It's the problem with fairy tales. From far away, they seem so perfect. But up close, they're just as complicated as real life.
—Soman Chainani
You’re no longer in Kansas—but you’re not in Oz either.
You’re in the woods. And it’s foggy, disorienting, and weirdly quiet, except for the whispers of fear, doubt, and second-guessing.
Welcome to the murky marshland—also known as the reactive middle.
This is the messy heart of your memoir—where many memoirs fall off the map.
In Framing Your Memoir Through the Fairytale Lens, we discussed how well-crafted memoirs have a Three-Act Story. Let’s review those three acts.
Act 1: The Beginning (Set-Up)
The beginning sets the stage by introducing the main players—Hero, Villain, Fairy Godmother, and Kindred Spirit—while establishing the world of the story. It also presents the situation at hand and foreshadows the main problem (Life-and-Death Struggle) that drives the narrative forward. The beginning ends with Leaving the Shire.
Act 2: The Middle (Struggle)
This is where the Hero takes action to try solving the Life-and-Death Struggle. They will try various solutions, encounter resistance, and face setbacks. This is where your smaller stories come into play, like dominoes falling one by one, building momentum toward the climax.
Act 3: The End (Climactic Sequence and Resolution)
The climactic sequence leads to a final showdown. The struggle finally pays off, and the main problem (introduced in the beginning) is resolved. But this victory isn’t just handed to the Hero—it’s hard-won, requiring persistence and growth. Only then can you write “The End.”
Where Are We Now?
We’re in the middle struggle—but only the first half of the middle. That’s because, despite there being only three parts to a story, the middle—which is the biggest section—is split in two.
Both halves are a struggle, but the struggle is divided between a reactive struggle and a proactive struggle. Understanding this can make or break your memoir’s potential to keep readers.
The concept of a Three-Act Story with a split middle is common throughout literature and movies. The centerpiece of your memoir—and the changing of the guard—happens in the middle of the middle—in the Looking Glass Moment, where the Hero switches from being reactive to becoming proactive. They do this because they’ve learned something that awakens them.
But we’re getting ahead of the story. For now, we are focusing on the first half of the middle. It’s still a struggle—just a reactive struggle.
Think of the Two Struggles
Think about a girl who is bullied at school every day because another girl wants her lunch money. She gets up every morning and her mom gives her lunch money, but she rarely makes it to the lunch line because the money is stolen before lunch.
She tries different tactics to protect her money. She hides it in a book. She tucks it in her shoe. She gives it to a friend to keep. But every day, the bully figures it out and steals it again.
After weeks of being bullied, she wonders if the bully doesn’t have lunch money and that’s why she steals hers. She decides to offer half of her lunch money to the bully. It doesn’t work. The bully wants all of it. She tries to smile and befriend the bully. But that doesn’t work either.
She decides to fight back by hitting the other girl with her book bag, but that only lands her in the principal’s office. While she’s there, she tells the principal what’s happening, and the other girl is punished too. Her victory is short-lived because the next week, the other girl is back in true bully form, demanding her lunch money.
The Pivotal Moment
When she notices the other girl wearing the same dress every day, she asks her mother if she can invite the other girl over to spend the night. Her mother, knowing everything that has transpired, agrees hesitantly.
She is the same size as the bully. She wants to give her some of her clothes. On the night of the sleepover, she is sick to her stomach. What if this doesn’t work? Then she will have given this bully access to her home and her bedroom. What more can she steal from her?
The stakes are high. This is the showdown at midnight in the bedroom—where two opposing forces meet up and decide to either fight it out or become friends.
It turns out the bully girl has never been in a home as nice as our Hero’s. Never slept in a bed with princess furniture and baby dolls and so many stuffies looking on. But instead of fighting, she bursts into tears when she sees the beautiful clothes our Hero and her mother have set out for her.
As an added bonus, the Hero offers her a choice of her stuffies.
What started as a terrible, nauseating battle turns into a transformational moment as a beautiful friendship forms and the two girls grow up as best friends and sisters.
If only all the problems of the world were so easily solved, right?
I hope this little story helps you visualize how there can be two different halves of the middle struggle.
In the first half, the Villain kept our Hero on her toes, dodging one upset after another.
Then she became proactive and tried new ways to approach the bully.
