I'm writing an action/adventure in the same genre as Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider. I've reached the climax, where the heroes have saved their friend from death at the last moment, and the cave/tomb is about to collapse around them. Now, I have a dilemma.
I currently have a scene after this where they escape. The midboss from before is back for one last fight, and they battle above a rickety old bridge, with a literal cliff hanger before the heroes escape to the surface. But that feels like I've put something mediocre after a stunning climax.
Alternatively, I can brush the escape aside and cut to them making it out just before the rocks fall, and pivot right into the resolution; or I can do something in the middle, where the escape is exciting but they don't fight a villain.
How do I know when to stop the action? The story isn't done, but the remainder can't compete with the climax. It almost feels like a required dangling bit of story, which feels unpleasant. How much falling action can I have before it starts to drag on?
Or, put another way, would the reader feel cheated if the scene cuts to the heroes escaping the dangerous underground with the friend they've saved?
EDIT: I know I can have story follow the climax for the purposes of tying off loose ends, mending relationships, etc. What I want to know is if there's room for action after an action-y climax: in this example, whether it would be underwhelming to show an escape from the underground temple after defeating the big boss.
Answer
The denouement, or resolution, has many story-related purposes, many of which Wikipedia nicely summarises, but it also has a reader-related purpose: that of gently guiding the reader out of the story and back into the real world.
Many of us fanboys and fangirls are very familiar with a kind of postpartum depression that overcomes us when a great book (or tv series) ends. I'm not listing movies here, because a movie does not last long enough for its protagonists become a familiar and habitual part of our lives. The reading of a novel (and the viewing of a tv series) on the other hand can take many days or weeks (or even years), during which we have half lived in the story's world, and half integrated the story's characters into our own. And then suddenly the narrative ends, and the character are wrenched out of our lives, and we out of theirs, and if you are at all like me then you will have shed many tears over that traumatic experience.
So what the denouement does for us is let the characters, instead of being brutally run over and unexpectedly wrenched from our lives by the speeding car of a climax, lie in bed for a few weeks, allowing us to say our goodbyes and come to terms with the natural end of the narrative.
So if you write someting that is at all intriguing, then do your readers the favor of having some few minor things happen after the big bang and let the story slowly peter out.
Of course not all stories need a denouement. They are most fitting after a long epic. Some stories have to suddenly break off to work.
If you cannot decide now, just write the story with the second climax. Then let it rest a while to distance yourself and read it again later with fresh eyes.
I had a scene in the first draft of a novel that felt both wrong and right. It had the emotional quality that I wanted, but really didn't make much sense on the level of story logic. But I couldn't bring myself to delete that scene, so I just wrote it in and left it there. Coming back to rewrite the story after a couple of months working on other things, my infatuation had cooled off enought that I could see how wrong that scene was and rewrote it. I didn't delete it completely, but changed it to something that made sense and felt right.
Writing is a lot of experimentation. You don't have to polish that section for your current draft, just write it roughly and see how it turns out. Maybe after getting it out of your system you are free to see how you could change it to something that feels good.
And trust your gut: if you doubt, then it's probably a bad idea. Good ideas feel right.
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