What is the Midpoint in a Story? How to Write Your Novel’s Game-Changing Hinge

Any good story has a lot of moving parts. Some, like the inciting incident or the climax, you might already be familiar with. But others are a bit less talked about, though no less essential to an engaging plot.

The midpoint is one of the biggest and most important plot points in a story. It completely changes everything for your characters, and for your readers. Let’s dive into everything you need to know about nailing this key plot point in your own work.

You can think of the midpoint as a “hinge” that separates a novel into two halves. The first half is the reactionary phase in which the main character adapts to unfamiliar circumstances, learns new skills, and comes to understand new things about the world and their place in it. The second half is the actionary phase in which the hero starts putting those things into practice in response to the story’s driving antagonistic forces. The midpoint is what ties these two parts together.

You’ll sometimes see the midpoint being called the story’s “mirror moment,” because it encompasses and reflects the story’s big themes. Structurally, the midpoint is one of the most important points in a story.

Where in a story does the midpoint scene occur?

In a story’s structure, the midpoint happens almost exactly half way through the narrative. It splits apart the first and third acts, dividing the story—and the hero’s journey—into two distinct parts.

The placement of the midpoint is important because it’s pretty common for the second act of a story to lose its momentum and start to drag. All of the really exciting stuff seems to bunch up at the beginning (the inciting incident, the first key turning point) and at the end (the catastrophe, the climax). So by dropping a huge bomb on your characters right in the middle, you shake things up just as they were getting comfortable.

In other words, you grab your reader’s attention.

What is the role of a story’s midpoint?

The midpoint serves a number of roles in a story arc including, as we saw above, adding some action to a story’s “muddy middle.” Here are a few other important reasons to make sure your story has a solid midpoint.

The midpoint raises the stakes

Stakes are one of the most essential and most overlooked aspects of developing a strong story. In other words, what your characters have to gain or lose. What will happen if they achieve their goals, and what will happen if they fail.

A strong midpoint takes those stakes and emphasizes them even further. The stakes become more urgent, more personal, more catastrophic. This pushes the reader to keep reading.

The midpoint forces the protagonist into action

A lot of the first half of a story is reaction. Once their lives are thrown off kilter by the first plot point, the protagonist struggles to make sense of their new world. The midpoint scene acts as a jolt that gets the protagonist taking control of their own fate. At this point the protagonist will often begin seeing things more clearly, including themself.

From this point, the main character is done being pushed around. They’re going to start planning and scheming and fighting for what they want. The choices they make will carry them to the end of the story.

The midpoint sends the story in a new direction

A lot of times, the midpoint will also subvert the reader’s expectations. Just when you thought you knew what was what, the characters encounter a new development or new information that changes everything.

At this point, the character might trade their old goal for a new goal, or achieve their original goal with some unexpected complications.

Types of midpoints in storytelling

The midpoint is one of the most significant moments in a story, but it can manifest in a few different ways. Here are the most common midpoints you’ll see in novels and movies.

The revelation

The revelation is a midpoint event that breaks open new information. The main character thought they knew what they were walking into, what they were fighting for, who they could trust, and suddenly all of that is blown apart.

Like any good midpoint, the revelation forces the protagonist to recalibrate and adapt. The new information alters the course of the story.

The big win

The big win happens when the protagonist achieves something they’ve been working towards for the first half of the novel. There’s a period of rest, celebration, a breath of relief.

But, the storm isn’t over yet. The big win might come with unexpected complications, or it might be just the first step in the ultimate battle.

The big lose

Then there’s the big lose—a major catastrophe that sends your characters reeling. This might be the death of a beloved character, the destruction of a home, or something more internal: a broken heart, a broken spirit, a shattered belief that the main character had held close to their heart.

At this point, the personal stakes are increased, and the characters will emerge forever changed.

The impossible choice

The final type of midpoint is the personal crisis in which the hero faces a pivotal choice. It’s the classic Superman conundrum: save an entire country, or the people he loves?

