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Post by Kessie on Oct 25, 2011 0:13:04 GMT -5
*is tasered for starting yet another new topic*
I guess I've played way too many video games, but I always think of the story climax as a boss fight. The villain unleashes his evil plan, the heroes confront him, and battle ensues. Or there's a big monster to kill. Or everything EXPLODES. (I like those kinds, too.)
So, how do you go about writing your climax or boss fight? Do you have a cool boss arena/evil lair/bridge over lava?
One of my favorites was a chase up a tower with the goal being a control room at the top. If the hero got there first, he could stop the superweapon. If the villain got there first, he'd set off the superweapon. So the hero and the villain battle all the way up the tower, each trying to delay/kill the other.
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Post by yoda47 on Oct 25, 2011 9:06:30 GMT -5
In A New Threat, they confront the bad guy on an abandoned space station. (I need to re-write this scene though, it'll probably be done sometime in December.)
In the fantasy I'm writing, there's going to be a final showdown in a cave complex under a mountain. It's either going to be a volcano or there's going to be a major earthquake or something... the character's haven't gotten there yet, so I don't know which it will be yet.
In the book I'm going to write for Nanowrimo, some of the characters from A New Threat will face a boss-like character for the whole novel. (They'll get beat up a lot.) I'm not quite sure how they'll beat him yet...
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rjj7
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Today I'm a drake
Posts: 202
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Post by rjj7 on Oct 25, 2011 14:07:51 GMT -5
A number of my climax (ideas) involve some sort of conflict with the big evil villain. However, the emphasis usually lies more on some other aspect, rather than a straight up fight (like a loss, gain, or change of perspective on the part of one or more of the characters).
I'm primarily a character first novelist, and if the climax doesn't have some deep meaning/importance to my characters, it would feel out of place with the rest of the book.
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Post by Kessie on Oct 25, 2011 17:40:34 GMT -5
A number of my climax (ideas) involve some sort of conflict with the big evil villain. However, the emphasis usually lies more on some other aspect, rather than a straight up fight (like a loss, gain, or change of perspective on the part of one or more of the characters). I'm primarily a character first novelist, and if the climax doesn't have some deep meaning/importance to my characters, it would feel out of place with the rest of the book. Yeah, it really depends on what sort of story you're writing. In a movie like You've Got Mail, the climax is really the Big Reveal. I'm afraid I'm a sucker for action movies, especially the superhero kinds, and if my stories don't end in an explosion, or an epic chase scene, or some massive struggle of some kind, I feel like the story ended with a whimper. I had one story that was just going to end with no excitement, so I had one of the villains randomly plant a bomb under the heroes. It jazzed up the climax nicely. :-)
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Post by Divides the Waters on Oct 25, 2011 19:05:24 GMT -5
I think that all too often we have associated "climax" with some sort of epic, world-shattering environment. But we forget that it can happen just as easily in a dirty basement (Silence of the Lambs), or in the middle of a graveyard on a sunny day (Profiler). It's not how many explosions you have going on around you, but to what degree you have reached the emotional apex of your story. Of course, as you pointed out, it also depends on what kind of story you're telling, but I wouldn't want people to start associating "genre" with "cliche," or worse yet, novelized video games.
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Post by Kessie on Oct 25, 2011 20:51:12 GMT -5
Divides the Waters: I read Peretti's kids series with Dr. Cooper in my young, formative years. Ever since, if the story world doesn't go mad at the end, I don't consider my climax intense enough. :-D
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rjj7
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Today I'm a drake
Posts: 202
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Post by rjj7 on Oct 26, 2011 13:10:35 GMT -5
I consider Frank Peretti to be the master of pacing. Switching between two, three, or even four viewpoints as he slowly brings them all closer and closer together, spending less and less time on each one before shooting off to the next, till he finally spends little more than a sentence on each before resolving everything with a huge BANG!!!
I read those books to, and love 'em. He certainly had a style that left you feeling 'Wow... that was definitely a climax'
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Post by Kessie on Oct 28, 2011 8:55:11 GMT -5
Heh, currently revising my climax. I churned through it so I could write "the end", then went back and realized that the climax didn't payoff a lot of the promises I had made earlier in the story. Like, I mention this one place where if you fall off, you will fall until you hit the center of the world. And I never used it! Must ... rectify ...
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Post by Divides the Waters on Oct 28, 2011 23:19:53 GMT -5
Just don't fall into the trap of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "We weren't sure how we wanted to end this, and the climax isn't exciting enough, so let's add, oh, I don't know, an earthquake or something."
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Post by Kessie on Oct 28, 2011 23:22:46 GMT -5
DtW: Haha, no, I'm only going to play with all the toys already mentioned elsewhere in the story. For one thing, I had a bunch of soldiers in gnarly Starcraft-esque power armor, and they never did anything but stand around. I'm giving them something to shoot at. :-)
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Post by fluke on Oct 29, 2011 14:11:41 GMT -5
I've usually gone for deep-introspective climaxes in my short stories. The earth-shattering part is often emotional. In "Sunset over Gunther" Shylocke realizes how much his attempts to be strong and brave have cost him (there's a war going on off-page though). "The Strong Survive" has a battle at the climax but it's point is to illustrate the differences in two world views that Granish has to choose between. Granish engages in a war of words in the climax of "The Stronger Rule," but there's a tournament to name the new king right before that. "To Cleanse the Leper" will involve a fight against a big bad. So will "My Brother's Keeper." "My Enemy/My Friend" will involve guile for the heroes to get away as they are badly outnumbered. "The Contest" has an archery contest for a backdrop. "Pursuit" is all about a chase to catch the big bad. And in "New Life" Derke has to make a decision. The battle was several scenes before.
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