If you don’t know what happens next in your story, there may be a reason every idea you come up with feels wrong.
I knew this girl who was dating a guy that I could tell was bad news. She couldn’t see it. She was completely bonkers over him. But from where I stood, it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t being faithful.
Then one night, we were supposed to meet for dinner, but my friend was late. So there I was, sitting alone with this guy.
Suddenly, I realized I was attracted to him.
I remember thinking, “Oh no.”
Then my friend arrived, and I tried to act like everything was fine. Meanwhile, he and I kept stealing these glances at each other across the table.
I left that night wondering what on earth I was going to do.
And then the next evening, he called me and said…
Oh, shoot. I don’t know what comes next.
Don’t you hate that feeling?
You sit there searching for the next scene, and every idea feels wrong. What happens next? It’s where a lot of writers get stuck.
So what is it? Why are you left staring at the page with no idea what happens next?
I’m going to show you.
Why What Happens Next in Your Story Should Grow Out of Pressure
When you don’t know what comes next in your story, you might assume that you’ve run out of ideas. Maybe you need more inspiration or just to step away from it for a while.
Sometimes that might be the case. But most of the time, when I see a writer who has lost the path forward, the problem is in the story structure.
Because when the structure is working, the story keeps creating pressure.
Your character wants something, and something stands in the way. They make a choice, and then that choice changes the situation. Now they have a new problem to deal with.
One thing keeps leading to another naturally.
When that chain breaks, you reach the end of a scene and suddenly there’s nowhere obvious to go. You can invent something, of course, but it feels random for one reason: The story itself isn’t asking for it.
Go back to the story I told you at the beginning. And yes, it’s a story. It’s not true!
So this guy calls me after that dinner. The story could go in several different directions from there, but it has already created a question that has to be answered.
How What Happens Next in Your Story Grows Out of What Came Before
Do I take the call? Do I tell my friend? Do I try to convince myself that nothing happened? Do I make a choice that’s going to hurt someone?
I have options, but I can’t suddenly decide to spend the next scene reorganizing my kitchen cabinets, for example.
The pressure that’s already been set up is asking for a response.
That’s what good story structure does. It creates pressure that narrows the field and gives the next scene a job to do.
Think about the beginning of Charlotte’s Web. Fern learns that her father is about to kill the runt pig, and she can’t accept that. So she argues with him and saves Wilbur.
That choice naturally creates the next part of the story because now she has a pig to care for.
As Wilbur grows, Fern’s father decides that it’s time to sell him. So her uncle Homer Zuckerman buys him and takes him to live in his barn.
That change leaves Wilbur lonely and vulnerable, which opens the door for Charlotte to enter the story.
Each new scene grows out of the pressure created by the one before it.
The writer still has choices. Structure doesn’t mean there’s only one possible thing that could happen next, but the story should be asking for something.
So you might be asking, “What could happen next?”
Instead, it would be better to ask, “What has my story already created that now needs an answer?”
If you don’t know, it’s likely a structure problem.
Let me show you the common structural problems I see that can lead to this sort of stuckness and how you can fix them so you can move forward on your story again.
What Happens Next in Your Story Often Starts With the Antagonist
The most common reason I see writers lose direction, by far, is that the antagonist has stopped doing anything.
When I say antagonist, that doesn’t always mean an evil villain. It could be, but it could also be just a coworker or a family member. It’s whoever is working against what your main character wants.
Their job is to create trouble that your main character can’t ignore. That pressure, more than anything, is what gives the story its next move.
If you don’t know what happens next, it’s most likely that your antagonist is not doing their job.
Think about the story I told you at the beginning. I’m already in a difficult situation because I’m attracted to my friend’s boyfriend.
In this story, the boyfriend is functioning as the antagonist. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s an evil villain. It just means he’s the person putting pressure on me and making it harder for me to protect my friendship and stay out of trouble.
I could go home that night, stay away from him, and try to forget the whole thing.
But then he calls me. The antagonist puts on pressure. Now the situation is harder to avoid. His call demands some kind of response.
Do I answer? Do I just let it ring? Do I tell my friend? What does he want from me?
The moment he makes that call, the story begins asking for another scene naturally.
What Happens Next in Your Story Can Vanish When the Pressure Does
Now imagine that he never calls.
He never sends a message, never tries to see me again, and acts perfectly normal around my friend.
I may still feel guilty or confused, but the outside pressure has disappeared. Nothing is forcing me to act, so the story can easily sit there.
And I would be struggling to know what happens next.
Do you see how that works? Your antagonist drives the pressure.
We see the same thing in Charlotte’s Web. At the beginning, Fern learns that her father is about to kill the runt pig.
