Layer Your Novel: The Innovative Method for Plotting Your Scenes (The Writer's Toolbox Series)

by C. S. Lakin

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  Your assignment: Write down all five major turning points in your novel. Expound for a paragraph or two about each turning point, explaining why they are key milestones in your story. Keep in mind where each turning point is to take place.

  Then come up with your MDQs: create two questions, one for the plot goal and the other for the spiritual goal, that must be answered by yes or no at the climax. These will help you home in on your character’s motivation and goal for your novel.

  Chapter 6: The Power of the Midpoint

  Let’s examine the next easiest benchmark moment in a novel—the Midpoint. I bet you can guess where this key plot development is supposed to occur in your story.

  The Midpoint is often said to take place halfway through the second act. But since we’re not breaking things up into three acts here, let’s just say it happens right about the middle of your novel. That seems a whole lot simpler to me.

  So what’s the Midpoint’s objective? Basically it’s the moment in which something new occurs. Some major development or complication. Some twist or disruption.

  Sometimes it’s the spiritual or emotional place the protagonist comes to after a series of difficult setbacks or obstacles, where he’s pushed to make a hard decision, go through another “door of no return,” solidify his resolve, and move into further action. It’s a turning point that usually ramps the story up into a higher gear.

  Midpoints can also be reversals. Something unexpected happens and changes the worldview of the protagonist. His plan no longer works, and things have to change.

  A good Midpoint reversal will also raise the stakes, even if they were already high. It often elevates the personal stakes in a way that wasn’t there before or reveals a secret. Sometimes it requires a sacrifice, of a personal belief or an ally. It may involve all these things.

  If you’ve developed a great premise (that concept with a kicker I so strongly preach about), and you brainstorm to come up with a killer Midpoint situation, that can anchor down your framework.

  If you have your basics: your Inciting Incident, your protagonist’s goal for the book, what is going to happen in the climax and end of the story (how the goal is reached or not, and what those consequences will be), then focusing on your Midpoint can be a great way to zoom in on the heart of your story and character.

  Try writing down these basic benchmarks (use my 12 Pillars workbook for an easy, helpful way to do this!) and play around with both the plot and emotional Midpoint elements your story can best use. Think of some big shift for the Midpoint. Something that upends the cart.

  Examples of Great Midpoints

  The movie Casablanca has a terrific Midpoint. Up until that moment, Rick, the bitter, negative, selfish bar owner, has been closed off to everyone and everything else, a bystander watching the war take its toll. At the exact Midpoint of the film, Ilsa comes to Rick’s bar after closing. Rick is drunk and treats Ilsa with contempt, reminding her how she’d abandoned him in Paris. Ilsa tries to explain, pleads with him to understand, but Rick will have none of it. She leaves in tears—but only after she shatters his assumptions. Ilsa had left him in Paris because she’d learned her husband, Victor, was alive.

  Rick, full of self-disgust, puts his head in his hands, finally facing his demons. “What have I become?” This is the moment of decision. Will he stay a selfish drunk or step up and stand up for something more important than his own little problems (which he later calls a hill of beans)? Everything that transpires in the movie is now impacted by his shift in attitude that occurs at the Midpoint.

  In the Midpoint of the lengthy Gone with the Wind, we find Scarlett in that “mirror moment,” reflecting on how the war has destroyed every vestige of her life, her world, and her home, yet, she still has Tara, her family homestead, and in that moment she determines she will do whatever it takes to preserve and rebuild Tara. This Midpoint, as do many, reveals an internal, personal shift in attitude. Most of the Midpoints in my novels are exactly that.

  In the movie Ghost, dead Sam learns that his best friend Carl hired the murderer—a shocking revelation that changes and ramps up the conflict. Now that Sam knows who is behind his murder and that his wife is under attack, he is now shifts from reactive mode to assertive attack mode to protect her.

