Your Next Draft Where Progressive Complications Go WRONG (and How to Fix Them)
Are your readers bored? Disappointed? Confused? Here's what that tells you about your story's middle.
You’re stuck in the messy middle. Languishing in the doldrums of your story. The inciting incident is long past, the climax is so far ahead you can’t see it over the horizon, and you’re drifting, lost at sea.
What is actually supposed to happen here?
Where did your plot momentum go?
Why do your pages feel full of stuff, and yet nothing ever happens?
The answers to all those questions lie in your progressive complications. Specifically, something’s going wrong in your progressive complications.
In this episode, I’m digging even deeper into the progressive complications.
I’m sharing the seven most common traps I see, the impact they have on your story and your readers, and of course, how to fix them so you can make your story unputdownable from beginning to end.
You’ll learn:
- How to diagnose the problem in your story’s middle based on how your reader feels
- How to spot “fluff” that isn’t moving your story forward
- How coincidences work in stories—and what happens when they don’t work
- What happens when a story has no progressive complications at all
- And more!
And don’t miss the free cheat sheet that goes with this episode! Print it and keep it handy as you’re editing.
Here’s the thing: the middle of a story isn’t an inscrutable secret. This episode is your guide to spot the most common traps and free your story from them.
Links mentioned in the episode:
- Get the Progressive Complication Revision Cheat Sheet: alicesudlow.com/88
- Work with me: alicesudlow.com/contact
- Ep. 87: Make Sense of Your Messy Middle With the Most Underrated Story Element
Want my support in your revision?
In Story Clarity, we’ll work one-on-one to sharpen your story’s structure and craft a revision plan that works. If you’re ready for thoughtful, personalized feedback from an editor who gets what you’re trying to do, I’d love to hear what you’re working on.
Get started by telling me about your story here.
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