My Middle Is Sagging Badly

I could use a few sit-ups, but that’s not the problem.

The problem is with this blog.

When I was in the seventh grade, my teacher read aloud a poem called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A sailing ship is adrift. For most of the poem, no wind blows. The sailors strive to survive, fight, go mad, shrivel up from thirst and die. At the end, only one is left, the one who set the whole thing off by offending the gods. Years later, he is the ancient mariner, a nutjob telling his story to strangers, telling his truth in rhyme.

***

Beginnings are mystery and promise, endings resolution and promise. These are easy to conceive and to write. Middles tend to sag. Middles are complications … developments … multiplicity … relations … confusion … philosophy … truth.

Middles are where the art happens.


During the whole long middle of the Coleridge poem, I stared out the window, counting the cars on Nine Mile Road, the people going in and out of Mike’s Party Store, the hours until I would be going in there myself, on an errand from mom, buying dinner.

All overlaid, as with a gauze screen on which a movie is playing, the mariner’s surreal story.

“She’s off in her own little world,” they would say.

***

Writers follow the lead of their story. You try not to anticipate, you try to let it unfold. But the fact is, the story will not unfold without you. You have to be attentive to it, fully present; you must seek it out. And then wait.

When the lead is clear, when you understand what the story is saying, you take the initiative. You tell the story back to itself. A story loves nothing more than to hear itself told.

When you say yes to a story, you consent to submit to its lead. Otherwise, what are you doing? You are writing, but you are not telling a story. Perhaps you are thinking, perhaps you are directing. These underlie many a failed draft.

Storytelling is the most private of conversations. Tete-a-tete. You and the story are lost in each other, lost in the little world of your joint making.

This private conversation is what makes your story irresistible. Readers think they want to join the conversation, but that’s not exactly true. What readers crave, though they don’t name it, is to eavesdrop, to catch whispered snatches of the conversation between writer and story as it unfolds.

When a piece sags in the middle, it means the author has lost the connection with her story. Or that she is arguing with it.

***

I don’t dance well with a certain favorite lead any more. We don’t dance as often as we used to, and when we do, there’s a disconnect. I cannot read his story, and I am not telling him mine.

We are not lying, but we are not telling the truth. When he asks me to dance, the first thing I do is put myself away. Then I enter the embrace.

This feels dishonest. Not like stealing. Like betraying a confidence.

When a piece sags in the middle, it means the writer is being dishonest.

Not like lying.

Like betraying a confidence.

But whose?

***

Iyanla Vanzant is a popular psychologist. She writes books with titles like The Value in the Valley. Oprah likes her books very much. So does my friend Portia.

Self-help makes me twitch. Still, her name catches my eye in an old issue of Essence. I respect Portia enough to pay attention to Iyanla.

Tell the truth, she says. Tell the whole truth. Tell the whole truth about yourself, your dreams and lies. Tell the truth. Tell the radical truth. Tell it all.

Beginnings put the best face on things. Endings bring all to resolution. In the middle, all is revealed.

Middles are where the truth happens.

***

I once wrote a novel with a main character who was incapable of revealing anything about herself. She held herself very still. Her demeanor gave nothing away. She did not speak.

I tried to get her to talk. Authors do this kind of thing all the time.

Tell me your story, I urged her.

She stood, still and straight, her arms hanging at her sides, her palms facing me.

Who are you? I asked.

She wore a white dress, a loose shift. Her hair was in disarray. In the dense shade of a eucalyptus forest, I could not make out her face.

Tell me! Who are you? Tell me! I scolded.

She walked past in a tailored linen suit, wearing large sunglasses, her hair slicked back. A woman hiding in plain sight, like Jackie-O.

Hey! I shouted.

She turned, stood still and straight, her arms hanging at her sides, her palms facing me.

I could no more read her palms than her face.

She said only one thing: “I can’t say.”

I felt the words rise from her core. I felt her throat close around them. She was not lying; she was physically incapable of telling her story.

Now the blog is demanding: Who are you? What is your story?

I cannot read my own palms.

I can’t say.