How to Break Through the Messy Middle of Memoir with the Story Star

The Magic of the Messy Middle & how it holds the key to true transformation…

By Louisa Deasey

If you’ve ever started a big project or personal transformation (hello, writing any kind of book-length narrative!), and reached that stuck point of the “messy middle” where progress feels as slow as glue, this article is for you. If you’re writing a book, starting a business, changing your lifestyle routine or renovating a house, any kind of change or personal transformation –  understanding this part of the change process is more important than most people realise.
I truly believe it’s the inability to see the messy middle coming, and to prepare for it,  that sees so many people ‘give up’ on large projects and personal change. And by ‘give up’, I mean, taking such a long break that returning to the process feels as hard as starting all over again.
Let’s face it – all creative projects involve change and the unknown. It’s the very essence of creation! We are creating something that has not yet existed…

In this article, I want to share how understanding the Emotional Cycle of Change and applying the Story Star Codes can help you navigate the emotional ups and downs of transformation so that you can finally create lasting change and break through to the transformational ‘finish line’ of your project.

The Story Star Codes are my own methodology I use to teach both memoir writing and personal transformation inside The Art of Memoir, my comprehensive programme. I combine various patterns of story structure, psychological understandings of archetypal patterns, my own memoir writing tools and techniques and I pull the whole thing together in a six principle process that ensures a compelling narrative and deep and lasting change on a psychological level.

But first – what IS the messy middle of the creative process?

To understand the messy middle, you need an overview of the emotional journey involved in human change. This gives you a great way to see the steps you can take to push through The Messy Middle which is also known as The Valley Of Despair for how it shows up: that critical point in the emotional cycle of change which feels like a crisis and it’s where most people give up.
In writing terms, both for the author and for the story, it’s also known as the Messy Middle – that point in a manuscript draft where you can’t see the end point and you’ve lost all the enthusiasm you started with…

Understanding the Emotional Cycle of Change

When I first learned about how common resistance is in the midway and almost-there points of any personal or creative shift (thanks to The War of Art by Steven Pressfield) it reassured me that I wasn’t alone.
And, sure, it was nice to have a name for it. Resistance. Great! Messy Middle. Great!
But other than knowing to expect things to be ‘tough’ in the middle, there seemed to clear plan or shifts I could control to move through it.
I WANTED ACTUAL TOOLS TO MOVE THROUGH THIS – NOT JUST A NAME OR A LABEL FOR WHY I FELT SO STUCK

It wasn’t until I learnt about the Emotional Cycle of Change, that I started to see the correlation between storytelling and the human psychological path of change. I first heard about the Emotional Cycle of Change on a bodybuilding podcast interview with a professional bodybuilder. I’d been teaching storytelling techniques inside my writing programmes for years, but couldn’t see the connection until then. And while bodybuilding and writing a book are completely different tasks, they both involve personal transformation.
Just like any creation or change: they force us to face ourselves in that middle point where we can’t see forward or back and most importantly: make NEW decisions and forge NEW neural pathways. Or we will just keep repeating the cycle, the story, and never achieving a full character arc or transformation.

The Emotional Cycle of Change explains why the middle of a project is often the most difficult part—why so many people give up halfway through. But more importantly, it set me off on a journey to plan and prepare so I could ensure I had the structures in place to continue to move forward from that place. To the finish line. To fulfilment. To completion – yes, even if it takes longer than expected (because it ALWAYS takes longer than expected.)

It’s the process I teach to move through the messy middle of the book drafting and pitching process in The Art of Memoir, and I’m about to share it with you here….

But first, it’s important to understand The Emotional Cycle of Change:

The Emotional Cycle of Change is a five-stage framework that describes the emotional journey we go through whenever we attempt to make a significant change in our lives.
Here’s a breakdown of the five stages:

Stage 1: Uninformed Optimism

This is the honeymoon phase of any new project. You’re excited, motivated, and filled with visions of sugarplums dancing in your head – ie. you’re inspired! Whether you’re embarking on a weight loss journey, starting a new business, or writing your first book, your potential in that part of it feels limitless. You think you’re all in, and you truly believe that you can achieve the desired result. You buy the tools, you set up your work station, you tell your friends, this is it!

