On Helping Writers become Authors:

Many writers discover that connecting the plot points of a story is far harder than identifying them. It’s easy enough to name the big turning points on a beat sheet, but when you sit down to write the pages that bridge those landmarks, the story can feel as if it’s stalling in the middle. The real challenge (and the true power of story structure) lies in shaping the in-between sections so they carry momentum. If you want to know how to keep your story moving between the big moments, it helps to look at those stretches as purposeful sequences that grow out of one turning point and drive the story to the next.

This is exactly what one writer asked me specifically about, wondering how to handle all the “in-between moments” without the story lagging. Here’s Stephanie’s question: