Last year I was asked to offer some revision advice for the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast (listen to the episode
As I thought about it, I realized the key to my revision process is the climactic scene.
To be quite honest with you, the first manuscript I revised was not my first novel. I wrote eight (yes, you heard right) eight first drafts before landing on a story that I felt excited to revise. If you’re on your first or second manuscript and are rearing to go, congratulations. If you’re on your fifth attempt and still frustrated, I feel your pain and can assure you that you’ll get there.
Now, let’s talk about climactic scenes.
What is the climactic scene?
The climactic scene answers the question opened in the beginning of your novel. You started writing for a reason—to solve a mystery, to kindle a romance, to defeat the bad guy, to help your character of any number of difficult situations—and now you have to bring your exploration to an end. Whatever happens in your climactic scene—whether your protagonist achieves their goal, or fails at their goal, or realizes that something else is more important than their goal—your story has effectively ended. Your protagonist is no longer concerned with what troubled them when the novel opened.
It’s essential for you to actually write your climactic scene. You outliners might be thinking: I already know what will happen, so what, but the truth is there are things you won’t know about your climax until you actually write it and you need that information to start revising.
Climactic Scene Cast
The first thing that you’ll discover is which characters actually show up in the climactic scene and, perhaps more importantly, who doesn’t. The characters who do show up need to appear in earlier scenes and form a significant connection with protagonist and reader.
When revising my manuscript, I discovered that the character who supported my protagonist the most in this last scene showed up only twice in earlier chapters. Obviously I needed to fix that.
The bigger problem for me, though, was that my protagonist’s brother didn’t show up in the climactic scene. I had to ask myself why. Why—when he would follow his sister into anything and was actively helping her change—did he just vanish when the gloves were off? Exploring why revealed a fascinating subplot and also provided a vital turning point for my protagonist. (Good news for pantsers, revision involves as much exploration as the first draft.)
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Your Protagonist’s Skills
The second thing you will discover after writing the climactic scene is which skills your protagonist will end up using. I don’t know about you, but my protagonist goes through a lot in my first drafts. I just throw anything and everything at them and hope that at least some of it will end up helping. When you discover exactly which skills are important when push comes to shove, you can go back and focus on helping your character strengthen them.
On a similar note, the climactic scene will tell you what inner barriers your protagonist has to overcome. What’s the difference between skills and inner barriers? Their skills allows the protagonist to take physical action in the climactic scene; overcoming inner barriers gives them the confidence to do so. As you revise, you can craft scenes to show your protagonist’s growth in both areas.
Climax of the Character Arc
And finally, the climactic scene will show you the results of your protagonist’s character arc, the change they go through while facing the events of the story. This change is shown through the specific actions the protagonist takes in the climactic scene. When I started writing my manuscript, I knew that my protagonist has anger issues she needs to overcome, but anger management is a huge spectrum. Does she learn to suppress her anger, redirect it, show compassion to those she didn’t before, stand up for those she didn’t before, learn that there’s no shame in anger? All of these options have very different paths leading up to them, so once I saw what actions she took in the climactic scene, I was better able to shape her journey through the story. I could craft scenes that shows her growth, and you can do the same when you discover what actions your protagonist takes in your climactic scene.
At this point, you might be worried that your climactic scene isn’t perfect. There’s so much riding on it, that impostor syndrome might be plaguing you. Don’t worry. Your climactic scene can and will be rewritten as you go through revisions; what’s important at this point is the information you gain from examining it. Who shows up and doesn’t; what skills your protagonist will use; what inner barriers they need to overcome; and what specific actions they take to show their growth.
What’s been your experience with revision? Do you have any tips to share? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.