Mr. Arable functions as the antagonist in that moment because what he plans to do stands directly against what Fern wants and what Wilbur himself wants too.
That threat gives Fern something she has to do immediately. She runs outside and fights to save Wilbur.
Later, once Wilbur moves to Mr. Zuckerman’s barn, Mr. Zuckerman takes over the antagonist role.
He’s not an evil villain. He’s just a farmer raising a pig in the ordinary way that farmers do. But because he plans to slaughter Wilbur, his goal stands directly against Wilbur’s goal of staying alive.
The deeper opposing force throughout the story is the threat of death for this pig. But Mr. Zuckerman is the person who can ultimately carry that threat out.
Your Story Needs the Opposing Force to Keep Moving
Once Wilbur learns what Mr. Zuckerman intends to do, the story has pressure again.
Wilbur can’t simply enjoy his life in the barn and hope everything works out. He’s worried about losing his life.
Charlotte has to find a way to save him.
That threat leads to her plan to write words in her web. Every time the people begin to lose interest, Charlotte has to come up with another word.
The pressure of Wilbur’s oncoming death keeps creating the problem, and the characters keep responding.
Imagine the story without that threat.
Wilbur just lives in the barn, Charlotte becomes his friend, Fern visits him, and everyone is basically comfortable and happy.
It might be pleasant, but there would be very little reason for anything else to happen. The story would ask for nothing. There’s no pressure.
This is what often happens in writers’ manuscripts. They introduce an antagonist or an opposing force near the beginning, but then that force kind of fades into the background. The villain waits around. The rival disappears. The threat just stops growing.
The main character has time to talk, think, travel, and prepare without anyone making the situation worse. Eventually, the writer reaches a scene and has no idea what should happen next.
And we can see why. There is no pressure demanding another scene.
To Find What Happens Next in Your Story, Ask What the Antagonist Is Doing
So, in your story, ask yourself: What is my antagonist doing right now?
If you don’t have a clear answer, your antagonist might not be working hard enough.
To fix that, figure out the next thing the opposing force would naturally do to get what they want, which, if you set up the story right, should be in opposition to what your main character wants.
The antagonist does their thing, and now your main character has to respond.
In my story, the boyfriend makes the call. I respond. Maybe later he acts all lovey-dovey with my friend, and I’m confused. What do I do?
That’s pressure demanding that I do something.
Someone applies pressure, and suddenly your main character has a problem they have to deal with. That answer becomes your next scene.
What Happens Next in Your Story Depends on What the Middle Is Doing
Another reason writers don’t know what comes next is that they don’t really understand what the middle of a story is supposed to do.
A lot of writers know how the story is supposed to start. They may know how it ends. But the middle feels like this big empty space that they don’t know how to fill.
And this is really common. I struggled with this a lot when I started writing, too.
So maybe they send the character somewhere new or introduce another person or another problem. Then things happen, but those things don’t really lead anywhere.
Here’s where the misunderstanding usually is.
The middle isn’t just the part where more things happen.
In its simplest terms, the middle is where your main character and the antagonist start pushing against each other.
John Truby, in The Anatomy of Story, describes this as a “punch-counterpunch” confrontation between the hero and opponent.
The antagonist makes a move that creates pressure on your protagonist. Your protagonist responds. That response causes a new problem.
So the antagonist pushes back or pushes again. Then your main character has to make another choice.
The story keeps moving because neither side is standing still. They’re both moving and trying to get what they want.
And because what they want is in opposition to one another, the story demands another scene and another and another.
What Happens Next in Your Story Comes From Punch and Counterpunch
Go back to the story about my friend’s boyfriend. He calls me. That’s his move. Now I have to respond.
Maybe I answer and tell him he should never call me again. That sounds like it might end the problem.
But what if he says he can’t stop thinking about me? What if he tells me my friend already suspects him of cheating and that their relationship is falling apart?
Now the situation has changed. Pressure has gone up. I tried to shut the door, but instead he pushed it open farther.
Punch, counterpunch.
So let’s say I make another move. Maybe I tell my friend what happened, but she doesn’t believe me. Or she believes me and she blames me. “What are you flirting with my boyfriend for?” Or she confronts him, and he tells her a completely different version of the story. He lies.
Each choice I make as the main character creates another consequence. Each attempt to fix the situation makes it harder in a new way.
That’s what the middle is. The main point is that the pressure has to rise each time, making things harder and harder for your main character.
What Happens Next in Your Story Gets Clearer When the Pressure Keeps Rising
We can see this in Charlotte’s Web, too.
