Losing the Plot

I'm getting there. I really think I am.

Having spent the last however-many-days reading Vogler again and setting out the 12 stages of the hero's journey, I have now come to the conclusion that my plot leaves a lot to be desired. Sob!

The story starts well. But it ought to - I've worked on it and re-written it for years. What I have never done is get far enough into the story to realise that the middle sags and the ending sucks. To be fair, the ending didn't stand a chance. Every time I tried to think of it I simply wrote the equivalent of "...and they all lived happily ever after" and hoped I'd have a kind of revelation by the time I got to writing that part.

Which somehow reminds me of the time my dear brother and I were children and wrote the antithesis of "Black Beauty" which was, naturally, "White Ugly". I don't remember much of the story itself (apart from an odd moment when we polished the horse's eyeballs . . . it's probably best not to remember any more). But I do remember the ending: "They all died sadly never before."

Now if only I could find an equally memorable ending for my own story. Or a more memorable one.