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When writing a climatic scene, writers should follow a couple of simple guidelines:

n The climax must be the largest obstacle facing the main character and test him in the most significant ways - In the climax of “Star Wars IV: A New Hope”, not only Luke Skywalker’s piloting skills but also his faith in the Force are tested. Without the mastering of both, he cannot destroy the Death Star.

n The outcome heading into the climax should be uncertain - Often the antagonist holds the upper hand as the rising action ends. In “Star Wars IV:A New Hope”, an operational Death Star is bearing down on the rebel base, and the rebellion appears to be outgunned and outmatched. However, the reader’s understanding of Western storytelling techniques tells him that the main character should emerge victorious. This balance creates dramatic tension as the reader wonders how the rebels might overcome the Death Star when the odds are against them.

Tags: central problem, climax, dramatic tension, main character, plot

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When developing the rising action section of your story, there a few simple guidelines to follow. Ensuring these guidelines aren’t violated will help keep the story moving forward and increase the dramatic tension:

n Our hero never can give up – If he stops trying to overcome the central problem, the story would end. There may be moments where he doubts his abilities or the solution, but he cannot stop his counterthrusts against the protagonist until overcoming the central problem.

n The plot must thicken - With each level of rising action (or each effort to overcome the antagonist) ultimately solving the problem should become more difficult. This is known as a “thickening” of the plot. If each level or effort becomes less complicated, then the reader will know the story’s outcome and become less invested in the main character. Facing the biggest, most powerful monster first then a less powerful dog-sized monster and finally a virtually powerless bug-sized creature is anti-climatic.

n Good plotting involves “planting” - As developing the rising action, the author should reveal certain facts that later allow for plot twists. If this isn’t done, then the twist probably will appear artificial or forced. The trick to planting is ensuring that the upcoming twist doesn’t become so obvious that the reader knows it’s coming. It wouldn’t be a twist then.

Tags: central problem, planting, plot, rising action, thickening

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As writing the rising action portion of your story, be aware that the main character must attempt to resolve his central problem yet always fail. There are several ways this failure can occur:

n Barrier - In this case, the main character’s solution is inadequate to the task at hand. For example, he may try to blow up a bioweapons, facility but his explosives are unable to penetrate an undetected force field.

n Misjudgment - The main character may misjudge what the problem is to be resolved. For example, the main character may give his girlfriend flowers in an attempt to make up after a fight, but she doesn’t accept them because she no longer has feelings for him so the gesture is meaningless. When the main character is guilty of misjudgment, often the problem moves even farther away from his solution and becomes more difficult to resolve.

n Partial solution - Sometimes the main character only solves elements of the problem. For example, when sent to assassinate a pair of scientists working on a biogenic weapon, he kills one but the other escapes.

n Temporary triumph - On occasion, the main character’s solution may only be a temporary fix. For example, the main character may succeed in destroying an invading alien race’s scout ship. Then a larger, more powerful scout ship arrives.

n Complication - The main character’s solution may work but has no immediate payoff. For example, to determine how to get home when lost, one needs to know where he is. The main character may discover that information, but he still needs to make the journey home.

n Reversal - There are instances when the main character’s solution actually makes the situation worse. For example, while destroying an enemy’s bioweapons lab, he accidentally releases deadly bacteria into the atmosphere - and the winds are carrying the germs right toward his nation.

Tags: central problem, counterthrust, main character, plot, rising action

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To better understand rising action, consider the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “Mirror, Mirror” in which Captain Kirk and his landing party are transported into a mirror universe where the Federation is an empire and people behave more like pirates than civilized men. The opening few minutes of the episode in which Kirk and landing party, as being beamed aboard during an ion storm until realizing they’re no longer on their own Enterprise, marks the inciting incident. The rising action immediately begins as they try to resolve the problem of how to get home. First they must figure out where they are. Then Kirk must avoid an attempt on his life. Next his landing party must jury rig the transporter so they can be returned to their own universe. A race against time begins as they have a window of only a few hours to make the return beam out and as the mirror Spock has orders to kill Kirk by dawn. Then the mirror Spock and the mirror Sulu each try to kill Kirk. We reach the climax of the story when the mirror Spock cuts off their transporter power with only moments to go before their beam out window closes.

