How to Fix a Sagging Middle: The Editor’s Guide to Strengthening Your Novel’s Second Act

There is one piece of reader feedback that every novelist fears: “The beginning hooked me, and the ending delivered, but the middle dragged.”

A sagging middle is one of the most common structural problems in fiction. It plagues debut authors and veterans alike. And readers can sense it long before they can articulate it. The momentum slows as tension diffuses, and chapters blur together. Stakes that once felt urgent start to feel optional.

An editor will catch the pattern even more quickly. But the cure rarely involves adding more explosions, banter, or subplots. Those are surface treatments. The real issue lies deeper in the story’s architecture, and it’s deceptively simple:

The second act fails when the protagonist stops making significant decisions.

In a strong opening, the hero wants something. He pursues it against opposition. By the final act, consequences that accumulated along the way close in and force a decisive confrontation.

The middle sits between those poles. It sags when the hero rides along instead of driving.

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