How to handle a climactic scene?

[SummerSolstice]

I've got a long story/short book (novelette?) that I recently finished, fairy tale genre, and I'm hoping to self-publish it sometime. It's decent throughout, though it's still in need of editing, but the one part that worries me is the very last scene, the climax. It falls completely and inexplicably flat.

Does anybody here have some good advice for an amateur on how to build and maintain suspense for a climactic scene? I've got the text if someone thought they needed to look at it to really help, but I'm afraid in its current state it's somewhat embarrassing. >_< It also, of course, relies heavily on the thirty-something (I think) pages of story to really tell what's going on, and I don't care to subject anyone to that. Just pull out your best tips and I'll be obliged!

[RobinHood3000]

Hmm...it's hard to know how to handle things without knowing the context, but some general observations I hope you find useful:

Building suspense is the role of the 30-some pages that come before the climax, so hopefully, by the time your reader gets to the climax, they'll have a good sense of the atmosphere at that point in the book. With that in mind, don't be afraid to tease things out here and there. Sometimes, I re-read through my word and I find places where I sort of breeze through things, telling what happens instead of using the opportunity to show it.

[SummerSolstice]

Well, the story sounds a little campy when I give it in summary, but it's about a young woman under a curse that turned her to stone, and she only comes back alive on the nights of the full moon. Young vagabond man comes wandering through the valley town that she sits nearby as a statue, meets her one of the nights, hears the story, figures out how to rescue her.

In the bothersome scene he lures her away from the rock to which she has to return in the morning, then leaves her to carry out his plan. She waits for a while, then realizes he's been far too long and runs back just as the sun is approaching the horizon. So I've even got a race-the-clock element in there, yet somehow... meh. One person has advised me to draw out the period where she waits alone, but after a scarring but difficult-to-explain writing experience I've kind of got a phobia about writing long passages of time. How do you do that without tipping over into "we get it already" territory?

[RobinHood3000]

Hmm...that does sound a bit tough. Racing the clock is something that is done repeatedly and often, which makes it even more challenging to write with originality.

Here's an idea that seems novel to me -- how well it will work for your story, I'm not sure, but I'll throw it out, anyway. Perhaps...don't follow the girl at all? The definition of suspense is concern over not knowing, so if you were to follow something or someone else in the proximity? Then you could dance around (figuratively speaking) wherever it is the girl is racing to, and have her enter the scene (or not) as fits the story.

[SummerSolstice]

Actually, the commonness of the theme is half the reason I use it. ^_^ Simple structure and use of traditional motifs are the only things that really make a fairy tale a fairy tale and not just a bit of light fantasy.

As to your suggestion... you're going to have to explain that a little farther for me to get my tiny little brain around it. :( If it helps, I thought I'd also add that she doesn't get there in time. At least, she would have but Simon (her rescuer) holds her back. She doesn't understand that he has a plan, and he knows she'd never let him try it. The way I have it now, his solution is hidden from the reader until the sun rises and he lets her go.

Bah. If I'm being confusing, the text is here (http://www.christell.com/ansley/statue.htm). The scene in question starts about three page breaks up from the bottom. It's the part that begins, "The moon now accumulated again in the night skies like white, wax candle drippings." But like I said, it's rough and tedious.

[RobinHood3000]

Ahhh, gotcha.

What I was thinking was having a passerby (or an animal) hanging around her final destination and not seeing her appear, possibly marveling at the sunrise...? Keeping the reader away from what they're interested in seems to me like a good way to build suspense.

[SummerSolstice]

Hmm. That's altogether possible. It wouldn't be either of your mentioned possibilities, since an enchanted sleep affects everything in the valley except her and (mysteriously) Simon, but a disembodied-narrator trick might work. That would also work well as a transition to shift the perspective back to Simon once the sun rises, as the previously mentioned tip-giver suggested. Almost the entire story is focused on Simon, but then I passed it over to the gal during that scene, which was kind of wierd but necessary. Cool, I'm gonna have to try that out! ^_^

[dejitaru]

In the bothersome scene he lures her away from the rock to which she has to return in the morning, then leaves her to carry out his plan. She waits for a while, then realizes he's been far too long and runs back just as the sun is approaching the horizon. So I've even got a race-the-clock element in there, yet somehow... meh. One person has advised me to draw out the period where she waits alone, but after a scarring but difficult-to-explain writing experience I've kind of got a phobia about writing long passages of time. How do you do that without tipping over into "we get it already" territory?

Make part of her body turn to stone as it catches the light to emphasize the imminence.


I thought I'd also add that she doesn't get there in time.In that case, make it seem as if she has a hope. If she doesn't even get close, make her think she is.

