Dear Geist,

How can I break up a logjam in my novel? It’s a passage about halfway through, and it’s right at the heart of the protagonist’s trouble, and I care about it. But for some reason I cannot get it to work. I’ve rewritten it four times now and every draft is more tortured than the last one. Any suggestions?

Dear Stuck,

), try this. Read through the troublesome passage and choose a sentence or phrase that calls to you, whether because it’s so boring or so disturbing or so appealing. Pull it out and write it down, longhand, on a new piece of paper or in your notebook. Put the rest of the manuscript out of sight. Set a timer for fifteen minutes and write from that pulled sentence, going wherever it takes you. Keep the pencil moving. When your time is up, read over the new text. Identify the sentence or phrase in it that calls to you, and write it down on a new piece of paper or in your notebook. Put all other text out of sight. Set the timer for fifteen minutes and write from the new bit. Repeat the process two more times. We can guarantee that something interesting will come of this exercise. Here’s hoping it’s the key to the recalcitrant passage. Middles are hard!