw me out of the story. The author's understanding of wealthy people seemed incredibly shallow, almost like a caricature of what she thought rich people are like. Upper class individuals don't hire junkies, no matter the situation. And yet that's part of the premise here. The characters' personalities felt more like stereotypes than anything grounded in reality. The wealthy figures in the book came off as clueless, pompous, and overly dramatic, like something out of a bad TV show. It's one thing to have one character like that, but the author applied it to multiple people, making the entire portrayal feel cartoonish. There were other bizarre details too, like dressing up in a ball gown for a Broadway play? What? That's a mix-up with opera culture, not theater. And the whole thing about Millie going to boarding school, that was also handled poorly. It wasn't about her being privileged, it was about her attending a disciplinary school, which is very different from the typical prep school experience most people think of when they hear boarding school. The story itself was compelling enough with an emotional and mysterious plot that kept me reading, but these glaring issues with the character's portrayal of wealth really held it back for me. A little more nuance and accuracy of the rich would have made this a much stronger read.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Amazing. I love that. I love that. Okay, so what what what are your thoughts on it? Because I I have thoughts on this review. Did you miss the point of the story?

SPEAKER_00 41:12

King, give me more, give me more. Did you miss the point of the story? Like, I'm kind of taken aback. Like this person took one detail. I mean, I feel like that was the point of it. Nina was trying to be what this guy wanted as a wife. She was over, she was acting, she was being dramatic. That was not her personality. That was the whole point.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

So she the portrayal, it's kind of like this uh like looking at uppercrust culture from a person that's being forced into this pageantry. Exactly. And the fakeness of that pageantry. Yeah, it's it's funny for me because all I heard was um a type of reader that I fear. So in my manuscript, the main character is a uh hired as a chauffeur in the 1920s in these old and drives around these old cars. And I always think about these guys on Reddit and just car guys online who are like, that wasn't a feature in the car in 1929, and like cars, cars didn't have this type of combustion, they had this type of combustion. How could you even possibly say that? No, no, no. And like uh when you write historical fiction, you're constantly thinking about people who are like, mm-mm, clipboards weren't invented by that point. You know, streetlights didn't look like that. So you're always thinking about that. And this reader was just like, you know, wealth. They don't talk about money. And and they like the opera scene is very different from the Broadway scene, etc. And it's interesting because I'm like, as a writer who honestly truly does care about those details, how much should you care about that person? I say that if you're Frieda McFadden, like I don't think that that that reviewer is going to make or break you, especially if you're writing contemporary fiction. Because honestly, like that person's not a DNF, you know. They what isn't not DNF? It's D did not finish. Uh, did not finish, yeah. So that person honestly is not a DNF, you know. They are like they read the book. They read the book, they finished it, and they thought about it about it enough to review it. And they kind of give a review where it's just like, well, if you care about that stuff, then don't read it. But if you do, or if you don't care about that stuff, then do, you'll have fun.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

It's so funny that you would internalize that, or like that's like a fear of yours because and see it more as a you problem, or as I saw this more as the reviewer's problem. Like what I all I heard when I read this review was I'm a very rich person. This book made me uncomfortable with my wealth and how the wealth are how they oppress people of lower social status. And I would not like to feel uncomfortable in this way, so please do not portray us in this manner. Didn't I didn't hear that at all?

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Like I heard like you just didn't get the wealth right. Like you didn't get the culture correct. No one would wear a ball gown to a Broadway show, you know, something like that. Which is just it's very, it's very funny and it's very interesting for me, exactly in the way that you just described. I kind of internalize it in that way. Well, okay, so my review, because the one that I'm actually honestly very interested to share with you. The review that I picked was for the Da Vinci Code. And I picked this review because I know a lot of people that deride this book, a lot of literature people that are like, oh yeah, the Da Vinci Code. Why was that so successful? So I wanted to kind of take a different vantage point this week and share a review that I've heard other people kind of like agrees with other people that I know in my life. So the title, title is long, I'm not gonna read it. But here, here we go. Look, the premise is interesting enough, I suppose. And the subject is also neat. Dan Brown is clearly knowledgeable and passionate about it. The man should have just uh the man should have just taught a class. He can't write novels, he can't write characters. The villains are cartoonish and obvious. I immediately guessed the turnpower. 75% of the supporting characters could be replaced with a button that says, quote, I never knew that, Robert Langdon. Please tell me more. The other 25% are basically Robert Langdon in a wig, accessory fountains of endless exposition, because it would be just tacky to give the one guy all the knowledge. The action is tedious, the dialogue is flowery, and everyone sounds the same. The suspense leaves me comfortably reclining in the very back of my lawn chair. I kind of want to hit Robert Langdon, just slightly, because he can be very condescending, and I don't think Dan Brown even knows. So yeah, the two stars I'm giving this trash fire is purely because the inf uh sorry is purely because the information Dan Brown is shoving down our throats in parentheses after haphazardly dousing it in the proverbial expired taco sauce of novelization is half interesting. Good job. Just do a TED talk next time.

