Turning for Home

Turning for Home

There comes a point in every story where we sense the protagonist has reached a tipping point. 

We can glimpse the end, still a long way off but coming. We’ve reached the top of a high peak. We’re deep in the woods, heading for light between the branches. We can see when we take a break from reading: there are as many pages behind as ahead.

∞

In John Yorke’s seminal book on story, Into the Woods, he writes that a midpoint consists of one of three events: 

1) an action that is irreversible – bringing consequences that propel a protagonist towards the final climax. 

2) new knowledge revealed – informing new choices and sometimes altering what they desire. 

3) the primary goal attained (treasure, love, power) – and now they have to keep hold of this prize as antagonistic forces descend. 

From this point on, they are heading for home. That home might end up to be a place of defeat, of unavoidable loss or sadness, or it might be the realisation of their deepest hopes and desires. But it’s where they have to go, if they are ever going to restore the balance in their lives. 

∞

So when considering the midpoint of your story, ask yourself: what lesson do you want your protagonist to have learned by the end? What truth will they have come to understand?

Choose a midpoint’s irreversible action whose consequences will teach your protagonist, usually painfully, this lesson. Make the knowledge that is revealed point towards this truth. Make the experience of gaining what is desired, contain whatever it is they need to learn. (And then prove it, once and for all, in the story’s final climax.)

But in the meantime, use the midpoint to give the protagonist a gentle shove, homeward.