My readers are losing interest halfway through. What is a list of possible remedies?
I see a pattern among my readers, specifically where they tend to stop reading - it is about 2/3 through the story, during "Act 2." A few readers push through to the end and say they are glad they did. One wanted the end longer (which may be saying a similar thing; she liked the end better, but thought it felt too rushed.). There may be a pacing problem, it's not clear. The ending sounds correct as is, to me, and the problem seems to be the middle.
I'm wondering how to liven up that slow spot in the middle. No one seems to know why they lose interest. I am guessing the pacing is just too slow, or the tension is not high enough.
Here are a few ideas about how to fix this - but so far, implementing these has not solved the problem, These ideas, in no particular order:
shorten and tighten the areas where people are getting bogged down.
remove anything they do not need (variation of #1).
Improve flow between individual scenes
"Increase tension"
add in a plot twist?
finish chapters in the middle on cliffhangers
The bolded items are ones that I have given some attention to already (although no one has read since I have started working on #3.). #s 5 and 6 would require more structural change and I haven't gone there yet.
Currently, more practiced beta readers are reading, and perhaps they'll have concrete suggestions - we'll see.
My question: How does one perk up the slow parts of a novel, particularly beyond the list above?
(i.e. what might my blind spots be. I am leery of adding a plot twist or cliffhangers, because the story arc is right. But maybe these tools are so powerful that I should reconsider.)
Added as edit: (this may be better as a new question, except it is not really a question.)
My story is 230 pages.
I've mapped the arcs of the 2 (alternating POV) protagonists. The girl has a classic 3-act structure (or at least can be shoehorned into it fairly painlessly. Act 1 is in the first 60 pages, Act 2 is pages 62 - 160, Act 3 is pages 161 - 230 (but climax is last ~20 pages I guess.)
The boy doesn't fit easily into this structure - He has a point of no return on page 4, another on page 12, another on page 25, and so on. And with this in mind, he resolves to leave on page 5, realizes there is no going back on page 13, decides that onwards really is better anyway on page 26, and so on. As far as the act 2/act 3 division, it is the same gradual thing.
He is basically running from his problems, and the further he gets the more he realizes it isn't 'working.' He has a clear emotional break on page 127 and so his act 3 arguably begins earlier than the girl's (she is actually a resolving force for him up to page 160.) But he doesn't know the form of his resolution until page ~180.
This is why the 'contract' nature of the story has been a challenge for him.
However - I think his journey is more 'real' to life. We don't just flip a switch and enter a new act. We find our way. So I don't want to sharpen the focus of those breaks unless I need to.
Since no one suggested that I do that, in particular, anyway, I'm not going to worry about it. The problems are around and preceding page 140, which is in act 2 for the most part since the boy isn't firmly into act 3 until page 180.
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+1 Henry, those are possible problems.
It is hard to diagnose, but you've told us the problem: The reader has stopped caring how the story turns out. Even if the ending is great.
Which likely means you are forcing them to read through something they don't want to read and just don't care about.
I would guess if they stop reading 2/3 of the way through, the problem begins well before that, perhaps 1/2 way through. Because it takes time for a reader to build up enough boredom to quit reading.
In the normal Act structure, that halfway point should be the inflection point of the problem's resolution, when the hero has an idea or learns something that is the KEY, even if they do not realize it at the time, to winning the day (whatever that means).
So perhaps that happens too late, in your book, or is there but not dramatized well. Once the key is discovered, it should start a building cascade toward the third act, of puzzles resolved, more successes than failures, etc. As part of this, major new problems should not be introduced; any new problems should be a result of solving bigger problems: The only way we could save the little girl was to let her abductor escape: We saved the girl but now we have an criminal on the loose! Introducing bigger problems can make the reader feel the key has not been discovered.
So that could be a problem: A key exists, but nothing good is happening between 1/2 and 2/3, or the resolution snowball has not clearly begun, so the reader is not excited about the key being found and 'wins' or progress building up.
Finally, as a 'Kill My Darlings' experiment, I would question how much I would have to write to make a clean transition if I just cut everything in my book from the halfway mark (or wherever the 'key' is found) to the 2/3 mark. They can't get bored if the pages aren't there!
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Giving specific editing advice is difficult without first reading the work in question, but here are some additional thoughts for you to consider...
- When the middle of a story stalls, it is often the result of mistakes made in the earlier chapters. Have you set the hook properly? Is the reader completely engaged in the characters' goals? Does the reader care about and relate to at least some of the characters?
- Looking closer at the middle section, are you telegraphing your early failures? Almost all stories lead characters through a series of early attempts to achieve their goal, with each attempt leading to escalating levels of failure. Are your character's early attempts believable and do they have a reasonable chance of success. If the reader looses respect for a character because their early attempts are ill planned and doomed from the start, they may become bored while reading through the long pages until the character learns what the reader already knew.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32589. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Why do you ask us? We haven't read your story. Ask your readers.
The whole point of beta readers is that you can ask them why they stopped reading or what made them stop. If they just tell you that they stopped their feedback is incomplete and useless.
So contact your beta readers and ask them this specific question. If your beta readers lack the ability to self-reflect their reading experience (and "do not know why they lost interest") find other, better beta readers.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32603. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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When a reader says "I'm reading (CHAPTER X), and I'm not interested", the first step to solving that is to ask:
Wait a moment, what in (CHAPTER X) should be interesting?
This is a crucial question -- and remember, it's not enough to answer, "Well, it's important for (CHAPTER X+3)." The reader isn't reading (X+3); they're bored right now.
The reason middles so often sag is because the story has invested all its energy setting up the book's ultimate stakes. And then, it's much harder for there to be any smaller stakes along the way; stakes for one scene, stakes for one chapter. It feels like nothing's happening because, well, you've made clear what things are important to the story, and none of what's going on at this point feels important.
So here's you're first step: Go through your middle chapters. For each one, describe why, on the first page of the chapter, the reader should be eager to read the rest of it, based only on what he's read so far.
The results of this exercise should be illuminating. Maybe you'll find that some chapters seem not to have stakes, or an initial hook. Maybe you'll find that the stakes seem the same every single chapter. Maybe you'll find that you've given hooks, but that they feel minor and veering away from the "important stuff". Each of these has different solutions, of course, but this is how you can diagnose what the problem is :)
And do remember that "keeping reader interest" isn't all about being fast-paced and having a twisty plot. A lot of times, it's about helping readers care what happens to the characters. It's about being personal, intimate, bringing your world to life. "Having good stakes" doesn't mean having a million dollars stolen, or a nuclear bomb drop on New York; it can mean having your dad's goofy Dilbert clock stolen, or realizing your best friend is creeped out by you being gay. But that's already dependent on your story :)
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