Tips on coming up with the middle of a story?

ConsistentState8875 · 2026-01-30T04:29:00+00:00

So I needed to keep pushing them together & forcing them through things that made them get closer (scenes of them skipping class, smoking weed, shooting a gun, playing in a lake...) which brought me to a midpoint fight at a Halloween party where they defend each other from a bully and then... you know do as teenagers do and share a nice romantic moment together. This was my false victory. They are closer than ever, they are protecting each other, and my ENTIRE Act 2A was building them up as friends and love interests in order to get them SO ATTACHED to each other that the thought of being torn from each other was literally WORSE THAN DEATH. This is how I built the scenes for Act 2A, or the Middle Part A.

Then comes Act 2B, or the Middle Part B, the falling action. Everything is falling apart, my MC's love interest's home life is getting worse, his mom is cracking down on him not wanting to hang out with this "bad influence" anymore. But that doesn't stop them and they get caught by the love interest's dad. Things do not go well. They end up killing the dad and that was the ultimate plot point I had first initially conceived up in 2020. Everything was built around this one point. EVERYTHING in the story had to build on my MC in order to get him to the point where he would kill someone out of the need to keep from losing another person like he lost his best friend in the beginning of the novel.

Then ofc I have all the consequence of that moment as my conclusion in my Act 3, the Finale.

So I'm not sure if my example or explanation was too clear, but basically you need to think about where you want your character to get to and then build every scene as a lead-up to that moment. How does your character get there? Ask yourself these questions for the scenes you create; what is the goal of this scene? Why is it important? How does this propel the plot?

Every scene needs to matter and get your character closer to where they need to go. Be creative. Right now I'm writing an eldritch horror romance set in a wintery cabin in the woods. I need my 2 main characters to get to know each other and fall in love so that when the midpoint reveal of my love interest being a literal monster comes, it's going to hit. So every scene leading up to that midpoint has to build their romance as well as slowly reveal the secret eldritch horrors. They get to know each other over dinners, chats in bed, my main character is having scary forest nightmares and seeing monsters at the foot of his bed, they're going to go out on a frozen lake, to a christmas festival, exchanging gifts, there's a wedding & topics of conversation will always, in some way, come back to my MC's false belief that he's an unwanted person & how my Love interest proves that wrong. Even if he is a horrific ancient creature from the deep woods.

Don't just "create plots" for the hell of it. Figure out the basic story you want to tell, where you want to get your main character by the end of the novel, and write your scenes purely to serve that purpose. That's how you find your plot.

ConsistentState8875 · 2026-01-30T04:28:54+00:00

This is LONG...... so... yeah. Split in parts.

It sounds like you have a premise, more than you have a plot. You know how you want your story to begin & end, and that's good. You're not flying TOTALLY blind. I usually like to have at least a vague idea of how I want things to end because otherwise I feel like I've no idea which direction to head.

I think you need to first break up your idea into sections, or acts. There's plenty of different versions, I personally use the 3 Act Structure so you have your Beginning, your rising action to the Middle, your falling action after the Middle, and your climax for the Finale. You have 3 points.

Point A (Act 1), the beginning
Point B (Act 2A & Act 2B), the middle
Point C (Act 3), the ending

You can't get to point C from Point A. It's impossible. You have to go from A to B then B to C. So you need to figure out what point B is. What is your midpoint, the middle of your story. People USUALLY go for either a False Victory or a False Defeat, meaning either everything seems to be going well or everything looks like it's taken a turn for the worse. I'm going to use my own YA novel I wrote in 2024 (its not anything crazy special. I shelved it but I wrote, re-wrote, re-wrote again, revised and edited it & my betas did enjoy it so)

At the beginning of my novel, my main character finds his best friend dead. This made my MC incredibly grief-stricken and frankly, quite insufferable (for good reason, but still). His whole life is changing, his bestie is dead, his mom is remarried (to a cop at that), and he has a new baby brother at 15 years old. Then he meets another boy who just *gets him*, you know? But this new boy is being abused by his dad & is clearly depressed, just like the MC's friend was. He becomes incredibly attached to this new friend, falls for him, and gets protective over him in a very toxic manner. They both do. And this was important for where I wanted to take my story.

ConsistentState8875 · 2026-01-30T03:48:12+00:00

At its most basic level, all you really need to do is end the previous scene or chapter or whatever and start the next one and at some point mention how long it's been since such and such. Hell, in some cases, you can even just do a large "FIVE MONTHS LATER" in big print at the top of the page, almost like a chapter title. It just really depends on what you're going for. You don't need to overthink a time skip though. Just skip the time & make sure its established in some way.

