Writing a Middle that Does More than Bridge the Gap

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From a LinkedIn post by Charles Duhigg, 11/18/2024

See full post here.

Charles Duhigg's point about the importance of material that occupies the middle—of a traditional story or nonfiction work—is a good one to consider when it comes to the writing process. The idea that a solid beginning and ending are prerequisite to “the rest” is widely held, and their accomplishment sometimes accompanied by a relieved feeling of having locked in the linear direction of material between. There's nothing wrong with that approach if it works, but especially in the realm of nonfiction, there are ways to guide yourself steadily forward without first nailing down start and finish.

It's common and even healthy for organizational tentpoles of your writing, from bookends to outline, to evolve as the work does—as you discover more relevant corroborating research, stumble upon new cultural artifacts you can work into better metaphors, take more brainstorming showers that result in fresher ideas about how to structure, frame, and interconnect your ideas.

Coalescing “middle writing” around your main ideas in a way that builds toward conclusions that meaningfully unite them is important—but so is keeping your eyes open to unforeseen resources and devoting some sessions to writing as expansively and wanderingly as you wish. While writing is understandably regarded as an effect of clear thought, it frequently serves as a means of generating the same. You could find that engaging in a certain amount of organic writing—and, with it, roaming thought—produces enough new questions, answers, and/or links to render your original starting and ending points too narrow.

Engaging intentionally but spontaneously with the vast material that will make up the middle of your writing project gives you the best chance to stock it well with examples, references, personal tie-ins, delicate insights, and even humor that can occur on the fly. Writing this way honors the fact that the middle of your writing is the journey that, according to everyday wisdom, outranks destination.