Stage 2: Informed Pessimism

This is when you’ve been Doing The Work for a month (or more) and showing up consistently, and you realise it’s going to take longer than you first thought. As you work, you start to see just how much more there is to do and just how far you have to go. You may feel overwhelmed and doubt whether you can really pull it off.
I remember when I started my business, I enrolled in a course on creating online courses, and I was told I didn’t need to understand tech. Ha! As soon as I started to do the course (on building a course), I quickly saw there were at least 5 softwares I needed to learn to get even the most basic course set up online. It felt discouraging and like I’d been duped. Still, I plugged on, because I’d paid for the course (on building a course) and i wanted the outcome. But it was beginning to look more and more complex and I saw more of what I didn’t know, the further in I got…

Stage 3: The Valley of Despair

This is the most crucial stage—the point where most people give up. You’re in a crisis of meaning. Nothing seems to be working, and you’re not seeing any tangible rewards. The progress feels invisible, and it’s easy to start questioning why you ever started in the first place.

Most people never get past this stage. They either start a new project, sign up for a new course, or go back to square one. We tend to assume the grass is greener at the beginning again – so we start something new! This is why so many weight loss programs, business ventures, and renovation projects end up abandoned and people buy the same thing in a different package, again and again and again.

Stage 4: Informed Optimism

If you make it through the valley and just keep going… you start to see progress again—but this time, it’s grounded in reality. You’ve learned the lessons you needed to learn, and your optimism is now informed by experience. You start gaining momentum and moving forward.

Stage 5: Success and Fulfillment

This is the stage where the transformation happens. You’ve made it. You’ve changed, and the outcome reflects that change. You’re never going back to who you were before. Whether it’s completing your book draft, sending it out to publishers, building your writer platform, launching a successful business, or achieving a lifestyle goal, this is the point where real, lasting transformation is shown. BUT – it’s only there because you accepted the crisis point and kept going.
Read that again – that crisis point is exactly where the change is happening. That’s why it feels so unknown AND unknowable. Because you’ve never experienced it before! It’s asking you to BECOME a new version.

Why Most People Never Break Through the Valley of Despair

Here’s the harsh truth: Most people never make it past the Valley of Despair. They get stuck in the messy middle, where nothing seems to be happening, and they lose their sense of purpose. At this point, it’s easy to fall victim to shiny object syndrome—thinking that another course, strategy, or goal might be the solution. And most people go back on their initial promise to themselves – whether it was to give up sugar, go to the gym or finish that book.

But here’s the key: The Valley of Despair is where the real transformation happens.
It’s the moment when your identity begins to shift, and you move from human to hero. IF and ONLY IF YOU KEEP GOING FORWARD, NOT BACK.
Tools that help you move through this messy middle / valley of despair point is where the Story Star Codes come in…

How the Story Star Codes Help You Push Through the Valley of Despair

🌠 The Story Star Codes are a set of six principles I developed both to structure a compelling and page-turning story AND to help you navigate personal transformation.
Because the unconscious governs our understanding of story and it also governs the thoughts, beliefs, patterns and programs that govern our behaviour. WAY more than the conscious mind. If it was up to our conscious mind, an affirmation or a vision board or a promise would work.

But it doesn’t. So – you have to change the story from the inside out. And that starts with UNDERSTANDING story.
Whether you’re writing a memoir, building a business, or changing any area of your life. These ‘story’ codes are more than just tools for writing compelling stories; these story star codes are keys to understanding your psychological development and pushing through the challenging parts of any process.
Knowing how they work won’t just change your story and its trajectory – they will completely change how you move through life.

Story Star Code 1: The Hook – Identifying the Problem

The first Story Star Code is the hook—the core problem or blind spot that you’re trying to overcome. This is the reason you decided to make a change in the first place. It’s what motivates you to get started. Whether it’s a business challenge, a health goal, or a creative pursuit, identifying your hook is critical.

If you can’t articulate your hook, you’ll struggle to stay motivated when things get tough. The hook is the heart of the change you’re trying to make, and it’s the thing that keeps you moving forward. It’s both the problem and why it matters to YOU. Nobody can tell you your hook, it must be found in your heart. It’s formed from your values, your experiences, your unique perceptions and the meaning you have made from seemingly inconsequential events. This is why every single story is unrepeatable from one human to the next.

Story Star Code 2: The Promise – A Vision of Change

Once you’ve identified the problem, the next Story Star Code is the promise—the vision of how things could be different. This is the possibility you see for yourself: the hope of overcoming your challenge and achieving your desired outcome.

This promise is essential because it gives you something to look forward to and acts as an anchor to the light of the future. If you don’t have a clear vision of the change you’re striving for, it’s too easy to loop back into old patterns and programmes. It’s your responsibility to return to that promise – it’s your soul’s way of guiding you through the darkest moments of transformation.