Kirk and his landing party face a number of obstacles that prevent them from resolving their central problem. Twists and turns, such as the attempt on Kirk’s life, add dramatic tension to the story. This tension grows until our heroes are faced with only two possibilities: either they will solve the central problem or utterly fail. At that point, the story enters its climax, usually near the story’s end.

Tags: central problem, climax, dramatic tension, inciting incident, plot, rising action

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In a sense, every story is a race against time. The main character ultimately must reach a point where the situation he finds himself in is unbearable, where a turning point or a final decision must be reached. The space between when this situation or crisis is introduced (the inciting incident) until when the turning point or final decision is reached (the climax) is known as rising action. Sometimes this part of the story is referred to as “complications.”

During the rising action, the main character tries to resolve his central problem but is unable to. The rising action includes the twist and turns of the story. In many ways, for the man character the rising action is like going up a hill - hence the “rising” – but he faces obstacles as doing so – hence the “action.” Each instance of the main character attempting to solve the central problem but failing is known as a “dark moment.”

Tags: central problem, climax, complications, dark moment, inciting incident, plot, rising action

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Any story you tell by definition has a plot, characters, setting point of view and theme. But to really make a story pop, an author has to interweave and play these elements against one another so that the story has tension.

Tension is the force behind the need to find resolution. It stems from the hook that caught the reader in the opening lines: there’s an interesting central problem to solve. The rest of the story needs to focus on solving that problem.

But the author shouldn’t make the outcome – the resolution of the problem – obvious to the reader. The author should always leave open the possibility that the problem won’t be resolved. Of course, most readers know (or at least expect) that the problem will be resolved. By creating doubt, the writer causes the reader to wonder how the problem will be resolved. The greater this tension, the more likely the reader will stick with you through the story.

Generally, the best way to create doubt is to make the problem increasingly more difficult to resolve as the story continues.

 

The story constantly leaves the viewer wondering how the Enterprise/Federation will overcome the Borg invasion as the situation for our heroes grows increasingly dire. By episode’s end (which was a season cliffhanger), apparently the only way to resolve the problem is for the crew to kill the series’ main character and hero, the man they are most loyal to.

 

Certainly the story’s settings – aboard the Borg ship, on a world where a colony has been decimated – are intriguing. Certainly the characters – Riker’s self-doubt, Picard’s transformation into Locutus – are fascinating. Certainly the plot – repelling an alien invasion – is interesting. But combining and playing these elements off against one another to create tension – now that’s spellbinding.

 

You Do It

Write an outline of a story in which your main character attempts to solve a problem, such as stopping an alien invasion or trying to stay alive after being marooned on an alien planet. In the outline, make sure the situation grows increasingly more dire and difficult to solve, so that as the story nears its end, the alien invasion appears likely to succeed to the interstellar castaway appears unlikely to survive.
 

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: central problem, narrative hook, opening lines, plot, style

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Many science fiction authors write stories to make a statement about an ethical or political issue. The movie “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”, for example, is largely about the need for humanity to be better stewards of the Earth, specifically in the way we treat whales. Unlike “The Voyage Home”, however, authors sometimes are tempted to get on their soapbox rather than allow the message to unfold with the story.

When a diatribe or rant is inserted in the story, the author is guilty of a self-indulgent digression.

There are a lot of good reasons to excise this digression from your story. First, it breaks the story’s dramatic tension. You only have so many words to tell a story, and if you don’t use every one of them to move the tale forward, the risk of the reader putting the novel down or turning to another story in the magazine increases. Furthermore, the point of a fiction story is to express a message through the character’s actions, to show a position by taking us through the people’s lives as they face a moral crisis. Diatribes and rants aren’t why readers picked up your story. Finally, such digressions indicate a lack of craftsmanship on your part. Good writers don’t convince their readers to take a moral or political stance by arguing points as if they’re in a debate but instead rely on the power of storytelling.

Simply put, get rid of the rant in your story. Send a letter to the editor, go stand on a soapbox in a park or write a blog if your must write a diatribe. After all, readers picked up the publication that your story is in to read fiction not essays.

