Act II: Avoiding the Soggy Middle

Five Beats for Maintaining Your Story’s Momentum

Learning Objective: By the end of this post, you will know how to use five (5) key beats to maintain the momentum of your story’s second act.

When I was teaching creative writing at the University of South Florida, my students often asked me how to maintain momentum in the middle of their stories. This narrative struggle is so common for fiction writers that it’s routinely referred to as the “soggy middle.” More often than not, a story has a soggy middle when the protagonist’s external goals become abstract.

For example, in Twilight: New Moon (2009), the story turns into Act II when vampire Edward breaks up with human Bella and erases all evidence of his existence from her life. The story meanders as Bella pursues a flimsy goal of “seeing” Edward again. She quickly discovers that she hallucinates his presence whenever she puts herself in danger. Although Bella pursues this goal of dangerous feats in the form of cliff diving and motorcycle riding, her goal is too abstract for three reasons:

1. There is almost no force of antagonism creating an obstacle for her to overcome.

2. As a result, she accomplishes her hallucinations easily.

3. The stakes are low because there is no concrete consequence if she fails at this goal. 

Even though the story turns into Act II around the 21 minute mark, New Moon’s middle is slow and soggy for the next 50 (!!!) minutes until Bella discovers that her best friend is a werewolf. In general, stories often lose their momentum when they fail to put forth concrete goals, obstacles, or stakes for their protagonist.

In my experience, the easiest way to avoid a soggy middle is to use five (5) key beats:

1. Regroup

2. Reflect

3. Retaliate

4. Reconstruct

5. Reintroduce

I call these beats The Five Re-beats of Act II. These beats help ensure that your story continues to present concrete goals, obstacles, and stakes that maintain the reader’s investment by creating new problems for the protagonist to solve.

Today’s lesson will cover the key components of each beat and the 31 guiding questions that will help you incorporate these beats in the middle of your story. We’ll be referencing Whiplash (2014) in this lesson. Spoilers are ahead. As always, take what’s useful for you and your writing life. Leave what’s not behind.

The Five Re-beats of Act II

In our first Act II lesson, we talked about Jeffrey Alan Schechter’s concept of transformation. Schechter claims that effective western stories send their protagonists through four archetypes  in order for them to transform into their final, fully realized selves. Each act in three-act structure answers a central question:

1. Act I (Orphan): Who is your protagonist?

2. Act IIA (Wanderer): What are they trying to accomplish?

3. Act IIB (Warrior): Who is trying to stop them?

4. Act III (Martyr): What happens if they fail?

Check out our craft lesson on The Story Hourglass

The Five Re-beats of Act II all relate to the protagonist’s Warrior phase. These beats ultimately answer the question: who is trying to stop them? One of the most effective antagonists in recent cinema is Terence Fletcher (played by J.K. Simmons) from Whiplash.

Here’s a quick summary of Whiplash up to the start of Act IIB. Relevant definitions and past lessons are linked below.

Whiplash (2014) Summary

Logline: Andrew Neiman is a student at Shaffer Music Conservatory who desperately wants to be the world’s greatest jazz drummer, but disapproval from his abusive band conductor is preventing him from achieving his full potential. Andrew must learn that external validation will not make him great before he loses his opportunity to become a professional musician.

Act I

A Trap Is Set

1. Ordinary World Beat: Andrew is an ambitious first-year drummer at a prestigious music conservatory. His ultimate goal is to succeed as a professional jazz drummer.

2. Core Wound Beat: Andrew wants to retrieve recognition and respect for his talent, but his family, peers, and teachers do not recognize or respect his abilities.

3. Call to Action Beat: Andrew’s teacher, Fletcher, selects him as an alternate drummer in the school’s elite jazz band.

The Protagonist Steps Into the Trap

1. Meet the Bad Guy Beat: Fletcher humiliates an out-of-tune trombone player during Andrew’s first practice with the band.

2. Enter the Trap Beat: After the trombone player is kicked out of the band, Fletcher asks Andrew to play drums with the band for the first time.

3. Take the Risk Beat: Andrew confidently plays with Fletcher’s band, but Fletcher keeps interrupting him, claiming that Andrew is off-tempo.

The Trap Spring Shut

1. Leg in the Bear Trap Beat: In the infamous “rushing or dragging” scene, Fletcher repeatedly slaps Andrew off-tempo to demonstrate Andrew’s incompetence with maintaining tempo.

2. Turn into Act II Beat: Fletcher humiliates Andrew to the point of tears. If Andrew gives up now, he loses his dreams of being a jazz musician.

3. Revised Goal Beat: Andrew practices until his hands bleed in order to earn Fletcher’s respect and recognition.

Act II

1. Fun & Games: Andrew memorizes the drum charts for “Whiplash” and plays in a competition with the band when the core drummer is unable to perform. The band wins first place, and Andrew is promoted from alternate to core. But at a family dinner, his relatives praise all of his cousins for trivial accolades, and nobody commends Andrew for his big promotion. Andrew still desperately seeks respect and recognition from others, misbelieving that external validation is a sign of greatness.

2. Midpoint: Andrew vies with two other drummers for the core position on the band’s new song. In a false victory, Andrew earns the part. At the end of practice, Fletcher introduces a timeclock: tomorrow’s competition starts at 5 PM, and all band members need at least two hours to get from the city to the auditorium.

This catches us up to Act IIB. Let’s jump into the first of the Five Re-beats.

1. Regroup Beat

In the Regroup Beat, the story reveals that the protagonist’s midpoint victory (or defeat) is false. As a result, the protagonist must regroup and think up a new plan of action to accomplish their external goal. In The Story Solution, Eric Edson writes that the midpoint provides the protagonist with an opportunity to “rededicate [themselves] to achieving the goal on a do-or-die basis.” This Regroup Beat is the moment when the protagonist recommits themselves to their goal.

Here are seven guiding questions to help you create a Regroup Beat in your story.