Story climax, part 2
Possibly the most important scene at or near the end of any story is the climax. The first difficulty here is, exactly what is “the climax” when there are several possible types and a double handful of plotlines and subplots that all need to be wrapped up?
The answer starts with a series of questions. First, who is the main character? This is not necessarily the viewpoint character (Dr. Watson is not the main character of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, though he is the viewpoint for most of them). Second, what is the thing that the main character has most wanted or needed or been trying to fix since the start of the story? What is most important or most in doubt? What, in short, is the central problem of the story? Third, what is the one thing that has to happen to the main character in order for the story to be over and the reader satisfied? Or, to put it another way, what is the thing that, if the writer left it out, will leave the story lopsided, out-of-balance, and unsatisfying, even if all the other plotlines and loose ends are tied up?
We’ve been conditioned by years of action-adventure stories, TV shows, and movies to be able to identify an action/achievement climax easily, and to expect that to be “the climax.” It isn’t always the case. In Lois Bujold’s Memory, for instance, I’d say that the climax of the book is the chapter that Miles spends alone in his room, wrestling with temptation. It’s his epiphany, a climax of realization. The action climax comes afterward, with the “assault on Cockroach Central,” and it ties up the climax of achievement and the climax of revelation in a fast-paced swirl of events, but without the epiphany that precedes it, the whole book would be off-balance and the main character’s victory would feel hollow.
When the action/achievement climax is not actually THE climax, it is usually possible (not easy, but possible) to leave it out of the story. Sometimes, an author does this by ending the story with the hero, fresh from his epiphany or personal revelation, heading out for the final battle (as, in the musical Camelot, the story ends on the night before Arthur’s battle with Mordred. Because even if we didn’t know the story already, it’s obvious how the battle is going to come out, and anyway, who wins isn’t the important thing by then). Sometimes, the author does it by skipping forward a few days or hours. These are tricky to pull off, because readers, too, have been conditioned to really, really want resolution of the action-adventure part of the story, even if it isn’t the climax, but pondering the possibility can help make it clear whether or not the action/achievement is the real climax or not.
Actually, “Could I make this story work if I left out this scene/event/incident/climax entirely?” is a pretty good test for whittling down which of several possibilities is “the climax.”
But what about stories that have an ensemble cast or a braided plotline – that is, there are two or more independent-but-related stories that follow different “main characters?” In that case, you start with the same set of questions, only the first one is “which of my main characters do I care the most about? Which one will the reader care the most about? Which one do I want the reader to care the most about?” Because no matter how “balanced” an ensemble cast is, the readers are always going to pick one as the main character. (This may not be the same as their favorite character, but even people who love Mr. Spock or Dr. McCoy recognize that Captain James T. Kirk is the main character in the original Star Trek series.)
To summarize: The main climax of the story a) happens to the main character, b) whom the reader cares about, and c) leads to the resolution of the main story problem (whether that is an action problem or something else). To achieve all this, the scene usually needs to be clear and focused. Ideally, the main climax also resolves as many of the secondary plotlines as possible, or at least sets them up to be swiftly resolved, but if doing so would dilute the clarity or focus on the resolution of the main problem, then one is almost always better off leaving them for later.
The main climax is repeatedly described as the moment of highest intensity or greatest tension in a literary work. Resolving it causes a large drop in tension – usually the largest drop anywhere in the story. This means that resolving subplots and secondary plots is generally most effective if done after the main story climax, if they don’t naturally wrap up during the main climactic scene. This is because resolving anything, even a completely different part of the story, tends to lower the overall tension level, and you don’t want to lower the tension level right before you are supposed to hit the highest point of tension in the whole book. The exception is if resolving a particular subplot in advance of the main climax will cause a net increase in the tension around the main plot; in that case, it is sometimes desirable to put that resolution before the main climax, as a sort of appetizer.
Once the main climax is over, it is quite often obvious how the remaining plotlines will resolve themselves, or at least, it’s obvious that they will be resolved. Going back to Memory, the climactic scene (Miles wrestling with temptation) ends with his recognition of who he is and what his decision must be, which in turn allows him to have the crucial moment of insight that leads to solving the main action plot. Bujold then entirely skips all the preparations for the next move, and goes straight to the action climax, which is no longer about whether the action plot will be solved (that is inevitable at this point), it’s about exactly how the solution will happen. Everything moves along briskly, because we’re on the downhill slope of the story. Pausing to add a new complication or an explanation might, just possibly, increase the tension, but at this stage of the game, increasing the tension would be an annoying and unnecessary delay.
