The Denouement: Unconscious Competence

After the Final Showdown in Act Four, the protagonist has either won the day, or lost their ass.  They might still have a little cleanup to do, but at this point their character arc and the main conflict are complete.

So what's left to do?

Well, if you've played your cards right, you will have created a world that the reader wants to live in, and characters they love like their own family.  The story is over, but the reader needs a chance to say goodbye to the people and places it introduced them to.

The way to make that goodbye as satisfying as possible is to give the reader some glimpse of what the future holds for the protagonist, for better or worse.  What kind of new status quo are they entering?  Is it one defined by unconscious competence?  Or have they been driven back to their flaws?

If you're using a positive or flat arc, then you need a Proof of Transformation scene.  Show us one scene that will demonstrate their unconscious competence, and indicate that things are looking up from here.

If you're using a negative arc, then you need a Proof of Relapse scene.  Demonstrate that the character has fallen back into a state of incompetence, and will suffer for it in the future.  It's a bummer, but it can make a good story argument, so there are valid reasons to choose this route.

If your story is par of a series, this is where you add what I call The Twist.  I explain this more in my post about the Golden Triangle, but suffice it to say this is not an M. Night Shymalan twist.  The Twist is simply that bit of rising action that says "To Be Continued..."

In a series, it's good to end each installment with about 10% of the conflict unresolved.  The battle is won, but the war rages on.  Make sure the story is satisfying and self contained, but show the reader that more remains to be done.  That way, they'll want to read your next book.

The most important thing to do in a Denouement is to wrap it up quickly!  No matter what happens in this phase, the story itself is over, and your reader has a life to return to.  Make sure to guide them to the final emotion you want, but don't waste their lives doing it.  Even the biggest Tolkien fans thought the ending of The Return of the King dragged a bit (both in the book and the movie), and readers will not put up with a lot of this.  Don't ruin an otherwise well-proportioned story with too much expository nonsense at the end.  Remember, even if this isn't a series, your ending sells your next book.

...

This concludes my take on story structure, but there is one more area worth exploring, and that's Sequence Structure.

No comments:

Post a Comment