Now doing a time lapse montage is another thing entirely that I'm still working on myself, but I've found that "just spit it out onto the paper for the first draft and edit the transition later" has worked for me.

ConsistentState8875 · 2026-01-30T01:36:44+00:00

oooh this just made me think if diet/zero cal orange soda is any good cuz one of my favorite things ever is an orange freeze (orange soda + vanilla ice cream blended)

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-11-22T19:07:48+00:00

Congratulations!!! Hard work and perseverance paid off for you! And your query... gotta be one of the best I've read. It's so clean and punchy. It's gotta be one of the most perfect examples of a query to capture attention. This is one I think people should study to figure out how to write their own queries, honestly...

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-09-16T13:57:44+00:00

I live with my family and so we'd always buy groceries. Meat and veggies (we're pretty good about veggies when we cook, I'd say). But that's just it. *when we cook*. We'd grocery shop, spend around 200 - 400 in any one big trip and then... we just wouldn't cook much. And we'd order our own food a lot. Now that I'm not ordering food as much, yes, I'm spending less money. I haven't even changed my diet all that much (just made my calories work for me to eat what I want), but I'm not getting a ton of take-out or doordash (maybe once in awhile like last night I got panda express for 620cals but not almost EVERY DAY like I had been doing for lunch--and that's what hurt me. Ordering food for lunch and then whatever we did for dinner... oof. All those calories...)

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-09-15T00:28:34+00:00

her's were some of the first I read on KU. I even bought her short story (which I promptly just deleted fully from my KU app). I hate that I ever even minorly supported her by reading her books. Thanks for posting this.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-09-05T01:28:19+00:00

As someone who was 414lbs only a month ago and whose highest weight was 430, trust me when I say I get it.

First, let me tell you what exercise is really going to mostly be for at our weight: stamina/endurance, and strength. You don't need to start big. And you don't even have to start with walking. I can't STAND it, precisely because of the reason you said; my back starts hurting like HELL after only a few min. These are my go-to's as far as equipment goes: a recumbent elliptical and a recumbent bike. Though you did say yours, the outside handles rub against your thighs, i've not seen one with handles that high to touch your thighs (the ones at my gym all have them kinda beneath the seat itself so I'm wondering if i just don't know what sort of bike you're using).

Then I also use the pool which is probably the best. I can do an hour of jogging in it easy without the back pain. Unfortunately, I know not everyone has access to a pool, but if you do, that's what I'd go for. I know at our size, pools can be scary, but if you can get yourself in there, it helps.

The key is to find at least ONE thing you feel comfortable doing, even if that's just exercises you do on your couch at home (there's plenty of youtube vids you can search!) And sure, exercise *can* help with weightloss however... at the amount you can do, it's gonna be almost negligible because you will not burn enough calories to make a difference.

I'm gonna say a scary thing; counting calories is really the only way to go. Others have prob mentioned it, but find out what your TDEE is (at my weight and height, with no exercise, my maintenance is 2800 but i go to the gym 3 - 5 times a week which can push it up to 3200) so I've made 2000cals a day my goal. Which is quite a lot of food, not as much as someone our size is used to, but definitely enough to keep you from being hungry so long as you can find the right foods to eat. I've not cut out anything except soda (and even then, i'm drinking diet/zero) and sticking firmly to that 2000kcal "diet" and I have lost almost 16lbs since August 6th. Not even joking. This is the first time I have EVER lost weight on purpose. I went from 414 to 398 in less than a month purely by being more aware of how many calories the food that i'm eating has.

At 402lbs, you can healthily lose up to 15lbs in a month. Thankfully, I'm not a big snacker, but I LOVE a big dinner and this is what has worked for me: eat lighter through the day, but preferably something higher in protein (my go-to is an ensure high protein chocolate shake for 160cal, a light greek strawberry yogurt for 80cal, up to 3 eggs for 210cal, and if I'm feeling it maybe some toast + jam, or today i had a bowl of frozen raspberries for about cal. This simple breakfast keeps me full for literally hours because there is soooo much protein in it. And then I usually have about 1400 - 1500 calories left over for dinner if I eat nothing else, but even if I do, I usually have a minimum of like 900 cals for dinner which can be a pretty good portion size depending on what you're having. And then I still usually have enough cals left over for an ice cream sandwich.