  In Ender’s Game, Ender’s apprenticeship in Salamander Army ends abruptly when he is given command of his own Battle School army. This dramatic change in the character’s circumstances would have been enough, by itself, to create a solid Midpoint. But Orson Scott Card takes it one step further and complicates Ender’s plight by giving him a group of the worst students in Battle School. Dragon Army is designed to test Ender’s mettle. The stakes for him are now as high as can be if he is to be victorious.

  Mark Watney, in The Martian, learns at the Midpoint that the supply probe has blown up. While that dark moment implies all hope is lost, it prompts Watney to now dig in and commit to a higher degree to survive—which will require he come up with a dangerous, impossible plan to traverse Mars for weeks to get to the ARES 4 mission site.

  Examples from My Novels

  In my earlier novels, I didn’t work out my scenes using this layering method or thinking of a specific Midpoint scene. These novels were written a few years ago before I started plotting this new way. So I was pleased to find my Midpoint scenes in the exact middle of my novels.

  In my fantasy novel The Unraveling of Wentwater, the Midpoint event is when my protagonist Teralyn learns the truth about her past—a shocking truth that upends her world and everything she believes and sends her fleeing. The stakes are raised super high as she runs headlong into danger because of what she’s learned:

  As she turned to go, [Antius] laid a hand on her arm. “It may not be wise, Teralyn dear, or safe, to inquire in Wentwater. If the villagers think you are the one foretold to destroy the village—”

  Tears splashed hot on his wrist. The storm cloud covering her face burst into a downpour. “All these years, I thought Kileen was my mother And now . . . my real mother is somewhere, who knows where, mourning me, thinking I’ve been dead . . .”

  “Tera—”

  Before Antius could dislodge the lump in his throat, she pulled from his grasp and ran down the granite pathway, lost to him before she was even gone from his sight.

  In my women’s fiction mystery, Conundrum, Lisa is searching for clues as to how and why her father died so mysteriously twenty-five years earlier. But her incursion into the past detonates a family conflagration that sets her mother at war with her. Her search for truth exposes deep, dark lies and secrets that threaten to destroy her marriage and her sanity.

  The Midpoint finds Lisa learning her mother has taken steps to throw her out of her house and off her precious ranch (which her mother owns). Her husband, Jeremy, in fury storms out of the house. Lisa, reeling in shock, then gets a phone call from local police at the end of the scene, sealing the Midpoint’s destruction:

  The voice cut through my speech. “Mrs. Bolton? I need to speak with you about your husband, Jeremy Bolton. Mrs. Bolton?”

  I pulled the receiver away and shook my head as if I had water in my ear. I could hear the officer’s voice as I stared at the receiver in my hand. “Mrs. Bolton, are you there? Your husband’s been in an accident—”

  Up to this scene, Lisa has let things develop between her and her mother without doing much other than reacting. But now she is determined. She will fight her mother with all she has, to save her marriage and her husband. It’s war. Game on.

  Welcome to the Midpoint.

  The Subtle but Powerful Midpoint

  Not all Midpoints have to be huge and intense. They can be subtle. The Midpoint in Despicable Me shows Gru taking his adopted girls to an amusement park, planning on ditching them. Up till now he’s been resisting caring for them. He’s evil and heartless, right? He only acquired the girls from the orphanage to use them for his despicable purposes.

  But then, cute little Agnes is
treated unfairly by an employee at a theme park attraction, and Gru is moved to defend her interests, surprising himself to see how much he’s grown to care about the girls and wants them to stay with him after all.

  Often the Midpoint is about a tectonic emotional or perspective shift though little is happening in the action itself.

  We see this often in romances. In Ever After, Danielle finally agrees to an outing with Prince Henry. He takes her a monastery, where she inspires him with her passion about life. That moment is so understatedly impacting. It is in this moment that Henry sees himself for who he truly is. Danielle quite masterfully mirrors him back to himself, and it both astonishes him and makes him angry. All his years of arrogance and complaining melt into remorse and self-denigration. This moment, which shifts to an attack by gypsies (in which Danielle outfoxes them and saves Henry’s life) is the game-changer for Henry, and it influences his decisions for the rest of his life.

