My son cleared his throat and read me his new story. It opened with great drama. A young boy woke to find his city invaded by aliens. He befriended one of the small aliens. He was about to negotiate peace with the bigger ones when⌠the spaceship shot him.
The end.Â
âWait⌠what?â I said. âYour story was so great. Why did you kill your main character?â
âWe only have to write two pages for school,â he said. âIf I didnât kill him, everything would get more and more complicated.â
And with that, he summarized all my writing problems. I start a book, I fall in love with the characters, I scribble along until things get complicated, and then⌠trouble. Iâm stuck in the messy middle.Â
Me and Banksy floundered in this state for quite a while as I tried to figure out exactly what Dominica and her best friends were going to do about the security cameras in their classrooms. Dominica had already taken some small, individual actions. I knew the book would end with a collective rebellion⌠but how would I get them from here to there?
Eventually, I skipped to the end. I wrote the scene about the studentsâ grand pièce de rĂŠsistance. After that, it was simply a matter of figuring out what each character would have needed to do to reach that scene. I backtracked to fill in the missing pieces.Â
Writing is a messy process. As my son explained, it gets more and more complicated with every page. But sometimes it helps to remember that I donât need to know what happens next. As long as I know what happens at some point, I can write forwards, backwards, and in between.
Though itâs best to avoid the alien spaceships along the way.Â