At this point the protagonist will usually have a chance to get what they’ve been working for all along. But to do so, they’ll have to give something up. This might be something they’ve gained along the way, or it could be a sacrifice of personal values.

This is the “point of no return” in which the character can never go back to the way things were.

How to write a solid midpoint for your own story

Ready to create your own epic midpoint? Here are some ways you can nail the midpoint hinge of your own story.

Reveal a big secret

One of the most satisfying things you can do as a writer is pull a bait-and-switch on your readers, revealing the truth in a flourish to shrieks and applause. A great way to set up your midpoint scene is to finally reveal something you’ve been hiding from your point-of-view character.

This might be something the readers already knew and the characters didn’t (i.e. dramatic irony), or something that’s a surprise to both of them. It could be new information about the antagonist (is it who they thought it was? Is the villain doing bad things for a good reason, sending the protagonist into a moral crisis?), or about the goal the protagonist was working towards (is the wizard as all-powerful as they thought? Will that promotion really be everything they dreamed?), or about a new complication that’s standing in the way.

Whatever it is, this piece of new information will upend the characters’ circumstances and make them recalibrate their plans.

Take something away

As your characters move through the rising action, plot points, and pinch points of the first act, they accumulate new skills, resources, and allies. When things start heating up, your character may start taking these resources for granted. Throw a grenade into their plans by taking something away from them.

This could be another character through death, betrayal, or capture; it could be a useful object or device that’s been making things easier; or it could even be some part of themselves they were sure they could fall back on (how would a master martial artist get out of a jam with a broken leg?).

This works well because it forces the characters to start thinking more creatively and to work even harder for what they want.

Create a new objective

Stories are powered by want, and as long as a character wants something (and is willing to fight to get it), your story will have momentum. Some writers structure their midpoint by having their characters achieve one goal—but, in doing so, create another one.

This could be because achieving the midpoint goal came with some unexpected consequences which now need to be dealt with. Or it could be that the goal didn’t turn out how the protagonist thought it would, or that they realize what they really wanted all along was something else.

“Voyage and return” stories work very well for this; they feature two concrete objectives back to back. The first half of the story is devoted to getting some place, and the second half is devoted to finding their way home.

Midpoint examples from literature and film

Here are a few examples of stories that have used this important scene in effective and memorable ways.

The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

The Wizard of Oz has excellent plotting and character development across the board. The midpoint happens when the friends (Dorothy Gale et al.) achieve the goal they’ve been working towards since the very beginning: to reach the wizard and ask for his help. And, after some challenges, they do just that. But! The story isn’t over.

Once they reach this goal, they’re given a new one: complete a task for the wizard to earn his favor. This scene creates a dramatic change in the story’s direction and starts the ball rolling all over again.

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

Dracula has a number of subplots winding around each other as the story progresses. There’s Jonathan Harker, stumbling his way through Dracula’s castle and his upcoming nuptials. There’s the all-star female friendship between Mina and Lucy. And then, oh yes, there’s some suspicious nightly shenanigans happening upstairs in Lucy’s bedroom.

The midpoint brings these threads together by revealing that the effervescent debutante, Lucy, has joined the legion of the undead.

This midpoint works well because it brings the core conflict home and gives the reader new understanding of what’s at stake (hah). The danger has gone from being hypothetical to being deeply and unsettlingly personal.

The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

The Midnight Library is an episodic, character-driven book about dealing with depression and regret. So its midpoint is more internal than you might find in a more action-driven book. In The Midnight Library, the protagonist gets to window shop for a new life by trying out all the different people she could have been, had she made different choices.

The midpoint occurs when the central character, Nora, is attacked and realizes that her native life isn’t so bad after all. It marks a shift in her journey as she begins to fight for her existence instead of throwing it away.

Nail your story’s midpoint

There’s a lot to juggle as you make your way from first idea to first draft to polished manuscript. The midpoint happens bang in the middle, and it plays an important role in tying together the disparate parts of a plot to form a cohesive story.

For a writer, the midpoint helps you visualize how to frame the second half of a story so that you can build to a satisfying ending. And a satisfying ending means satisfied readers.