I wish I’d known three years ago, Madeline! Anyway, I LOVE that feeling when it all comes together and it’s all weepy too. But yeah, it is very book dependent. Some beginnings flow really well and some suck majorly. But I always love middles. 🙂

Lol! Bah, how about you write my beginning and I’ll write your middle? Deal or what? 🙂

Maggie, okay, so firstly there are no hard and fast rules. The above is only a guideline. Which also goes for what you said about the first four chapters. That isn’t the case. The initial chapters should deal with the set up and be an introduction to the characters, and maybe hint at the backstory. If you reveal everything about a character straight up then there’s no mystery and no incentive for the reader to keep reading.

Secondly, if you’ve used up all the past conflict in the first half then it’s possible you’ve made your characters too self aware. People don’t go around consciously thinking ‘I can’t love you because I blame myself for my brother’s death’. Those kinds of thoughts are buried very deep and come into play only after they start to recognise that they have feelings for the other person which is why they start happening later in the book.

Thirdly, ask yourself this question: What is keeping them apart? If it’s a secret or a misunderstanding that if you had them talk about it straight away would end up being the end of the book then your conflict for them might be too thin.

Does that help?

Bizarrely, I change depending on the book. My last book had a super-fluid first half, and the second half was like painstakingly glueing a shattered vase back to together. My WIP – the beginning was SO HARD and yet the second half has been much easier. Just wrote the black moment today actually, where all those middle-of-the-book backstory conflicts came to a head. I got all emotional. The best kind of feeling! x

Oh, I hate endings too :/ BUT THE MIDDLE IS AWESOMEHAPPYFUNTIME. For me. Less so for the characters. *cues maniacal laughter*