Swain-6-5

Dwight V. Swain
Author
Techniques of the Selling Writer
Chapter 6 -IV. How to build a climax.

   Climax should provide reader with story satisfaction through release of tension. Climax triggers release of tension through two basic issues:
(1) It answers the question of what character deserves.
(2) It answers the question of what he gets.

   These two factors, Swain says, correlate with the subdivisions of story’s end: climax and resolution. Climax gives final, conclusive proof of what character deserves. Resolution sets forth what he gets. Tension builds on the conflict between desire and danger established at the beginning of the story. Reader, experiencing with character, desires to see character attain his goal. But so powerful is the opposition that he fears, simultaneously, that character won’t make it.

   Foundational to the story is the dichotomy between principle and expedience. This struggle between principle and expedience serves as the basis of climax. In adherence to principle or abandonment of principle in favor of expedience, character proves ultimately and beyond all doubt that he gets what he deserves. The climax dramatizes this adherence or abandonment. In order to demonstrate this:

   1. Set up a situation in which character has a choice between two specific, concrete, alternative courses of action. In good fiction, Swain says, a climactic moment of decision marks the beginning of the end. This situation unfolds at the beginning of the story, develops, builds up, and intensifies in the middle, and in the climax, character faces the crisis and reader gets conclusive evidence whether or not he deserves to attain his goal. Character faces a choice: act on expedience, the easy way out, or on principle.

   It is at this crux of expedience or principle that the most common weaknesses of climax become apparent.
(a) Character isn’t properly boxed in. There’s a loophole, and reader spots it, and this spoils the climax. To avoid this, writer should plug all loopholes and box in character before the climax.
(b) No barrier of principle blocks the easy way. The easy way out, a sort of loophole, lets character off easily and reader feels disappointed, cheated. After all, the function of climax is to test character, and without principle at stake there can be no test. No conflict, no climax.
(c) The alternative to the easy way isn’t sufficiently disastrous. To make character sweat and endure inner turmoil, his alternative to the easy way, to expedience, must promise sheer catastrophe—to act via principle may lead to complete, total loss. When his own neck is at risk, when character stands to lose everything, he perhaps tends to think more realistically, increasing the temptation to take the easy road. Sticking with principle builds tension and throws character absolutely into the teeth of fate. Then, a “right” decision sacrifices everything; it gains nothing. All common sense, all logic, all self-interest, bar his way.
(d) The focal character’s goal isn’t important enough and/or attractive enough to him. Character seeks a goal—something he yearns to attain or retain. His pursuit brings him face to face with a situation filled with potential calamity, disaster. He backs off. Fast. Unless the goal he seeks is so important to him subjectively that it exceeds the danger. A goal character envisions as shaping his future, his chances for happiness.
(e) The situation isn’t built up sufficiently. The climax is the biggest moment of the story, and to dismiss it casually throws the whole story away. Reader throws the book in the fireplace.

   2. Force character to choose between two courses available to him—principle or expedience. Making a choice between expedience or self-interest and principle is difficult in any situation—especially if catastrophe hangs like Damocles’ sword. Story should show how hard making such a decision is. This is hard, but important because it holds the power to explode climax into decision.

   3. Make character translate his choice into an irrevocable climactic act. He must do something. He must translate decision into an irrevocable, climactic act. Next to making his decision, this is the most important facet of climax because decision remains meaningless until character translates it into action. Decision alone won’t do the job. Character must act—act in a way that will pave the way for release of reader’s tension. Unfortunately, then, climax is always an act performed by character.

   Irrevocability characterizes a climactic act—Caesar crossing the Rubicon. It represents an ultimate commitment. Consciously or otherwise, character knows this, so he acts, waiving the privilege of changing his mind later.

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