Kirsty Hammond has been a member of Ayr Writers Club for ten years. She writes Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. She is a winner of SCBWI’s Undiscovered Voices 2026 competition. Her work has been shortlisted by the Scottish Arts Club Flash Fiction Award; the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize and she has won the Scottish Association of Writers’ Silver Thistle Award twice for a teen novel. She self-published ‘A lullaby for the Warrior Maiden’, a short story collection, in 2024.
On Wednesday the 21st of October Kirsty shone a spotlight on the importance of the ‘middle’ of novel writing. How important it is to get this part right in terms of raising the stakes for the character, plot or both and in creating the point of no return for the characters in the story.
Kirsty, a self-confessed ‘structure geek’ pointed out that we talk a lot about the beginning and end of novels and stories but not so much about the middle. A novel needs the middle to have a strong focus leading it to a strong conclusion and she stated that a strong midpoint can carry your story through to a satisfying end. A tip is to aim for the middle in your writing and then aim for the end.
Straight away we were given the task of free writing to get our minds into gear. We were then challenged in groups to ‘fill in the story’ considering scenarios from a mix of genres such as Crime, Romance and Sci Fi. This created some entertaining discussions on a variety of possibilities ranging from serial killers, aliens, set ups and the Slug appreciation society.
As a further challenge we considered the midpoint of films. We thought about Jaws, The Hunger Games, The Godfather and Titanic and this generated differing views and answers. After discussion we were encouraged to revisit our original challenge to consider if we would change anything and to start, if we wished, to write a scene from the midpoint.
An entertaining and informative evening for us all with Kirsty providing insight, ideas and tips for avoiding the messy middle in our writing!
Morag Mackenzie