Mr. Zuckerman plans to slaughter Wilbur. That’s the pressure Charlotte has to answer.
So Charlotte writes “Some Pig” in her web, and the humans are amazed. For a while, it looks as though her plan might work.
But one web doesn’t solve the whole problem. The excitement fades, and Wilbur’s future is still in jeopardy.
So Charlotte has to do something else. She finds new words. She keeps changing the way people see Wilbur.
But the threat of slaughter remains. It gets worse because the slaughter date is getting closer and closer.
People love these words, and they start coming to see Wilbur and the new messages, but the threat remains. The farmer still plans to slaughter him.
Punch, counterpunch, plus the urgency of time passing.
Eventually, the plot carries them all the way to the fair, where Wilbur’s fate is finally decided.
By the way, this is why you want to allow your main character to fail and fail again. This is another problem I see. Writers so much want their characters to succeed that they have them do these brilliant things way too early in the story.
If every plan works the first time, there’s no need for another move.
What happens next?
Well, I don’t know. The main character already did this great thing. So what’s left?
The story’s over.
Failure Can Create What Happens Next in Your Story
Failure doesn’t always mean complete disaster. Sometimes the plan works for a minute but then creates a worse problem.
Or maybe it gets the character closer to their goal, but the price is higher than they thought it would be, causing another problem.
In Charlotte’s Web, the first message gets attention, but it doesn’t instantly guarantee that Wilbur will be allowed to live.
Charlotte has to keep working.
In the boyfriend story, telling him not to call may not make him disappear. Telling my friend may not protect the friendship.
It may make it worse. Doing the sensible thing may still lead to a painful result.
Your main character is making choices but failing to solve the problem over and over again. That resistance is what gives you, as a writer, somewhere to go next.
So, if you reach the middle of your story and you don’t know what happens, look at the last move your character made.
- Did the antagonist push back?
- Did the main character’s attempt change the situation?
- Did your character fail, at least partly, in a way that now demands another response?
If your answer is no, the middle can start to feel like this fog. You’re trying to invent something new because your last event didn’t create one on its own.
You don’t have enough pressure going on to get the story moving again. Let your character make a real attempt to solve the problem, and then let that attempt fail. Let the opposing force answer back.
That counterpunch creates a natural next scene.
Map What Happens Next in Your Story Without Losing the Fun
If you’re writing a story and you know there’s something good in there, but you can’t quite see how the pieces fit together, I’ve created something that can help.
It’s called Map to Storyland, and it gives you a fun, visual way to map your story from the opening all the way to the ending while still leaving plenty of room for discovery as you write.
You’ll work through four story maps that will help you see where your character is going, how the pressure builds, where the story starts to tighten, and how the emotional wound connects to the plot.
Once you’ve mapped it all out, you can step back and see the whole story path in front of you.
That means when you get stuck in the middle, lose track of what the antagonist is doing, or start wondering what in the world is supposed to happen next, you have something concrete to come back to.
There’s even a game board that lets you follow your character through the whole journey and keep the process playful while you write.
So if you’d love a clearer path through your story, stronger structure, and a much easier way to figure out what needs to happen next, check out Map to Storyland.
What Happens Next in Your Story Needs a Clear Main Character Goal
The third problem I see that gets writers stuck is that your main character either doesn’t have a clear enough goal from the beginning, or they aren’t making choices that change the story.
These two problems usually travel together.
Your main character’s goal gives the story direction. It tells us what they’re trying to make happen. Their choices are what move them toward that goal or sometimes move them away from it.
But if they don’t have a clear goal, the character doesn’t really have anything to do. They have nothing to pursue. If they’re not the ones making key choices, they may have a goal, but everyone else is making the choices around them while they sort of sit there.
You don’t want that either.
So let’s go back to the story about my friend’s boyfriend. My goal might just be to have a good time with my friend, try to protect her from this dude that I don’t think is good for her, and stay out of it myself.
Key point here: Having the goal isn’t enough.
I have to do something because of that goal.
Actions Decide What Happens Next in Your Story
For example, I could just see that this guy is no good but decide not to do anything because I’m too afraid of rocking the boat.
So I just don’t say anything.
That’s not a story, right?
It becomes a story when I decide I have to do something because I care about my friend. That choice gives me my initial direction.
I want to protect my friend, so I plan to say something to her about it. But the opportunities keep slipping past me because maybe I’m nervous about it or I don’t know quite how to word it. I don’t know how she’s going to react.
So I plan to tell her for sure at this dinner we go to. But then she’s late. The boyfriend is there. Suddenly, I’m faced with an even bigger problem.
I decide to just struggle through the dinner and try to let it drop.
