Why Your Novel Could Use a Midpoint Scene

Let’s continue the conversation about how an understanding of screenplay movie mapping can help you with the plot of your novel. I’m going to jump ahead to the idea of Midpoint.

The Midpoint of a movie (no surprise) is about halfway through the movie. What’s its purpose? Well presumably your character will face a challenge near the end of your novel. It will be the novel’s climax. You have plans of how your character will triumph (or fail) during this scene/circumstance in your book.

But, it’s not enough for you to have a plan. There’s what you want to have happen in your novel, but then it also has to be believable. If your character has been an ineffective sad sack throughout the book, and then suddenly they find this strength of character to do what they have to do, the reader’s reaction might be, “This doesn’t seem true to the character that I’ve been reading so far. Where is this sudden growth coming from? This strength?” That strength needs to be foreshadowed. Things can’t happen simply because you want them to happen; they must feel organic and true to the character you have created.

The Midpoint is the chance for you to show us a growth in character or a strength of character that the reader (or in the case of a movie, the viewer) hasn’t seen up to this point. It foreshadows that the character will call upon this new growth in whatever challenge they face in the climax.

In a movie, the Midpoint tends to be very visual as well. Again, think of the 1977 Star Wars. The Midpoint is when Luke is alone rescuing Princess Leia from the detention block. He’s out from under the shadow of Ben and Han. He uses his grappling hook to swing he and Leia to safety. It’s incredibly visual. Luke is not the bumbling kid on the Millennium Falcon getting zapped in the rear end by a light saber training ball. He’s successfully swinging across the chasm. (And doesn’t that chasm foreshadow the very chasm he’ll be in when he’s trying to land a detonator in the hole that will blow up the Death Star… and decides to use the Force rather than his X-Wing Fighter’s onboard targeting equipment)? Perhaps the same Force that allowed him - in one throw - to land his grappling hook over the requisite pipe above?

Let’s think about the movie Kung Fu Panda (yes, even cartoon movies follow movie mapping structure… sometimes more rigidly than other movies). What’s the Major Dramatic Question of Kung Fu Panda? Well, it’s will Po defeat Tai Lung, the baddest badass from the land of badassery? We will eventually see Tai Lung defeat the Furious Five (which is Plot Point 2 of that movie… a major victory for the antagonist). If the Furious Five can’t defeat Tai Lung, how the hell can Po? We have to believe that Po has something special in him… otherwise his defeating Tai Lung becomes something the screenwriter wants to have happen, but isn’t necessarily believable.

For the first half of the movie, Po is determined to live up to his calling as the chosen one. But, he’s kind of a bumbling idiot for the first half. He also has an ongoing problem with his love of food… an impulse control issue that could be his downfall as kung fu requires a discipline of character that we just haven’t seen in him yet. We do see that he’s capable of enduring a lot of pain (which will help in his fight against Tai Lung)… we see too that he’s determined (even if inept), but it doesn’t seem like he’s absorbing much of the training he’s undergoing. His ongoing training is implied, but up until the Midpoint, the audience hasn’t seen that it’s done much good.

And then, the Midpoint. What’s the Midpoint of Kung Fu Panda? Well, it’s the dumpling scene. Watch it here:

Midpoint of Kung Fu Panda

The Midpoint is the fight for the dumpling. In it we see and experience just how much Po has learned from his training. Even to his surprise, he sees (and the master sees) that Po’s training is sinking in. And the end, too, where once he has won the dumpling he says, “I’m not hungry.” He sees that it wasn’t about the dumpling after all. He is gaining impulse control.

Notice, too, it’s visually driven. The master doesn’t talk about how much Po has learned. Po doesn’t talk about how much he now understands. Instead, we SEE and EXPERIENCE his new strength of character that not even he knew he was fully capable of (and which he will draw upon to defeat Tai Lung).

Think about your own novel. Could it use a Midpoint scene to show us something in your character that we haven’t seen up to this point. It might be absolutely crucial to build in such a scene if you want your climax to be believable and satisfying for the reader.

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