[SummerSolstice]

Well, she only thinks she's in trouble... in reality, Simon's solution will break the curse as soon as the sun rises. That's why she technically "doesn't get there in time," but it's a happy ending anyway.

[dejitaru]

What a chick flick.

Still, without danger there is no tension. The reader needs to think something bad will happen. Give billowing smoke wthout the fire.

[SummerSolstice]

If it was a "flick" it would be a movie. :P As it is, I'm not entirely sure why you'd say that... Is it because of the happy ending part? It's a fairy tale, thus "happily ever after!" ^_^ You're right anyway--the fairy tale is the female side of oral literature.

I've got the tension down... kind of. Like I said, she thinks there's danger, and it follows her, not Simon. That is a trouble area though. Do you have tips for creating a sense of danger and tension without carrying on?

[RobinHood3000]

Not much more fun than a billowing smoke bomb -- just ask the MythBusters.

[dejitaru]

If it was a "flick" it would be a movie. :POh, then I supose this wouldn't properly be a "scene" either. :)

If she's essentially running and nothing's chasing her, then a slight rewrite may be in order.

The whole waiting too long part isn't critical to the plot, it's just a means of developing tension. Maybe something should restrain her.

[SummerSolstice]

It's still called a 'scene', smart guy. -_^ If you were looking for the literary equivalent of "chick flick," the correct phrase is "chick lit."

And like I said, she still thinks she has to get back in time. Nothing's "chasing her," but if you mean that metaphorically, as in a motivation for running, she's racing the sunrise. She has no idea about Simon's plan. Try reading the section I mentioned for a little more detail on the circumstances... It's too confusing to try to explain it so piecemeal.

[dejitaru]

And like I said, she still thinks she has to get back in time.
Yes, but her thoughts don't directly tie in with the main plot. It's just a mechanism for building suspense.
I still say trickle in physical cues to emphasize the danger.

[SummerSolstice]

Well, yeah, they kinda do tie in since it's from her perspective... or... wait, what? I'm afraid I don't get what you're saying. As for the physical cues, are you talking about the sun getting ready to rise? Or what?

[RobinHood3000]

But the thoughts ARE part of the characterization. Internal monologue is more than just a device for building suspense -- it's a tool that can be bent to the writer's will.

[Vada Dagon]

Bah. If I'm being confusing, the text is at http://www.christell.com/ansley/statue.htm . The scene in question starts about three page breaks up from the bottom. It's the part that begins, "The moon now accumulated again in the night skies like white, wax candle drippings." But like I said, it's rough and tedious.

I have to say that although I have not finished the story I rather liked it. If this is what you consider rough and tedious I can't wait until you make it polished and exciting.

I like it so far and the obvious ending aside and I expect (since I haven't read it yet) would be nice. Then again I am a sucker for happy endings.

[SummerSolstice]

Haha... thanks so much. Like I said, it's mostly that last (actually third to last) scene that's the flat, dry one. I'm also not entirely certain about the intro--it was atrocious, but I gave it a complete rewrite lately and I think it improved it considerably.

I would be thrilled if you gave me some criticism on it after you'd read it--the more brutal, the better. Compliments are fun, of course, but good, specific criticism is the only way I'll get better! Besides, I'm likely to start preening if an adult is impressed by my kid's story!! ^_^

[Vada Dagon]

I would be thrilled if you gave me some criticism on it after you'd read it--the more brutal, the better. Compliments are fun, of course, but good, specific criticism is the only way I'll get better! Besides, I'm likely to start preening if an adult is impressed by my kid's story!! ^_^

Well I wouldn't be too impressed by my compliment as an adult reading a kid's story. Although, I rather thought it was a children's story or at least a teenager or pre-teen rather.

So that you know I've read all of the Harry Potter books (not exactly mature literature there) as well as the Bartimaeus Trilogy (good read if you like kid's stories) I've also read InkHeart and reading InkSpell. Sure, I've read some adult novels but sometimes they are overtly dramatic. However, a good story is a good story regardless of the intended audience. In truth there are no knew stories just old stories told differently which make them compelling and interesting to read.

It's not all about how the story ends but how it tells its story that makes a good story. At least that's my opinion but regardless of my compliments and other people's criticism it is good to get a compliment when it is deserved and it not good to get a compliment when it is not deserved.

I may choose not to be brutal in my honesty but I will be honest all the same. I believe in constructive criticism and I enjoy give it since I believe I am the best to know what is best (being a Virgo and all). However, I will give you my criticism when I am done with your tale.

[Vada Dagon]

Well without further ado here is my Honest criticism of your little fairytale.

It is very well constructed and I think you may be worrying about that climatic scene a little too much.

