Dec 30 2008
What Do You Do After a Climax?
I just finished the climax for my novel, and I announced to everyone what I had done–and since we are on vacation, that included lots of family. Some relatives just rolled their eyes (or acted like I had not said anything), but my husband was really happy. Then, however, he was really confused, for my next sentence was, “Wow, I might actually get this draft done in the next week or so.”
He said, “But I thought you just said you were done.”
“No, I said I’d finished writing the climax.”
“Isn’t that the ending?”
“No.”
“It isn’t?” He obviously didn’t believe me, but I reminded him of the theatre class we took together in college–the only class we took together–listing out the major movement of a story: Exposition, Inciting Incident, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Denouement.
“You see, I have quite a bit to do now that the climax has happened,” I told him.
Rather than telling you what to do with your falling action and denouement, though, I would like to ask what you like as a reader. And be as honest as you can. So, here it is:
What do you like to happen after a climax? What is too much? What too little? What will leave a bad taste in your mouth? What will leave you unsatisfied? Give me examples, and perhaps I’ll add my own two cents in tomorrow’s blog.
I usually cry myself to sleep after a climax.
areyoulistening.today.com
Of course I am… I am finding out, more and more, how shameless I can be.
Or, perhaps, it is merely what is on my mind… or what is distracting my mind…
I’m with Stephanie in that I like an ending to tie up any loose ends. I only like cliffhangers if I know something’s coming next (though cliffhangers work well to end a chapter and I’ve used them in a poem or two).
I also like when an ending kinda fades, for lack of a better term atm…when it goes into the effect that the climactic situation has had on the characters or place or what-have-you. It seems to satisfy human curiosity to know ‘what happened after’.
Oh, seano47, is your climax that bad? After my last one, I bounced around the room for hours, completely energized.
Then again, they say women and men respond to climaxes differently.
I think a cliffhanger of sorts is okay… as long as it isn’t so horrifying as to outweigh the climax itself. For instance, in HP book 4, Voldemort comes back…but it’s his fight with Harry that is the climax, not the fight between the Ministry of Magic and Dumbledore regarding whether he has actually come back or not. That struggle sets up book five, but the action involving Harry in book four is resolved… What would stink is if Voldemort formed, challenged Harry to a duel, and then the book ended just as Harry steps out to fight him. THAT ending, especially if the ending was in every book up to that point, would have caused me to stop reading. And the only chance I would have had to go back to the books is when I knew, for certain, that the seventh book was the LAST book.
It reminds me of a Series of Unfortunate Events. I really like the books, mainly for the narrator (not the events), but I would have DETESTED waiting from book to book, since the books all end badly (except the last one), leaving the orphans in worse trouble than when the book started.
I don’t need all the i’s dotted or T’s crossed… just something I can feel okay with until the next book brings all sorts of other stuff out.