Story Star Code 3: The Type of Challenge – Get Specific

The third Story Star Code involves getting clear about what type of challenge you’re facing. All human journeys are spiritual, because we are souls having a human experience. But the spiritual challenge reveals itself in the physical world. Is it related to your relationships, health, finances, or career? Each of these four areas of life affects your human life in different ways:

• Love and Relationships
• Health and the Body
• Financial and Material Security
• Career and Status

Being specific about the nature of your challenge helps you understand where the work needs to happen. This clarity is key to moving through the valley of despair and toward informed optimism.

Story Star Code 4: Friction – The Crisis of Meaning

This is the deep work. Friction happens when you hit a crisis of meaning. This is when your superficial goal—whether it’s losing weight, making money, or finishing a project—starts to fall away, and you must confront what the change is really about. See also: The Conflicting Desire in every good memoir. 

The real work happens here. And interestingly, in the manuscript drafting process, this is where I see the most students get ‘stuck’ because they thought the book (the story) was about something else. In this middle point – you realise what the point of the story really, truly is. And you can’t get to that realisation without the journey into the valley of despair.
If you don’t address the deeper desire or emotional need behind your goal, you won’t make it through the valley. You can’t skip or fast-forward this part of the process. It’s a gift! It’s transformational. If you do try to skip this stage or this element of the star codes, you’ll stay stuck in the crisis and continue the cycle of starting over without ever breaking through. And on a storytelling level, your story will lack depth and authenticity. Character change is deep work! Embrace it, because it’s true and it’s real and it’s all helping you remember WHO and WHAT you really are – a divine being having a human experience.

Story Star Code 5: Archetypes – Understanding Aspects of the Self

Every story and every life has more than one character, and so does your transformation journey. When you can see all the characters in your journey as aspects of your Self trying to break through, you can make leaps and bounds in your personal growth.
Characters in story perform archetypal functions – and these are simply patterns of behaviour that speak to our collective consciousness. We absorb these patterns and programs and embody them at various stages. The key here, is to see how and where they SERVE you.
Some of the archetypes you’ll get to know and love inside The Art of Memoir include:

• The Hero: The part of you that expands beyond the known
• The Shadow: This could reveal itself as a Villanous character or experience that threatens to ‘derail’ you
• The Mentor: The guide or source of wisdom that is ALWAYS there for you
• The Ally: The saboteur that keeps you stuck in old patterns.

Identifying these inner archetypes gives you the power to shift your identity and change from reactive to proactive, which is where you’re an empowered and embodied Hero, fulfilling YOUR mission on this planet – to grow and feel love, joy and creative growth in your life.

Story Star Code 6: An Evolutionary Story Structure

The final Story Star Code involves a deep understanding of the Hero’s Journey as a pathway to consciousness and how this interplays with story structure and form. It’s not just about writing a compelling story—it’s about understanding where you are in your journey and what’s needed to move forward.

When you hit the Valley of Despair, it’s crucial to identify where you are in the Hero’s Journey and what you need to let go of from the previous stage and what you need to embrace to move to the next stage, to keep moving forward. This is where surrendering the ego becomes critical. You must release old beliefs and identities that are holding you back and embrace the transformation process.

Embrace the Valley of Despair aka the Messy Middle

True change doesn’t happen at the end of the project.
It happens in the middle—in the Valley of Despair, where you confront your limitations and face the deepest parts of your identity that are calling unseen powers forth. If you can push through that point, you will emerge knowing just how powerful you are when you embrace the unknown and unknowable.

This is where the Story Star Codes have helped me: Whether i’m in the middle of a writing project or wondering why i feel so stuck in a personal project, using the keys and codes from these points on the story star really help me to gain perspective on my experiences and trust the feelings that come up in those stages.
And most importantly – move forward.

Conclusion: Transformation Happens from the Inside Out
The process I teach to craft a compelling memoir manuscript inside The Art of Memoir is about so much more than you writing a publication-ready story. That’s the outcome, sure, but the real value is what happens to and through you when you truly understand your Self.
It’s a process of deep personal growth and self-discovery. Because when you understand the Emotional Cycle of Change and apply the Story Star Codes, you’re not just writing a book; you’re changing your life. 🌠

If you want to learn more about how to apply these principles to your own transformation—whether it’s for writing, relationships, business, health, or any other personal or spiritual goal—I’ve just added a new training to The Art of Memoir where I take you deep into the real reason that middle point is calling you to remember powers you’ve long forgotten you hold.