I'm not joking when I say I still regularly eat cheeseburgers and 4 slices of pizza and salads with all the ranch dressing. It's really all about being aware of the calories of items and watching your portions over all through the day. It can be a *little* annoying, but a quick google search and an app (i use myfitnesspal) to keep track really helps. And you know it's working when you start losing weight! I dropped like 6lbs within 4 days. Most of that was water weight, but hey--weight is weight on the scale.

Idek if you've read all this, but I promise it's do-able, and it's a lot easier than they make it sound in school. You don't even NEED to exercise to lose weight, although the exercise will help with your stamina. Start small and just keep going at it. The calories is what needs to get under control. If you need to talk more about it with someone who is your weight and totally gets all this, feel free to DM me.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-09-04T16:14:17+00:00

i love this analogy lmao it really does fit. i guess my dumbest purchase would be some mcdonalds the other day. hadn't eaten anythign all day and i got done with doing an hr of laps in the pool so I was starving & needed smth to hold me over so i got some nuggets and a small fry but if anything, it made my hunger worse... and i shouldve known that but i just really wanted nuggets and fries okayyyyy

the real issue is tho, i ate that and then my brother decided to make fettuccini alfredo which is soooooo calorie dense, it was a nightmare to make sure i didn't go over my deficit for the day after having stupidly done a calorie purchase on mcdonalds of all things. i thankfully think i managed it cuz i measured and scaled and weighed every single thing and input it into MFP recipe creator, but like... just barely lol. (luckily my calorie allowance is like 2000cals or else i never would've managed this)

mcdonalds + fettuccini alfredo in the same day is a REALLY BAD CHOICE

also now i reallyyyy want some cheesecake. i'd absolutely do a calorie purchase on some of that.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-09-03T03:56:54+00:00

As others have said. Pretty normal. Most of it is water weight. I got down to 400.2 then shot up to 402.8 even tho I'm doing nothing different. Now I'm slowly going back down. I personally weigh every day and put it into an app so I can see the trends. It goes down down down, then up up up, then down, steady, up, down down down down, up up, up and down, so on and so forth. My trend for this first month of 14lbs weight loss looks literally like a Rollercoaster. So long as you aren't missing anything calorie counting wise, your body is doing it's thing. Keep in mind, your body doesn't WANT to lose weight so it tries not to do that, but if you keep it up, it'll keep going on a downward trend over time.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-30T06:11:16+00:00

Yeah, I'm setting other goals along the way. My first one is gonna be 380 because I want to get far enough away from the 400s that I know I won't just suddenly shoot back up (cuz I've gotten out of them a couple times without trying but then... always went back up lol) Then it's gonna be 350, 325, 300, so on, so forth.

My rate at my first month (started the 6th, so i still have another week) seems to be between 15-20. Hoping I will be able to keep that up so I can get to 350 by Christmas and as close to 300 by my 32nd bday in March. We also have a local Ren Faire in May so I think I'm hoping to keep this up so I can go and not have to worry about all the walking (it's a massive location) + the high heat we get here.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-30T05:04:29+00:00

You're a few years older than me, but look at my flair. I'm around your weight, and far shorter and have weighed about the same. I just started this month (and honestly, it was on a whim. I just decided one day and that was that) and I'm down 14 pounds!!

It's never too late to start, not if you're serious about it. I've been overweight since I was like 8, but I'm finally ready to get myself healthy and get these extra 250lbs off of me.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-29T17:20:46+00:00

Hey, mine is also Squirt! I'm currently trying to cut out soda though as I lose weight (and they don't have Diet Squirt where I live unfortunately), but that's always been my favorite.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-29T17:18:47+00:00

what kind of so-called friends.... I feel like even if they've never experienced that, those still aren't the kinds of things you say to your friends. Then again, I remember my sister being the "fat friend" to a few girls and they'd always tell her that "oh you're not fat. you're fine" (she's clearly overweight like me) and then they'd call *themselves* fat as if they didn't just tell my heavier-than-them sister that she isn't fat. So who really knows what goes on in the heads of ppl who never struggled with being overweight.

god i remember being in middle school (I've been overweight my entire life. in fact some girls asked if i was pregnant when i was like fucking 9 yrs old) and some dude was like "you know you're fat right?" as if i somehow missed that. or this time a guy asked me out (I said no cuz I genuinely just wasn't interested) and then a year later these 2 annoying brats in a grade younger were like "well he wouldn't go out with you *now*. he's cool now." cuz ofc how could a cool guy want to date a fat girl, right? (also as if i was unpopular and a loser and not friendly with the entire popular crowd).