You Do It
Write a scene in which your characters deal with a moral or political issue that shows how readers should address a current matter. For example, how would your Star Service officers deal with raiders? Parallel their decision with how the United State should deal with prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Tags: central problem, premise, theme

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A vital part of your story is the opening lines, also known as the inciting incident. In this section of your story, we learn who the main character is, the central problem facing him and a little about the setting.

For example, in the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “The Doomsday Machine” (written by Norman Spinrad), the opening section reveals that Captain Kirk (the main character) is trying to determine what destroyed another starship, which in turn likely poses a threat to his own ship (the central problem), while in deep space, specifically near solar system L-374 (setting).

If the inciting incident fails to be interesting, the audience almost certainly will stop reading or watching. Some writers pay so much attention to this section of the story that it’s far more interesting than the rest of the story – yet despite diminishing returns, readers or television viewers keep on with the tale just because the opening was so gripping.

When writing the opening of your story, follow these guidelines:
n Start the story in media res, or “in the middle” - “The Doomsday Machine” doesn’t start with the starship Kirk is looking for engaged in the battle that results in its destruction. That would delay us from being the main character and result in less dramatic tension. Dispensing with the story’s background and starting “in the middle” has been a time-honored way of telling stories since Homer’s “The Iliad”.
n Introduce a crisis that affects the main character - This jolt sets the story in motion. For readers, finding out how this problem will be resolved is the reason to keep turning the page. In “The Doomsday Machine,” Kirk’s capable friend is in charge of the destroyed starship; if something can destroy his friend’s ship, then he knows he’s also in trouble.
n Present a “challenge of the unknown” - That your main character facing something thought impossible is fundamental in science fiction plots. The exoticness of an alien locale or an extrapolation of known science is part of what brings many people to this genre. In “The Doomsday Machine”, this exotic unknown is some force that can wreak havoc upon starships, the very device our future Earth depends upon to protect it.

You Do It
Page through the previous pieces you’ve written for these exercises. From them, draw an idea for a story. Now write the opening 100-150 words of the piece. Make sure you’ve introduced the main character, the central problem he faces and the setting in those first 100 words.

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: central problem, opening, parts of plot

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Most stories unfold in the same way: the main character encounters a problem, he attempts in various ways to overcome the problem, and ultimately he succeeds.

For example, in the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “Devil in the Dark”, Captain Kirk faces the problem of stopping what appears to be a monster that is killing miners on the planet Janus VI. He attempts to solve the problem by hunting down the creature. He ultimately succeeds in stopping the murders by making contact with the creature and coming to an understanding of and agreement with it.

Of course, the plot of a story is more complicated than this. But the way action unfolds in most stories can be divided into distinct parts. Being aware of these parts can help you better develop a story.

There are five general parts of a plot:

n Opening - During the first paragraphs of a story, the main character, the problem he faces and the setting is introduced. This part sometimes is referred to as the “introduction”. In “Devil in the Dark,” we also learn that some of the miners doubt Kirk’s ability to solve the problem, which will complicate his efforts later in the episode.

n Rising action - The bulk of the story consists of the rising action, in which the main character attempts to solve his problem. He repeatedly fails, however, causing the situation becomes even more dire for him. This part also is known as the “complication”. During the hunt, Kirk loses a man, finds the station’s nuclear reactor pump has been stolen, almost dies during a cave-in and then is cornered by the creature.

n Climax - Ultimately, the main character solves the problem through some great, dramatic effort. Discovering the creature is intelligent, Kirk orders Spock to mind meld with the creature and Dr. McCoy to heal its wound; this allows Kirk and the creature (which calls itself a Horta) to come to an agreement: the miners will stop killing its young and it will stop killing the miners.

n Falling action - This extremely short section of the plot occurs immediately after the climax. It deals with the effects of the climax on the main character. Kirk now champions the Horta’s cause and stops the miners from attacking it.

n Denouement - The “conclusion” occurs in the last few sentences of the story. The loose ends of the story are tied up at this point. Back aboard their starship, Kirk, Spock and McCoy discuss (er, joke) about the philosophical implications of the Horta’s intelligence; we also learn that the miners and Horta are getting along fine.

Look back at the piece you wrote for the "Main character" entry. Based on that problem that your main character faced, create an outline of a story that uses eachof the five parts of plot.

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: central problem, climax, plot, rising action

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