Sagging Middles: Deepen Character Motivations by Introducing External Pressures

Deepening your characters’ motivations in the middle section of a story is vital to increasing the narrative's momentum. The middle section of your story, rather than sag, should be dynamic. It should further complicate the plot and use those motivations to create a more layered, complex, and intertwined story experience. The first way to do this is by introducing external pressure.

If we look simplistically at a story and overly minimize it to consist of only a beginning, middle, and end, the beginning serves to introduce us to all the essential elements that we need to know to understand, comprehend, and appreciate a story, such as characters, plots, subplots, conflicts, themes, etc. The ending wraps up the story by resolving conflicts, proving themes, and bringing plots and subplots to a satisfying and neatly wrapped conclusion. So, what is the purpose of the middle? The middle of the story, I think, may be more vital in the totality of the story than even the beginning and the ending. The middle section is the pressurized tank in which characters are proven, strengthened, disavowed, and destroyed. These pressures can come from the direct opposition of villains or competitors (antagonists, maybe), natural disasters, societal rules, political conflicts (environmental forces), disagreements or betrayals from those who are supposed to be on the protagonist’s side such as allies, friends, or family (interpersonal conflict), or unexpected complications or reversals of fortune (escalating stakes).

As warriors, we tend to think of external blocks as obstacles. Not at all. Obstacles end action. Instead, external blocks and pressures are catalysts; they produce something: failure, success, compromise, reevaluation, and other effects. External pressures force characters, if we make use most effectively of these pressures, to reckon with their inner fears, desires, and flaws. The essence of most effective stories is the arc of the characters. External blocks are not so much an element to force reevaluation of the plot, but to alter the inner arcs of the characters. The external is there to give life to the internal. By intensifying the external pressures, the author creates a structure whereby she can reveal why a character is doing what they are doing on the interior (which is much more fascinating to the reader) than simply what the character is doing in the world. A character walking across a room and going around a chair is theater blocking. Why and how the character goes around the chair, or even over the chair, tells us much. Here’s an actual example from something I’m currently writing.

I have a detective who is working to solve a high-profile murder case. On face value, there isn’t much originality here. We know the beginning of the story is the crime, the detective starts investigating, and maybe has some leads. The end is the solving of the crime and a satisfactory wrap-up. What can make the middle original? That’s why I think middles are so important, and when they sag, it is such a lost opportunity. For the sake of ease, let’s call my detective Jack (in my mind, I see him as a younger Jack Nicholson).

By the time we reach the middle, Jack has a lead, a strong lead, thanks to the diligent work of several people within the department. Of course, the lead has been mentioned in the media. It is a surprising lead. It is an uncomfortable lead. It is a convenient lead. It promises to be a fast close to this high-profile case resulting in great accolades to the department. Of course, there’s been pushback (and you can think of any number of reasons – insert your own bias) on why this person of interest appears to be accused. But it looks like he did it. But wait! Fortunately for the lead, unfortunately for the case, and devastating to Jack is a media link proving that the department’s accusations against the lead in the case are false. Of course, the department didn’t see this media leak coming and is devastated and embarrassed. Not only that, this revelation in the news leads to public outrage, the media becoming more involved than ever in the case, fingers pointed in all directions, and the police chief or the mayor looking for heads within the police department to roll.

What we wanted from the middle, what every writer is expected to offer in the middle, is evidence leading up to the climax of Jack solving the case and some sense of peace, if not justice, offered to the family and friends of the murdered victim. And, we had wanted, or rather the department had wanted, this to be solved (looking back in hindsight) as expeditiously and ceremoniously as possible. That didn’t happen. In fact, going in a linear progression like this would produce a rather boring and predictable story. We want something fresh, something unique. So, what do we do?

Everything I’ve mentioned above is plot. It happens on the exterior. To make this visceral for the reader, we must make it visceral for Jack. We need to take it inside. We need to deepen character motivations through this external pressure. Whereas Jack’s original “deep” motivation was to solve the crime and bring the killer to justice (a typical “deep” motivation a writer might give), what would happen if, inside Jack, we expanded and enhanced this? The backlash from the media, the department, the local government, and depending upon the pressure points, maybe the national media and the involvement (or meddling) of national political figures and activists forces Jack to take a step back and look at what he and the department are doing. Is everything he, his staff, the department, the police force, and the city's expectations unbiasedly centered on justice? Is Jack’s ego getting in the way? If so, why? Or is something else at work? And, if so, what is it? Who is behind it? Maybe it is the driving force. Because we went inside Jack’s head and made him start thinking sideways a bit, we’ve introduced a new complication we can expand upon in the middle of our story and eliminate any possibility of a sagging middle. We may have just discovered a new subplot that needs to be developed and carried out. Is there a personal reason in this high-profile murder case that this lead was identified so quickly? Does an old guilt propel it? A crime in the past unsolved that the department got heat for? Is there something else more nefarious going on? Or is Jack over-analyzing things, and they just happened to jump to the wrong person to accuse? Or were they set up some way in the department, or outside the department in a more political arena, to pick the wrong guy, a scapegoat, and, if so, what was the motivation for that and who was behind it? Do you see how this sagging middle just unsagged?

