Writing Tips — Climax
The high point of tension. The face-off between protagonist and antagonist. The summit of a ‘story mountain’.
We began this week’s Story Club by thinking about times we ourselves felt tension in our lives. This helped us tap into our feelings and bring them into the climax of our stories.
Young writers shared their tense moments. A bicycle basket overturning, spilling onto a busy road. This evoked a feeling of fear, specifically the fear of losing something precious.
Running for a train. Being near big horses. Seeing mountain goats staring out from the forest in a frightening way (when one is 1 or 2 years old).
I had my own experience of heart-racing frustration when works started right outside my flat, making writing, thinking and being calm very challenging for a few days.
These moments can help us write more dramatic climaxes. If we bring in that fear, anger, anxiety, feeling small in the face of something giant, we can make our climax more alive.
Some great ideas came forth in an exciting share at the end. A tense dinner scene where parents try to prevent their daughter from seeing her best friend. An argument in a rainstorm hinting at deep losses. A character caught in a hedge maze, feeling elated at nearing the end until ...
The climax is integrsted into the rest of the story, of course. A good climax will reflect other story aspects such as great characters, clear goals and an antagonist that really gets in the way. And of course the climax (summit) is followed by the resolution afterwards. One young author beautifully described this as ‘being at the mountain summit and seeing everything around, how things fall into place.’
The climax leading to resolution was illustrated nicely by this story from a 9 yr old writer. Fern is looking for an enchanted Viking stone, and is chased into a cave by a stampede of horses … where she finds the stone.
Enjoy writing your climax! Make it tense! And afterwards the resolution when the tension breaks and all is well will be fulfilling to readers (and writers, both.)