There are few sentences that could probably be revised or even perhaps omitted. I personally don't like this one sentence

'Simon turned his face up to the moon, making him look like a statue wrought in crystal. '
There is nothing technically wrong with this sentence above except that the last part wrought in crystal doesn't feel right. As if wrought and crystal don't seem to want to play together. I would consider forged in crystal a better choice, but those are my words and this is not my story. I was just considering my advice and thought that perhaps my choice is not good either but I would need a little time to look it over.


I like this imagery below but the second sentence could probably be a little less ackward. I suppose dirty white or yellowed would sound a little better but that's not the problem with that sentence is the tunic shirt part. It seems a forced way to give us imagery of his shirt and does not seem to flow. Almost as if the entire sentence was added as an after thought.


'His clothes were those to be expected of a waif of the world, but though they were old, they also were clean. His off-white tunic shirt was crude and baggy. It was made more to fit with a few large stitches on either side, and was girded around the waist with a sash of the same fabric, which hung down in front, the tips slightly stained. His trousers were also baggy, made of a brown canvas, and tied with an old leather belt. The belt had no buckle; it was simply slotted to allow the one end to pass through the other. The man wore worn, brown moccasins, the hard leather soles thin with the stones of many lands'

After the section above I think your story takes off like a gazelle jumping out of Homer's pages.

As for the passage that you mentioned in your original posting I think it is adequate. I like the idea that RobinHood gave you to use creature or other things, but due to your story all the creatures except Simon are at sleep.

Here is the entire passage

'If the sun caught her away again and the villagers were frightened as before, their fears would be pinned to Simon, she felt sure. A bewitched statue, they would be too afraid of to harm, but Simon was vulnerable. The least she could hope for was that they would chase him away, and that, even, she could never endure. She must get back. She must get back!

Mallory had thought her exultant flights up and down the hills to be the fastest she could possibly run. As we so often find of our limits when real need arises, she was wrong. She wasn’t running, she was falling, falling sideways, it felt. Her body leaned far ahead of her feet, as though they couldn’t catch up. She met the hills, and her pace did not even slacken. She hurtled through the long-scorned village streets, and her toes barely glanced the pavingstones. The stones gave way to dirt, the dirt to grass, and, at last, the level ground to the steep incline of the final hill. Her hill.'


You mentioned that if she was caught away again, implying that she had failed to make it back to her pedestal once before. Only you and the characters know that part of the story but it leads us to believe that a terrible fate would fall upon Simon. However, you say that it's only her belief that she needs to get back, but it must be based on either the original curse (which there never seems to be mentioned) or due to her trying to escape and knowing the reality. It would be nice to know what was the original curse (perhaps one of towns people could tell us the story - the Ms. Linton) Anyway, that wasn't my point at all. This passage is not too long in my opinion and perhaps if I dare say it, I believe it to be a little too short for my liking.

It doesn't linger in the suspense. You could tell us how a little more about her flight. How she crossed the streamed and a slipper washed away, or a leaf caught in her hair as she ran past the tree. Tell us how the sounds of the hills began to reach her ears, and how her heart pounded with fear. We would love to hear the pain in her lungs as if they were ready to burst but she couldn't allow her self to stop. Sure, they are common and they are not knew but we don't read stories because they are not common. We read stories because they transport us to another world and for a moment we believe we too are there watching a white marble statue turn to flesh.

Aside from my comments above and perhaps some typos I believe your story to be very nice. I particularly enjoyed when the town is trying to find out his secret, I rather enjoyed the suspense and I am glad you didn't divulge or let on what it was. Although, I suspected to be a statue of Mallory.

Once again thank you for sharing your story I rather enjoyed it very much. Sometimes authors fuzz over the littlest things and in truth the average reader would rather not care to notice the flaws.

[SummerSolstice]

Ah, yes... as to the worrying about Simon part, I forgot to mention that in my sporadic writing fits I managed to make some rather puzzling omissions and repetitions. There's the slice of bread that mysteriously disappears with no futher mention on the second night, and the same description used twice, I believe, for the unveiling of the moon. Most significantly, I made the reference to her previous experience in being caught away from the stone without actually going back and adding the relation to Simon of said experience. Somehow, that's never been fixed, though I've had the story done for a month or so.

Your comment about the description of Simon's clothing is all too true... a little remnant from that awful first scene, written at the tender age of fourteen or so. It's astonishing that, even with the wisdom gained by four more long and deeply-maturing years, I put so much of the original back in. :blush: Can you believe that the initial description of Mallory was approximately four times as long as it is now?

