105. You don’t have a really obvious mid-point!

Have you read Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell? 

It has a showstopper beginning, where a girl finds out her father put their family farm up for his bail -- and then blew town. That’s the beginning. She has to track his ass down or lose her farm.

In a good story, at the middle of the middle (midway through Act II) a moment comes where something wonderful happens that turns out to be horrible, or something awful happens that turns out to be not so bad. 

At the middle of Winter’s Bone, after she’s spent the first half looking for her old man, hoping she can find him before she loses the farm, the father’s car is found burned up. He’s disappeared and hasn’t made his court date, and now the girl has to figure out what to do because she is going to lose the land. 

This is not good news.

It’s an emotional low point for her because now, at the very middle of the story, she must decide whether or not to log her family’s virgin forest... because if she doesn’t, they’ll be broke... but if she does, she’ll become the first family member since time began to cut these trees.

It’s a pivotal moment in the story, happens right smack in the middle of the book, and whatever she chooses to do, will have gigantic consequences. 

Halfway through, the writer gives the main character a ghastly, and crucial choice. She has to decide between starvation and destroying the family heritage. Both are difficult, bad choices. They are also equal choices. Each is grim and horrible and there is no light at the end of either tunnel. If she chooses starvation, she and her crazy mother and her two little brothers will die. If she chooses to destroy the family heritage, she becomes a non-person.

At the mid point, she finds out that her father is dead. It’s a huge, big deal and major stuff happens because of it.

Everybody talks about Act I, II, and III... but not so many pay attention to the middle of the movie. But you will, won’t you!