Stress-testing Your Book: Surviving the Middle

REGISTER NOW    $25 | Fiction and Nonfiction

Most books die in their second act. Find out how to prevent that fate.

Writing the opening of a novel or memoir tends to be a fun and simple process. But then you stall out at the precipice of the second act. This is understandable–Until now you’ve been dating this book, but now you’re about to marry it. It’s easy to second-guess your plot, get lost in story threads, and wonder if there are fatal flaws that will doom this endeavor before it gets started.  

Whether you’re just beginning the first draft, struggling in the muddled middle, or have gotten to THE END and are ready to roll up your sleeves for the next revisions, this webinar will equip you with tools to self-assess your book idea to make sure it has what it takes to make it through the vast expanse of the second act.

 In this webinar you will…

• POSE difficult questions of your book idea to discover its strengths and weaknesses. 
• LEARN to accept and work around your book’s biggest challenges. 
• DISCOVER specific techniques for tension and subplots (useful for pantsers and plotters alike) to propel your book through the vast second act

This webinar is ideal for…

• Writers early in their process of outlining or drafting,  and are having doubts about how they’ll make it to the end. 
• Writers who love outlining, but are unsure if their outline is going to cut it. 
• Writers who don’t outline, and are even more scared of the middle of their book for that reason. 
• Writers who’ve written most of a draft, or a complete draft, but have realized that the book has significant flaws, and should probably be re-written.

Closed captioning is available ✔
All registrants receive the recording ✔

YOUR PRESENTER

Peter Mountford is the author of the novels A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism (Washington State Book Award), and The Dismal Science (NYT editor’s choice). His work has appeared in the New York Times (Modern Love), Paris Review, Southern Review, The Atlantic, The Sun, Granta, and The Missouri Review. He teaches at University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe’s MFA.  His next book, a collection of stories called Detonator, will be out in late 2025.

Questions? Please email info@craft-talks.com