This is a repost of Julie Herman‘s most recent b.read.crumbs post.
Long before Pat Sajak and Vanna White spun their wheel to squeals of glee, there was the Wheel of Fortune card of the Tarot.
Coming in the midst of the major arcana cards at number X, it signals a change in direction. A midpoint, as it were. The previous cards look inward, telling us to get ourselves together because Something Is Coming. And the card itself doesn’t exactly tell us what is on the way to us, just that change is, and we need to be ready.
Hinge Moments
So it goes with the midpoint of a story. Our intrepid main character has gone so far down a rabbit hole that what they would usually do makes no sense for them here, and they must learn new skills, retrieve new information, or just plain change their way of thinking. Crack any book based on the western civilization writing narrative open to the middle, and you’ll find the characters in the midst of a hinge moment, with before–and after clearly defined.
Take EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING. This book by Nicola Yoon literally has the main character stand on her head so that she can see the world in a different way that allows her to make the transition to the second half of the second act of the book. Now, if you’re not a writer, you might be rolling your eyes at me, because you don’t care about this sort of thing, you just want to ride that wheel as you turn the pages. But this turn, this midpoint hinge moment, is important to you as a reader too. It prepares you to accept the changes the character is about to make. They enter the world in a new way, see it with new eyes. Flip it upside down and backwards and are better for it. Readers, at least if we writers have done our job right, will teeter on the hinge of change along with the characters, and then go all in with them as they move on.
I went to New York recently, where I stayed with a cousin who is very dear to me. She is moving from her long-time digs in Manhattan to a retirement community in Virginia. Her life is experiencing one of those hinge moments where there is a decided before–and a decided after. She stood there in the midst of a pile of fancy business attire, accessories, and Ferragamo shoes she had decided to donate, holding a vibrant blue silk crepe dress.
“I’m never going to need this again,” she said.
Her voice held both dismay and jubilation, because we humans are complex and hold so many feelings in our hearts at the same time. Her closet, her life, was never going to look the same again. The Wheel had turned. She had signed a contract. She could not go back. I think in that moment I witnessed her fully embracing her decision to go forward. (Well, at least until she got to the next dress…but that is real life, not a book character.)
What to do?
Make your character choose between something that is going to define a before and an after. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, like moving, or breaking up with a long-term love, it can be about what to wear, or what to give up in the scene you’re working on. Hinge moments happen in every scene as well as the overall plot. Large and small, these moments of discover and decision are good friction to use to help your readers stick to the page.
One Good Thing:
I have re-embraced the Artist Date from Julia Cameron’s THE ARTIST’S WAY. I’ve done a modified version of her morning pages for over twenty years and found it useful to leave a lot of things on the page before I start my day. The Artist Date does something more for me, it’s an opportunity to acknowledge that I am a creator of things, and that I deserve to take the time to feed that part of me. An example of a recent Date: a visit to an office supply store, where I tried out about twenty-eleven-dozen pens and bought one.
And Last but Never Least:
There are so many terrible things happening in the world right now, but there is also beauty. Allow yourself to hold that too. We are human. We can be many things, all at once.
May you be healthy, be safe, and may you live with ease.
You can read previous issues of b.read.crumbs here.
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