Hi. First post, so bear with me. A little intro.  I'm a novice screenwriter/director with grand delusions that I want to tell stories to entertain the masses.  I had a concept that I was going to write as a screenplay, but realized early on that it was far too in depth for 100 minutes of screen time.  So, I put that on the back burner, wrote a few more screenplays, filmed most of a movie (production died a horrible death), and then lost all confidence in my writing/creative prowess.

Well, I'm back.  After a year(or so) of heavy self-loathing, and only a few creative endeavors, I'm feeling the need to be creative again.  So I've dusted off my over zealous script idea and decided that the characters really want to be a part of a book.  I've been working on the idea in my head and it has branched to trilogy of plotlines, a fairly interesting cast of characters, and a heaping of pseudo-political intrigue(which really isn't my thing, go figure?). 

In steps my problem.  You see, I'm an outliner.   Not a rigid, everything is there outliner, but a solid backbone, see where the story goes between major scenes type of guy.  This works pretty well for me in the screenwriting world.  But for this idea, I have what I think is a strong start and a great finish where all three subplots come crashing together, however, the "great swampy middle", is playing hard to get.  How should I best approach the middle if I'm feeling strong at the beginning and end?  I've been trying to go from the end, and work my way backward, but as an analytical type of person, my brain is giving me fits. Almost always in the past, I've started at scene 1 and plotted straight through to "the end".

It's not that I don't know what I need to do in the middle.  My subplots have logical needs, but the change from screenplays, where everything is somewhat vague and not as full bodied to a robust, no holds barred novel setting is bogging me down.  When you outline a novel with multiple threads, do you outline individual subplots and then weave them together, or is it better to look at the project as a whole?  The swampy middle has me and I can't find my hip waders.  How do you guys go about multiple subplots in the initial phase of writing?

All help is greatly appreciated and I've learned a great deal just from reading this forum.
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