SPEAKER_03 46:16

Yikes!

SPEAKER_01 46:17

Yeah, that that that is a yikes over review. I I read it because I I think that it is ultimately deeply unfair because I think that this is this is one of the things where it's like you are I feel bad for commercial authors because there are so many there's so many uh books out there that are not meant to be great literature. And Dan Brown did not set out to write literature, he set out to write Hardy Boys for Adults, and those are his own words. Like that's that's what I've heard him say. He that's what he wanted to do. And he did it. He wrote a page turner that excited a lot of people, you know, enhanced a lot of beach vacations, frankly. And I'm like, great, that's that is a great goal as a writer. And I think that it takes a lot of skill to be able to get people to continuously turn the page, even if that skill is ultimately, you know, you're using a formula to do it, you still have to use that formula well, uh, adeptly. And I I don't think that everything on like every written word, you know, every page in a book has to be deep. I think it can just be fun sometimes. And people need to, you know, take their heads out of their own asses. Like I I I don't know. That's that's how I feel. I couldn't have said it better myself. Okay. Um, well, so we have a wonderful question for this week. What does a good writing day look like for each of you? Ooh. Okay. A good writing day is a day when I wrote. I like I mean, I'm completely serious. A good writing day is a day when, like, it can be I wrote a fucking killer paragraph. Or it can be I removed a few sentences from a uh chapter and now I'm moving on from that chapter. You know, like it can be as small as those actions, or it can be I wrote 10,000 words. You know, I wrote, I wrote an incredible amount, I was just on fire. And I would say that a big component of that is waking up early.

SPEAKER_03 48:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

If I wake up early, if I have a good pace to my morning, it's gonna be a good writing day. Yes, the same. I have to do that early. Yeah. I used to wake up at uh 4 30, go to an all-night cafe uh and write there, and I'd be there for like two and a half, three hours. And basically, essentially, if I was able to get something either small and fundamental done or move quickly through a big part of the story, just get a lot of words on the page, then I was very happy. That is a very healthy way of viewing a good writing day. I wish I could be like that. I mean, a bad writing day to me is sitting down, banging my head against the wall, like sitting down in front of my computer and not moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

I think that's a bad bad for me too.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Bad for me is just thinking about writing, pressuring myself, uh reprimanding myself, telling myself to write and not writing. A good writing day for me, I obviously writing one sentence, two sentence is good, and yes, and I and I say that to everyone. But when it comes to myself, if I don't write at least a thousand words, I'm thinking to myself, you slacked today.

SPEAKER_03 49:45

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

So and and I have many days where I don't reach a thousand and I'm mad at myself.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

I mean, if I'm drafting, then I definitely want to try to reach that thousand. A thousand is a good number to to try to reach. Man, I I miss drafting. I miss it.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Well, yeah, I mean, there's two different I mean, if you're editing, like I'm in developmental edits right now. There's a different type of writing, but I'm thinking of sitting down and drafting. If I'm drafting a novel, actually I want to write, I think in weeks, I want to write 5,000 words a week. That's my that's my bottom number. And I don't reach that a lot of times too. But that's for me good is if I've if I've written I mean, not 5,000, 10,000 a week, 2,000 a day. That's yeah, what I want. And yeah, if I don't reach that, I'm not happy with myself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

And and one thing for people to recognize is that like it really isn't writing all day, every day is not a feasible thing. Making sure that you are dedicating a consistent chunk of time in your day to write, I think that that is the best way to move forward. Well, I know that you have another question for me. It's a bigger question that we'll probably have to dedicate an episode to. What lies do we tell ourselves about what it means to be a successful writer? Yeah. I I mean, there are so many hurdles that we set up for ourselves psychologically when it comes to like, okay, when am I going to be a real writer? When am I going to have success? And do those actually matter? Or I can't wait to talk about it. If this happens, then this happens. Yes, exactly. Um, or if it hasn't happened, then I'm a failure. Oh Lord, yep, that's a good one. Yeah. It's a meaty topic, so I can't wait to talk about it. Next week, we'll dedicate an episode to it.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Don't forget to like and subscribe, and we will see you back here next week on Page Fright. You just listened to Page Fright. Don't forget to like and subscribe and write to us at pagefrightcontact at gmail.com.