Swain-6-6

Dwight V. Swain
Author
Techniques of the Selling Writer
Chapter 6 -IV. How to resolve the story issue.

   Resolve the story issue by rewarding or punishing the focal character for his climactic act, in accordance with poetic justice. Given a correct decision, what character wants determines what he gets. Moving character from decision to reward involves:

   a. Letting character suffer through a black moment of anguish after climax. Swain says that the reason reader reads is so that he can worry, and in the moment immediately after climax, that worry comes into its sharpest focus because character, acting, stands convinced that he’s lost—that the seemingly inevitable doom the course of principle threatened is about to destroy him—all hope is gone. Reader shares this feeling of darkness with focal character. So, this moment should not be rushed or slighted. The blacker things look, the longer the moment hangs.

   b. Reverse the focal character’s situation with an unanticipated development. The villain’s gun misfires, there’s a sudden way out of the tunnel, the train switches to another track just before the crash, an ally appears, the actual culprit’s caught… A falsification of reality? Not really. Life is full of shocks, twists, and flips. A good reversal demands three things: /a/ A good reversal must be desired. Reader must care what happens to character, for if not, even the best twist is unlikely to impress him. Writer must make reader want, and want desperately, to see character save. /b/ A good reversal must be unanticipated. Much of the impact is lost if the reader guesses in advance what’s going to happen. /c/ A good reversal must be logical. Believability comes from proper preparation, planning, and planting. An effect without a cause spells disaster every time.

   Laying the foundation for a good reversal rests upon: /1/ Knowing every detail of the climax situation. It often proves helpful to draw a map or plan of the setting. The general is the worst enemy. Hero may need a window that isn’t there, a secret tunnel, a rope, or a pistol. /2/ Knowing the characters. Knowing what each one is doing at the time of climax, and how each will react to the fact of character’s decision. /3/ Remembering that audacity often carries the day. Character brazenly confronts villain, throws a punch, or pulls a weapon. /4/ Bearing in mind that people sometimes do react favorably or unselfishly. A co-partner may act bravely, changing character’s impression of him. /5/ Remembering that writer’s role makes him god within the boundaries of his story. In time of need, writer can change the weather, the environment, the terrain, or the villain’s attitude if needed to solve the story problem.

   c. Give character his reward by letting him attain his goal, in letter or spirit. This does not necessarily involve the happy ending so much as the satisfying ending. Avoid the phony, the distortion of reality, give reader that sense that, “This is the way it should be.” That satisfactory state can be achieved by: /1/ Releasing tension, which evolves from danger. Tension culminates in the climactic moment, with its threat of disaster. Eliminating danger, then, releases tension stemming from its source. By dissipating character’s fear that some specific something will or won’t happen tension relaxes. /2/ Releasing tension by meeting desire. Desire, after all, is the ground swell from which all danger springs. It precedes peril. Out of desire, character’s goal springs—a goal so vital to him, subjectively, that early in story he commits himself to fight to achieve it against all odds. To release tension born of desire, therefore, give character what he wants; allow him to attain his goal.

   Here, however, is where story can go wrong because writer assumes the thing character gets matches to the letter the goals that he seeks. But this isn’t poetic justice—it’s nonsense. There’s often a great difference between the stated goal and the true goal. Though they may be the same, often the gap between them is wide. This distinction between stated goals and true goals may be used to help resolve the story problem and reward character by: /a/ Determining the emotional need behind character’s stated goal. Here the issue is one of character dynamics. /b/ Devising a way to satisfy character’s emotional need by changing character’s outlook so that the climax provides fulfillment, which is a feeling, a state of mind. There should be an aha moment when character perceives that he has achieved the true goal lying behind his stated goal.

   5. To resolve story issues, tie up any loose ends. Answering the story question, for all practical purposes, ends the story itself. Holding reader too long beyond that point risks losing him. The job, then, is to say good-bye in as few words as possible. Ordinarily, a few paragraphs or pages should be enough to tie up loose ends, so the goal is to work for a short concluding section. However, no issue or character should be unaccounted for, and no loose ends should be left dangling.

   Here, careful proofreading and painstakingly checking plot development, point by point, are important to see that there are no questions left unanswered.

   Swain suggests that at this point, it’s a good idea to have a beta reader who doesn’t know the story review the manuscript, checking for holes and loose thinking.

   6. Resolve the story issue by resolving fulfillment into a punch line by striving for euphoria—a sense of well-being and buoyancy, the feeling that follows the draining off of the last vestiges of reader’s tension. Create the punch line by searching for a final paragraph, or a line to end with, which will epitomize character’s fulfillment.

   Writing a good punch line, Swain says, can be a nerve-racking, floor-pacing, time-consuming job. So, he suggests, jot down each and every idea that comes to mind, no matter how remote, then settle for whichever seems best. There are some tips for achieving this goal: /a/ Try early to establish the idea that a particular event, a significant detail, represents fulfillment to character. Throughout the story, character strives to fulfill the goal. /b/ A comic or apparently pointless line may turn the trick—if only because it demonstrates conclusively that trouble and tension are over. /c/ Ignoring the present for the future may carry the implication that all’s ended and all’s well.

Previous – How to build to a climax
Next – Conclusion
Directory