So, what kinds of external pressure could we explore to help us take this scenario (or another) and avoid a sagging middle?

One of my favorites is the ticking clock, the running out of time. This could be a simple deadline, an approaching threat, or someone in danger. A patient needs surgery fast because of an injury, maybe a gunshot wound. This is exterior. Let’s take it inside. The surgeon knows this patient is a high-ranking member of a local mob. An attorney shows up and threatens action against the hospital if they don’t prioritize this man. Someone else learns that if the surgeon fails, they are going to possibly take out the surgeon (he dies, you die). The internal pressure is on. And then, as the surgeon begins to operate, he realizes the man on the table is responsible for the murder of his wife. We are definitely inside the surgeon’s head now. The patient is dying on the table. Time is running out. The satisfactory revenge that the legal system didn’t give is now in the hands of the murdered wife’s husband. Yet, there are consequences if the man dies. Physical, emotional, moral. The surgeon knows he can make this outcome look whatever he wants it to. This exterior incident kicks the middle into a new rotation because we brought it inside.

What about societal pressures? What if we create conflicts tied to the exterior aspects of social norms, public opinion, or the loss of one’s reputation? Let’s take the case of a defense lawyer representing a client who doesn’t fit the criteria of the lawyer’s past, person, or values. To take something from the media, let’s say the court-appointed defense lawyer is African American, and the accused is a White supremacist who is accused of blowing up a church and killing six young African American girls. The accused is a distasteful individual. The community, especially the African American community, knows the man is guilty (the media and law enforcement have told them so). Everyone is in a lather. The accused is racist toward his defense attorney, berating him and who he is. For his attitudes alone, the defense attorney wouldn’t care (he says) if they hang the guy…except for the fact that he knows this horrible man is innocent of this crime but is guilty of another that can’t be proven. Boy, that complicates things. If he fulfills his obligation as a defense attorney and gets this miserable wretch off, the community is going to come down on him. His wife and kids will look down on him. Everyone thinks the guy is guilty…but he is not (of this, but he is guilty of that). The pressure is intense. On the exterior, we are trying a man we don’t like. On the interior, we make it personal. The lawyer needs to come to terms with this landmark case, determining if the right thing to do is the right thing to do (the accused is definitely guilty of past horrors, just not this one). And how is he going to feel when he is ostracized from his family and community, from the church even, where the horror took place? Ostracized from the state or federal system where the crime is being tried? Ostracized from the like-minded people who think this man should be hanged? Ostracized from his kids and his wife? Watching his wife and kids be ostracized and embarrassed within their family and community? So much at stake. And the guy is guilty…just not of this! We now took it inside, made it personal, and then physically, we can go back and explore in the plot how all of this is going to have an effect.

Interpersonal pressures can also play a role. Betrayal is always a powerful device. For example, a trusted ally, or even worse, a loved one, questions the protagonist’s motive or betrays them. A soldier is loyal to his commanding officer and idolizes him. On a mission, though, the soldier discovers by accident, maybe an overheard conversation while walking outside a tent with the commanding officer inside talking, that the officer has been lying to the troops about why they are there and why they are about to do whatever heinous thing they are about to do. That’s exterior. To address the sagging middle, let’s move it inside. What is the soldier going to do now? It’s in his head. He will have to be loyal (which comes with penalties), or he will have to do what he feels is morally right (which comes with penalties). Whatever he chooses will lift the middle with a whole new subplot line that will enhance the story's complexity.

How about pressure from the antagonist? A formidable antagonist can undoubtedly lift a sagging middle by trying the innards of the protagonist. Let the antagonist become aggressive. Let him successively and proactively take steps to challenge and even undermine the protagonist. In a story I’m writing, I have a vigilante hero. He’s framed for crimes he did not commit. Like in The Fugitive, he’s on the run, trying to prove his innocence while still pursuing a larger goal (to defeat the antagonist). Still, the antagonist has, at this moment, the upper hand and all of society on his side. It starts on the exterior: the antagonist adds pressure. The protagonist takes it inside and makes it visceral for all of us: a man wrongly accused. We’ve all been there. We know how it feels. We’re entranced to see what happens. The sagging middle is irradicated.

External pressure works because it forces the character, usually the protagonist, to act under duress and stress, which takes us inside the character to discover their moral fiber, priorities, and instincts. External pressure is just that: it pressures the protagonist, exposing their weaknesses and the cracks in their armor. By taking it inside the character’s head, we make it internal for both the character and the reader. It then blows out sideways to the external again, and we’ve got a new subplot going that will complicate what used to be simply a linear single-plot progressive. External pressure also raises the stakes and puts our protagonist on the defensive or on the run, making the story and the middle more engaging to the reader and making the character’s choices, progression, relationships, and journey more compelling.

We’ve got a sagging middle. This is just one of the many ways a craftsperson can use to fix it. By focusing on external pressures, we amplify both the characters and the plot. We go inside and then we come back out. We grow the story organically because it comes from within the protagonist in terms of how they react, their choices, and the actions that follow. By taking some time in the middle, when things start sagging, we can make the middle one of the favorite places for a reader to be, with no sagging involved. I love middles more than beginnings and endings. I hope you can see the reason why.