The actual cause of the curse? I toyed with pinning it to someone or something when I was first developing the story, but as I read more traditional fairy tales I realized it was okay if there wasn't a specific source. The tellers of those old stories seemed to take for granted that something with a profound sense of poetic justice had a hand in the world that couldn't really be explained. Those are adults, though... I'm not sure if kids would be impatient with me for not coming out and telling them! ^_^ Perhaps I could draw a subtle but at least more concrete connection between the 'Magics,' and the curse? I sort of made them the personification of that force of justice without trying to lay too heavy of an emphasis on them.

Ooookay, one more thing: my brother (Chief beta-reader for all my stuff!) didn't catch the implications I was trying to make about Simon being an artist, and I think I agree with him that they're far too subtle. The description of his hands was an allusion to that, and so was the conversation between him and Mallory about how the landscape didn't look like a "painting". The idea was that this talent of his, for artistry, was the thing that gave him a role to fill, a place to belong, which is supposed to be really the central theme to the story--finding your belonging-ness, finding your home. Did any of that make sense to you, either as you were reading or afterward, once you had all the pieces?

Thanks so much! It's so exciting to me to improve stuff I've written (that sounds so funny and gushy, but I really mean it!). I really appreciate your help! :D

[Vada Dagon]

LOL! You crack me up.
Listen at the ripe old age of 18 you are doing awsome. Trust me!
Even if I am an old fool, way too old for his years but not old enough in wisdom.

Don't under estimate your audience. Simply because they are young doesn't make them stupid. I don't know how old your audience is suppose to be but think back just four years and you'll understand what I am telling you. Explaining the flight scene in greater detail will only get the kids more excited. Granted don't make the flight scene four pages long (I would get bored too and tell you to get on with it then) but half a page would be nice.

I was trying to figure out what you were getting at with his hands, but I couldn't understand what it was meant to reference. I thought perhaps was a reference of a hard life, that he had lived (traveling from place to place). Certainly the finding a home and him looking for a home I certainly understood that part. I even understood the implication that this was his home when he found the statue.

I like that you hint at the Magics but you need to let us know at little more of how the curse was made. It doesn't have to be all at once or by whom just what are the implications of the curse.

The curse could have been imposed upon herself because she wanted the town to stop asking artist to give life to their art. Hence, it is a self imposed curse of a girl who feeling neglected and abandoned chose to life as a marble statue. Only love could break a curse like that, like so many curse love is ultimately the solution.

Snow White
Sleeping Beauty
Cinderella

Their curse is broken by love. Anyway... I think your Chief beta-reader of all your stuff is correct on the implications that Simon is an artist are too subtle.

My 2 cents

[Vada Dagon]

Hey Summer Girl

Did any of my suggestions help at all? Hope I didn't scare you away.

[SummerSolstice]

Haha, no, I've just been busy studying for a political science test. Hope I did well... :(

I flatter myself that I've still got a good connection to my audience and what it was like to be one of them (Shoot, I still AM an audience for these books... I read children's fiction more often than adult!). "Don't underestimate children" is one of my favorite mantras/battle cries, but I do try to be realistic about their tolerance for such things as artistic subtlty. Maybe I need to sit down and have a long chat with a fourth-grader to get back in touch! :D

I guess what I meant by not explaining how the curse happened was that Mallory has no magical powers, and neither did the artist or any of the townspeople. It just happened. It had a reason (though I personally believe the main reason to be that otherwise Simon would have never met her), but not a real "how" explanation. The curse being broken by love was kind of my intention too--the artist could copy the exact appearance of her face, but Simon, who loved her, could capture the beauty that had nothing to do with her face.

Thanks bunches for your help! I'm itching to work on it, but unfortunately I probably won't have any time until Thanksgiving break. Dumb papers. :bawling:

[Vada Dagon]

LOL!
Well glad to hear you'll continue working on it. I think you are almost there and you are currently on the last finishing touches. I don't know what you are going for but you may want to take a creative writting course or two in college. They are fun and kick your creative bug into high gear.

Fourth grader? What's that eight? Depends on the Eight year old and how the parents have treated the child but a Eight Year old has a fully developed brain and can comprehend everything an adult. What an Eight year old lacks is experience and not understanding.

Every newspaper is written for an Eight year old, so think of that.

[RobinHood3000]

Actually, newspapers are written for the average 8th-grader. There's a difference.

[Vada Dagon]

Actually, newspapers are written for the average 8th-grader. There's a difference.

My bad Mr. Hood. Yes an eight grader is 12 years old or so and not eight years of age.
I apologize for my mistake.

[Jolly McJollyso]

Climactic writing? Two words: short sentences.

[Jolly McJollyso]

Actually, newspapers are written for the average 8th-grader. There's a difference.
Sadly not enough.

[xtianfriborg13]

This thread is very helpful! I, myself, am having trouble writing such climatic scenes. :)