Are you thinking about what will happen during the climax of your novel? Do you need some help?
In this article, we share 5 top tips on writing the climax of your story.
Read on!
1. Raise the stakes then let them go.
Why it Helps
The climax is, by definition, the most intense point of the story. It is the point at which all the conflicts and subplots come to a head and finally get resolved. To do that, the protagonist must be put in danger of some kind (physically, mentally, spiritually, etc.), which forces them to finally take a stand against their antagonist or risk losing the conflict entirely. This event must also bring a definitive end to the conflict established at the beginning of the story by resolving all those stakes that were raised previously.
How to Include it
The most common way to do this is to write your climax before you write the rest of the story. Knowing what the story is building to will allow you to ensure the climax of your story resolves your main conflict in a big way.
You should also refer back to your climax as you write so that you can occasionally drop hints or develop subplots which will make your climax that much more intense.
2. Have the character change in some way.
Why it Helps
The climax should also serve to show how the story preceding it has changed the character in some way. Dynamic characters are bound to change when subjected to conflicts and situations that challenge them. The climax then showcases exactly how those smaller conflicts have molded the character into the person they need to be in order to succeed.
How to Include it
The character you started the story with and the character you finish the climax with should be completely different. This means that you need to ensure the story prior to the climax has included events which help the protagonist learn whatever skills or lessons they need to succeed. Then ensure the climax requires them to use those same skills or lessons to succeed.
For example, in the first Harry Potter story, Harry and his friends use all the skills they gained from both their magic schooling and their experiences fighting smaller adversaries to defeat Voldemort and his lackey. At the end of the climax, they were shown to have grown as both people and magic users. Your protagonist should do the same thing at the end of the climax in your story.
3. Match it to the genre.
Why it Helps
While every story’s climax is relatively unique, readers of different genres expect the climax of their genre to happen in a certain way. Romance stories almost always have the ill-fated couple finally come together. Police procedurals and mystery stories always reveal the culprit or result in their capture. War and fantasy stories generally commence the large battle they’ve been building towards.
Even when writers put their own twist on how the climax plays out in each of these genres, they almost always end up at the same recognizable points. That’s because trying to break the mold too much from what readers expect to happen will break the reader’s engagement with the story. This leaves them feeling unsatisfied, or even worse, tricked by the writer.
How to Include it
Read examples of the genre you are writing in and make note of what happens in each of their climaxes. Identify what they do similarly so you can follow the same format in your own story. Also make note of what they do differently so you know where changes can be made without completely surprising the reader or leaving them lost.
When you begin to write your own climax, try to follow the same format as those model stories but change it to match your story and your style. Remember that matching it to a genre’s tropes doesn’t mean being exactly the same, just close enough for the reader to feel familiar with the story’s structure. So even if your romance story is set in space, as long as the ill-fated couple find a way to be together (in whatever form that may take), the reader will feel satisfied with your ending.
4. Match it to your story.
Why it Helps
Climaxes that happen out of the blue also leave the reader unsatisfied. Yes, a romance story has the two lead characters finally get together; however, if the story leading up to that hasn’t hinted that would happen, then it doesn’t really make sense for the climax to happen that way.
A good climax will include elements of the story that precedes it. A detective will only discover the criminal using clues they’ve found during the investigation rather than last minute. A king will only succeed in battle if he has worked to build support from his men before the battle takes place.
How to Include it
If you’ve written the climax first, identify what needs to happen for those events to take place organically. Work backwards to make sure you’ve covered all the important elements throughout the story so your reader is not surprised or shocked by some random element.
If your aim is to shock the reader with the outcome of the climax, then you still need to make sure there are clues the reader should have discovered littered throughout the story before it. The enemy can’t win unless there has been seeds of doubt in the story showing that the protagonist isn’t skilled enough to fight them.
5. Ensure the path to a resolution is clear.
Why it Helps
Once the climax is over and all the tension has been dispelled, the reader expects the story to come to a natural ending. It doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but whatever conflict was introduced at the start of the story needs to have been resolved (or begun to be resolved) by the end of the climax.
Showing the effect the climax’s outcome has on the story world signals to the reader that the story is about to come to an end. If there are further intense or high stakes events after the climax is supposed to have happened, then the reader won’t understand that story is over, which leaves them unsatisfied with the experience overall.
How to Include it
When you write the end of your climax, make sure there is no doubt as to which character succeeded. You should also start to hint at how that success will impact the story world around them. For example, the climax of Avengers Infinity War showed Thanos, the enemy, winning the major conflict, leaving everyone feeling lost and worried about what would happen next.
Even without another movie, Infinity War’s climax signaled its particular story was ending because Thanos left Earth at the end, leaving nobody left to fight. The conclusion showed the remaining protagonists trying to pick up the pieces and make sense of what happened.
Your own story should do the same thing: you don’t have to tell the reader exactly what happens next but show them that the story’s main conflict is over and all that’s left is time for the characters to make sense of it all.