I love beginnings, I rarely get to endings. What happens in the middle is hard to pace for me. Might be easier if I followed the Hero's journey or other meta-narratives, but I like to write character first. So the middle of the story is where I want to put the characters out in the world and see how they do, what they do, without a conscience reference to the main plot. So for me, when I get to the middle of writing a story it can really meander.
How about yourselves?
I generally know how a story will begin and end, it's writing a middle that flows from beginning to end that's tricky for me.
It's why I tend to prefer doing short stories, since they have less middle to write.
Yeah I love short stories because you're basically racing to the end, but I really wanna do novels. I get what you mean about finding the flow. I generally go too long, too wordy and will hopefully trim that down in editing.
The middle is the hardest part for me but because it's the hardest part I often put extra care and effort into it. It is exhausting compared to beginnings and endings, but I tend to be proud of my middles.
I usually have an ending in mind and some middle bits and it's the starting and putting it all together that's the hard part.
Interesting. The best advice I've seen is "start late, finish early." Basically starting en media res, cutting out anything that isn't necessary for hte meat of of the story.