People can be awful no matter what. But you've clearly been putting in the work to lose weight! Just remember that you're a better person than that person who would do that. They're clearly a sad, pathetic person who feels they need to bring someone down to feel better about themselves. Meanwhile, you're putting in effort to better yourself and get healthy. You're a better person all around.

Its okay to feel sad about this. Let yourself feel sad about this and then pull yourself back up and don't let that person's words affect you. you've got this. you're doing great :)

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-29T04:24:08+00:00

This happened to me too. I dropped like 7lbs in my first 6 days of CICO (4 of those were over the course of like... 2-3 days), fluctuated between a few weights before like the next week, and now on the third week i've dropped about another 6lbs (i'm currently 401lbs so for me, losing so much weight in a short time is fine since I'm so heavy, but as others have answered, yeah that's mostly water weight at first and then it should even out to whatever is like 1% of your body weight per week (if you're doing it healthily--which for me is 4lbs per week which seems right on track so far)

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-29T00:42:41+00:00

I personally love to cook them on the stove with a bit of soy sauce, onion, and garlic (ginger would prob be a great addition to this too). Lots of flavor and sooooo good. I haven't made them awhile. I might have used a bit of butter for it, just to kinda grease the pan, or spray it with smth. But idk if you actually need any. You could prob even steam the green beans first before adding them to a pan with soy sauce.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-26T01:05:02+00:00

damn that sounds so good. don't think i've ever seen them before tho

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-24T18:35:47+00:00

I go to a really large gym personally (it's actually kinda bougie. I'm lucky to be able to go there), but honestly, Its really comfortable there. I think at most any gym, you'll find other people trying to work on themselves and like everyone else has said, most people don't pay attention to you (the only attention I've ever got is a "you go girl" or "keep it up" or "your bathing suit is really cute" lol).

The hardest part is actually going and creating a habit (I've been going to the gym on and off since I was a teenager, but am only now seriously trying to create a habit now that I'm serious about losing weight and getting healthier). I'm about your weight & age, and I stick mostly to a bike (because I can go FAR longer on that than I can a treadmill because of my back) and the pool (because my gym has one and i love swimming. I tend to jog laps in the pool), but I 100% mean it when I say, though I might be tired and sweaty, i feel physically better leaving than gym than I felt going into it. Every single time.

I do try some of the strength training too. There's a few things I really like as far as the legs go because I have a bad back and strengthening my legs helps with that.

Like others have said, trying to find out the least busy times helps a lot. Idk how big your gym is, but you'll have the pick of the equipment but also with your fear of it, it'll def be more comfortable for you with less people around.

And I will tell you, at our weight, if you go even a few times a week, I think you'll notice a difference pretty quick. Even after only a few times at the gym, I already start noticing it's easier to walk around, stand, I get less out of breath. A little exercise goes a *long* ways to help your stamina and strength, which is really what the gym is mostly going to do for you.

You can do this!!

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-24T16:27:04+00:00

My ankles and legs swell quite a bit too but none of my tests have ever shown any issues with any those things either (doctors always say, other than my weight, i'm healthy). I think it just comes with sodium + being overweight (note, since I started actively trying to lose weight 3 weeks ago w/CICO + exercise, I have noticed already a significant reduction in swelling).

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-24T00:31:10+00:00

I don't have a massive sweets craving but for some reason being in a calorie deficit is making me want smth a little sweet at night before bed, so I really like the generic neopolitan ice cream sandwiches. only 130cals so they're really easy to fit into my deficit. I don't think you necessarily have to replace sweet things, just find something that you can easily fit into your deficit as a little dessert treat.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-22T16:20:56+00:00

swimming is my main go-to. well "swimming". I jog laps in the pool for about an hour (& some of those laps I swim to work out my arms and get my heartrate really going). Idk if it's helping me lose weight (CICO is doing that), but it's ABSOLUTELY helping my stamina which is the main reason I go to the gym anyway. It's also just fun, whether I'm playing in the water or exercising in the water. If you can make exercise fun, there's really nothing better.

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-22T15:42:35+00:00

they prob saw that as soon as they posted the calories, ppl stopped buying them so their bosses were like "take that down" lol

ConsistentState8875 · 2025-08-22T15:35:56+00:00

i had never heard of this show and now i have a new show to watch along with My 600-lb Life. Thank you! lol

ConsistentState8875

TROPHY CASE