Finally, her newer approaches to the problem overcame the bully’s tactics—and the other girl was a bully no more.
And What About You?
You’ve burned the boats. Walked away from the job, the church, the marriage, or the family. You’ve stepped into a world that is new, uncertain, and full of emotional potholes.
It’s important to note that leaving doesn’t always start with your feet.
Sometimes it begins in the mind—in the quiet refusal to keep playing along.
This is as much an inner journey as a physical one.
What Does Your Journey Through the Woods Look Like?
Your decision to leave the Shire was only the beginning. Now you must navigate the fallout. Trees are falling across your path, floods are threatening to sweep your dreams away, flying monkeys are dive-bombing your head, and a wolf is in hot pursuit to steal your life and dignity.
All you can do at this point is duck, dodge, hide—and hope to find a better way to deal with all the crap thrown at you.
You’re wading through the reactive middle.
You’re not yet in control.
You’re not transformed.
You’re just reacting to what’s happening around you—dodging backlash, unpacking grief, and facing consequences that you didn’t see coming.
Welcome to the “WTF?” wilderness.
This is survival mode.
Everywhere you step, there are emotional landmines. The map is gone. The Fairy Godmother has gone on break. And you're left to stumble forward, hoping something resembling a path will appear.
Why the Setup Matters
Before you entered the woods, you laid the groundwork. Your early chapters introduced us to the cast of characters, your beliefs, your background, and—importantly—the Villain and Inklings of Trouble.
Here, in the middle of the story, we get to see how you react to those villains, losses, betrayals, and disillusionments. You’re not making anything up—this is simply the natural chain reaction of events set in motion by your inciting incident: a moment so pivotal that it pushed you into Leaving the Shire (emotionally, spiritually, or physically).
Think of Leaving the Shire as an earthquake—and this middle section like a series of emotional aftershocks.
Key Ingredients of the Reactive Middle
1. Rising Tension
What are the consequences of your choice to leave or speak up? What has it cost you?
When did your beliefs start to unravel?
2. Trials and Tests
What are your struggles in the woods?
Do you feel confident in your choices, or do you waver?
Do you want to go back—or keep going?
Does your character have to choose between being free and being safe?
3. Obstacles and Helpers
When and where will your supporting cast show up?
How much of this journey through the woods will you travel alone?
Will you find:
A friend who validates your pain
A therapist who names your patterns
A book, song, or quote that changes your point of view
Or a toxic ex, pastor, or parent who keeps poking the wound
Both mentors and monsters are at odds in the woods—and that adds to the tension.
4. An Emotional Journey
This isn’t just about what happened—it’s about how it happened and what it means.
You’re shifting slowly from obedience to awareness:
“I kept trying to be the good girl, but every time I obeyed, I lost a piece of myself. Until I finally asked—what if I don’t need saving?”
You’re not yet transformed. Not yet triumphant. You’re just reacting.
And that’s your plot.
The Domino Effect
The inciting incident that sets the story in motion and causes you to leave the Shire is the first domino in a chain reaction. That reaction will continue throughout your story. Each event will build on the one before.
Once again—you are not making stuff up. Life is a chain reaction.
The difficult part for the memoir writer is to think long and hard about what these events were—and how you responded.
You might be afraid your memoir doesn’t have a plot, but the dominoes falling in response to why you left the Shire is the plot.
If you’re in the woods—flailing in the FOG (fear, obligation, and guilt put on you by the Villain)—but you keep moving forward, one step at a time.
Slow down and describe your feelings—one reaction at a time.
Memoir Requires Deep Introspection
This deep thinking demands memory tools. You might want to use:
Think of your memory as a superpower
Old photos
Songs you might have heard on the radio
Stories from others
Records of birth and death
Dates you moved from one place to another
Each of these might be clues to the mystery of why you acted the way you did—and made the choices you made.
Emotional Truth Over Factual Detail
Remember—you’re tracking the emotional truth, not just the factual one.
I deal very little in facts. Facts can obscure the truth.
You can tell so many facts you never get to the truth.
You can tell the places where, the people who, the times when, the reasons why—
and never get to the human truth, which is love and pain and loss and triumph.
—Maya Angelou
If you can focus on that human truth—of love, pain, loss, and triumph—you will be well on your way to a memoir that resonates.
A clear and helpful analysis, Cheri.
This is so awesome!