  In The Art of Racing in the Rain, one of my favorite novels of all time, the Midpoint comes at the moment when Denny’s cancer-ridden wife, Eve, dies. Keep in mind that Enzo, the dog, is the narrator. He’s like the classic chorus we see in Greek tragedies and Shakespeare plays. He observes, he reacts, he gives running commentary.

  So, in the novel, Denny is the protagonist; it’s his story about how he meets his wife, falls in love, has a daughter, then watches Eve die—which comes at the Midpoint.

  Why is the novel set up so perfectly with that event? Shouldn’t that be the Inciting Incident?

  Good question.

  At the 10% mark, Denny has already met Eve and married her. Then, Zoe is born.

  Midway through that scene, Eve turns to Enzo and says, “Will you promise to always protect her?” meaning, Zoe, whom she is nursing at the time.

  Read what follows. It’s interesting:

  She wasn’t asking me. She was asking Denny, and I was merely Denny’s surrogate [Denny is off at a car race when Zoe is born]. Still, I felt the obligation. I understood that, as a dog, I could never be as interactive with humanity as I truly desired. Yet, I realized at that moment, I could be something else. I could provide something of need to the people around me. I could comfort even when Denny was away. I could protect Eve’s baby. And while I would always crave more, in a sense, I had found a place to begin.

  Why is this interesting? Enzo is acting as Denny’s surrogate. This means at the Inciting Incident—Zoe’s birth—Enzo, and thus Denny in absentia, is making a promise. The new direction: Denny/Enzo will do everything possible to protect and care for little Zoe.

  The Midpoint? Eve dies, so there is no turning back. And this terrible turn of events leads to shock and fear as Eve’s parents go all-out in a war to rip Zoe from Denny’s arms, even falsely accusing him of crimes in order to get custody of their granddaughter.

  A few pages after the exact 50% mark, the next chapter begins with the lines “For Eve, her death was the end of a painful battle. For Denny, it was just the beginning.” The beginning of the fight over Zoe.

  Instead of seeing Denny’s detailed reaction to Eve’s death at the Midpoint, we watch Enzo in his grief.

  “She’s gone,” [Denny] said, and then he sobbed loudly and turned away, crying into the crook of his arm so I couldn’t see.

  I am not a dog who runs away from things. I had never run away from Denny before that moment, and I have never run away since. But in that moment, I had to run. [Note: Enzo’s running is a big motif in this novel, and especially comes into play at the end.]

  . . . Off to the south, I burst off down the short path through the gap in the split rail and out onto the big field, then I broke west. . . . I needed to go wilding. I was upset, sad, angry—something! I needed to do something! I needed to feel myself, understand myself and this horrible world we are all trapped in, where bugs and tumors and viruses worm their way into our brains . . . I needed to do my part to crush it, stamp out what was attacking me, my way of life. So I ran.

  His narrative goes on another page, showing how his grief and rage makes him kill and eat a squirrel (okay, maybe that doesn’t sound too “undog-like,” but Enzo prides himself on being more like humans). He says, “I had to do it. I missed Eve so much I couldn’t be a human anymore and feel the pain that humans feel. I had to be an animal again. . . . My trying to live to human standards had done nothing for Eve; I ate the squirrel for Eve.”

  Enzo, too, changes at the Midpoint. He, along with Denny, is all-in. And his actions play a key part in helping Denny reach his goal for the novel: to protect and keep Zoe from harm.

  Not a typical novel story or structure, with this “dual-character” Midpoint with upped stakes for both, but Enzo and Denny—man and his dog—are in this together for the long haul.

  False Peaks and False Collapses

  Some people craft their Midpoint with either a false peak or a false collapse in mind. Whether the Midpoint hints at failure or success, the stakes are now raised.

  What’s a false peak? It’s the appearance of success or victory, only to be quickly upended. Think about the moment in The Titanic movie in which Jack and Rose have consummated their love and sworn eternal commitment—only to have the ship hit an iceberg shortly following. The ultimate high and promise of happiness . . . begins to sink into the cold waters of the Atlantic.