But then the antagonist makes his move. He calls me. Now I have to make a choice.
Do I answer his call? Do I tell him to leave me alone? Do I tell my friend what happened? Do I keep quiet because I’m afraid she’ll blame me?
Each of these choices changes the situation and creates another problem in the story.
Consequences Keep What Happens Next in Your Story Moving
Suppose I tell him never to call me again, and maybe he calls anyway. Or suppose I tell my friend, and maybe she thinks I was flirting with him. Or suppose I say nothing. Now I have to hide what happened while he keeps finding ways to contact me.
Or maybe I have to watch him go on with my friend, knowing what happened, and it bugs me.
My goal is still to protect my friend, but my choices keep changing the road that I’m on.
This is what it means for the main character to drive the story.
Now let’s imagine a different version.
The boyfriend calls, but somebody else answers the phone for me. Then my friend somehow finds out what happened without me telling her.
She confronts him. He makes a decision. Their relationship ends. Meanwhile, I mostly stand there watching.
Things are happening, but I’m not driving them. My decisions aren’t creating these consequences.
So it becomes harder to see what my next move should be.
Do you see?
That’s a case of the main character failing to drive the story. The main character has no agency.
Character Agency Helps Create What Happens Next in Your Story
We can see the same thing in Charlotte’s Web.
Charlotte has a very clear goal: to save Wilbur from being slaughtered.
Because that goal is clear, she can make a plan. She decides to change the way the humans see him by writing words in her web.
That choice changes the entire story. People come to see Wilbur. Mr. Zuckerman begins to think that there may be something special about him. Charlotte chooses another word and then another one. She sends Templeton to find scraps that she can use. Her actions keep changing Wilbur’s situation.
Charlotte isn’t waiting for somebody else to save him. She’s driving the effort herself. And because her choices don’t solve everything right away, she has to keep making new ones.
Sometimes we writers are afraid to let our main characters make a choice that could go badly. We worry that the character will look selfish or weak. So the character waits until they know the perfect thing to do, or somebody else steps in and handles the problem.
But a main character who doesn’t fail or who never risks making the wrong decision isn’t an admirable character.
And it’s not one your reader is going to bond with or want to follow all the way to the end.
Risky Choices Give What Happens Next in Your Story Somewhere to Go
Readers want to see this main character struggle. They want to feel like it’s a real human, and see them mess up just like they do in their lives. They want to feel like this person is real.
So you have to give them that by allowing your main character to struggle and fail.
In the boyfriend story, maybe I know telling my friend could destroy the friendship, but I do it anyway. Maybe I hide the call and make things worse. Either choice gives the story somewhere to go.
You see? It’s moving.
Your main character doesn’t always have to make the right choice. In fact, I’d say that most of their choices need to lead to failure or at least to the story going against them somehow. That creates more pressure.
So if you don’t know what comes next in your book, ask yourself:
- What does my main character want right now?
- What choice are they making to get it?
- And how does that choice change the situation?
If the goal is vague, make it more specific. If the character is mostly waiting or reacting to what others do, give them a decision to make. Then let that decision have consequences. Even if those consequences make everything worse.
Once your main character chooses, the story has something new to do.
Find Where What Happens Next in Your Story Stopped Creating Itself
These aren’t the only reasons you may not know what comes next in your story. But these are the three structural problems I see most often.
And here’s what they all have in common: Somewhere along the way, the story stopped creating its own next move.
When you set up your story correctly, it will naturally press forward. You won’t have to rack your brain to come up with something that needs to happen next. You’ll just have to choose which of the options you want to go with.
This is why brainstorming more scenes doesn’t solve the problem most of the time. You may come up with plenty of things that could happen, but they might still feel wrong because they aren’t growing out of what the story has already set in motion.
The good news is you probably don’t need to figure out the entire rest of the book. You just need to find the point where that chain broke and repair the next link.
Use These Questions to Find What Happens Next in Your Story
Go to the point in your story where you feel stuck and you’re not sure what happens next. Then look back at the last two or three or four or five scenes.
Ask yourself, “What does my main character want right now? And is that showing up clearly?”
Then ask, “What has the antagonist or opposing force done to make it harder for my main character to get what they want?”
And finally, “What choice did my main character make? And what new problem did that choice create?”
Ask yourself those questions and see if you can find the broken link in the chain.
If you’d like something that gives you enough structure to keep your story moving while still having the fun of discovering it as you write, come check out Map to Storyland.
And if you’d like ongoing help with both story craft and the mental loops that can keep you stuck on your book, come join us inside Writer’s Brain Studio.
Featured image by creativeart on Magnific.