Every draft I have ever abandoned, I abandoned in the middle, and I…

Every draft I have ever abandoned, I abandoned in the middle, and I have finally worked out why.

The beginning is easy because it is promises. The end is easy because by then the thing has told you what it is. The middle is where you have to actually pay for the promises, and the bill is always larger than the one you budgeted for when you were excited.

The thing that has helped

Writing the middle out as a list of bills. Literally: what did chapter one promise, and where does each promise get paid. Half of them turn out to be unpayable, and that is a beginning problem which only becomes visible forty pages later.

So the middle is where drafts finish breaking. They start somewhere around page three, quietly, while you are still enjoying yourself.