  In Gravity, Ryan Stone, the female astronaut, survives a fire on board the American space station and gets to the Russian capsule (a false peak), only to find that it is also defective. Hopes raised, then dashed, pushing the character to make a hard choice and ramp up her determination to survive.

  A false collapse is a huge setback that makes it look like ultimate failure, such is what we see in The Imitation Game when Turing’s commander orders the computer he’s built to be destroyed. But such drastic times call for drastic responses, and the Midpoint is the time to regroup, shift gears, and ramp up the determination.

  So be sure when you’re crafting your Midpoint that you have your protagonist experience one of two things: a revelation that suggests a far greater obstacle looming on the horizon, or a false peak or a false collapse that propels the narrative toward resolution.

  So what about your story? What kind of Midpoint do you have? Is it strong enough? Could it be better? What can you come up with to fashion a killer Midpoint for your story?

  Next, we’ll look at a few more key moments in your novel structure. This is all leading to those ten essential scenes you’ll need to come up with for your first layer.

  Take a look at a chart I created to help you lay out those ten key scenes. While we will be going in depth into each one of the scenes, start getting acquainted. You can download the chart as a PDF and/or Excel chart from my resource page at my blog Live Write Thrive.

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  Your assignment: Spend some time developing your Midpoint. Play around with both the plot and emotional Midpoint elements your story can best use. Think of some big shift for the Midpoint: a moment in which your character cements his commitment to his goal, ready to give it his all. If your Midpoint is weak, work on making it stronger. You owe it to your story and your readers! Write a summary of your Midpoint scene in your chart.

  Chart: First Layer of 10 Key Scenes

  #1 - Setup.

  #2 - Turning Point #1 (10%) Inciting Incident.

  *#3 - Pinch Point #1 (33% roughly).

  #4 – Twist #1.

  #5 – The Midpoint (50%).

  #6 – Pinch Point #2 (62% roughly).

  #7 – Twist #2.

  #8 – Turning Point #4 (75%) Major Setback.

  #9 – Turning Point #5 (76-99%) The Climax.

  #10 – The Aftermath (90-99%): The Wrap-Up.

  *Note: I don’t include a specific scene for the fixing of the goal at around the 25% mark. While the goal should be set about there, it’s not necessarily accomplished in one scene. Often it’s a series of incidents that “fixes” the goal for the character. But you do want to be sure to layer those important scene
s in once you get these ten key scenes set.

  Chapter 7: What the Heck Are Pinch Points?

  You may have heard of pinch points. Or not. No matter—I’m going to take a look at these key markers because the primary pinch points are two of the ten scenes in the first layer of your novel.

  You now understand what the Inciting Incident is and where it needs to come in your novel. And the Midpoint’s a fairly easy concept to nail, right? On a map, it would be, well, the Midpoint. The very Middle (the letter M) of the journey from A to Z.

  But what the heck are pinch points? Do you need them? Where do they go in a novel, and what’s their purpose?

  Remember, you want your story to dictate how many acts you need and where they start and end. Not the other way around.

  That said, there is still the overarching expected novel structure to keep in mind.

  Think road as opposed to brush alongside the road. It’s a smoother journey (and more likely you’ll make it to your destination less haggard) if you stay on the paved road rather than veer off onto the verge and into the vegetation.

  You now understand that your protagonist’s goal for the novel should firm up around the 25% mark. But then what?

  The First Pinch Point

  Enter that first pinch point. Somewhere between that 25% mark and the Midpoint, the primary opposition needs to raise its ugly head. Some say it must come at the 37% mark, but you know what I’ll say about that.

  In engineering, a pinch point is a point between moving and stationary parts of a machine where a person’s body part may become caught, leading to injury. That definition applies well to dramatic, literary pinch points. A situation is presented that might have our protagonist “between a rock and a hard place,” or, as in this scenario, “between a lever and a cog.” Squeezed tight. Potential for (emotional and/or physical) injury. Another definition notes: “There is a chance of entrapment.” Nice, right?