Fiction writers are plagued by the “sagging middle” when a story’s momentum wanes midway. A Google search on craft articles yields about 82 million hits for writing beginnings, 18 million hits for endings, 5 million for middles, and fewer than one million specifically for sagging middles. The hard-to-heal malady can be paralyzing; some writers give up. Thankfully, I’ve never faced this problem with a manuscript, but it’s how I feel midway through the COVID-19 pandemic. In the beginning, I was actively engaged adapting my daily life. When vaccines soon emerged, I was optimistic that the ending was foreseeable too. But as the pandemic drags on and people await vaccinations in a high demand-low supply world, I’m treading in a pool of inertia. A time will arrive when the manuscript of normalcy is retrieved from the drawer, but until then, I and others like me will dwell in the sagging middle. Read more of my thoughts about writing at REFLECTIONS.
