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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32590
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32590
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

+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!

Original score: 18