You can’t race up a hill forever, eventually you’ll run out of breath. For this reason story structure demands a dynamic switch between moments of greater emphasis known as rising action and those of lesser emphasis known as falling action. For shorter stories it’s possible to only have rising actions from the introduction to the climax. However, the longer the story is the more one-note it’ll feel if every increase in tension, stakes is followed by another increase in the same. “For this scene the protagonist is in danger. Next scene, they’re in more danger. Next, even more dangerouser.” Let the characters, and the audience, catch their breath before the next heart-pounding scene. For this purpose, we use falling action to reset the story’s atmosphere.
Tension is what keeps audiences glued for the next chapter but it is a relative emotion. If the protagonist just fought off two dudes in a bar then immediately having them fight three dudes in the street in front of the bar won’t be as exciting. You could have it be four dudes this time, twice as much as the first. But then you’ve power creeped your way into an exponential conundrum. By the end of the story are they fighting off four thousand and ninety-six dudes at once? By simply buffering the time between fights with falling action you could limit the final fight to a mere sixty-four. Not quite as unbelievable.
The issue here is if the story, as simple as it is in this example, is only about the fights then each use of falling action can be interpreted as padding. To remedy this make the scenes of falling action interesting for their own reasons. Let’s say the heroes just defeated some bandits to free a mountain village and are currently on a footpath down the mountains. To let the story breathe you can have the characters just talk. Not about what just happened, no one needs a recap. But, have one character mock another for a moment of skittishness in the fight. Maybe everyone but that character laughs. Maybe that character seethes under the ridicule and their relationship with their friend frays over time. With a single joke: showed one character’s method to preserve their self-image through demeaning others, highlighted another character’s fear of violence (mystery as to why) and how they feel when it’s called out publically, showcased the party’s pecking order, planted a seed of contention between that character and their friend. All this as the party marches from one step towards their goal to the next. If you make it so, this simple scene with its single joke can mean all these things while serving a purpose to the story’s structure to take a weight off the audience’s chest so the next rising action will be heavier for the tonal difference.
Consider what story you’re writing. If the high points are violent then have the (relative) low points be humorous. If the high points involve romance then have the low points involve isolation. A thrilling court battle to determine the morality of a small town, a child’s everyday education. A utopia’s shocking revelation of an individual with connections to both the wildlands and cultivated world, how that individual grates against their new environment. The break in the action can feel like padding when the falling action bears no sinew to what came before. The heroes fight off the mountain bandits, next scene they discover the partial remnants of a fossilized dinosaur in a mountainside. If defeating the mountain bandits wasn’t a metaphor for the power of curiosity over willful ignorance then what is that dinosaur fossil there for? Specifically for scene to scene, have the falling action scene flip the rising action’s tone. On a grander scale, have them give a counterargument to what the rising action philosophically posits.
If you enter a general point of falling action and don’t find a place for a tonal or argumentative switch, it can pay dividends to refocus on the characters in their leisure moments. We’ve seen how they act when the pressure is on but how do they enjoy those precious, peaceful hours? For this mindset I can’t help but recommend RPGs. Though not completely transferable from medium to medium, going from a flashy team fight against a boss or big shoot-bangs to walking around a colorful overworld and interacting with your party is incredibly satisfying. It may be due to the limitations on characterization in normal gameplay but just talking to a character in the off hours when they’re indulging a previously unrevealed passion for theater is great. If they beg you to not spread word of it to everyone it’s adorable, the little nerd. It’s a perfect time to develop the character in low stake tests where we can see them fail. That’s another inverse you can use. Save the village, then try to whip up an edible meal out of biscuit, an apple, a knob of butter, and garlic on a ravenous stomach, but with only one frying pan. Otherwise, use this less stressful time to have characters pick up paused conversations. Let characters in a relationship go out on a date. Have a darts tournament. Take care these things are at least tentatively connected to the established plot or circle back round to it later, but if the audience likes the characters, and what they do is interesting, you’ll have some leeway.
I pointed to this earlier but let me emphasize that with every falling action you should still progress the plot. Sometimes it’s as simple as the characters being in transit to a physical location. The functional progress comes from the physical movement as the characters get a chance to rest from the action and express themselves. If the plot turns up a mystery that leaves a dozen questions, the next falling action could be the strategy session to figure out the significance of what happened and how to go about it, followed by the grueling trial and error footwork needed to find the next breakthrough. If the character fails in the rising action, the falling action usually involves them questioning their capabilities, asking what went wrong, sorting out their emotions, repairing their ego, and once more finding their resolve. It’d certainly be much tougher to solve the central problem if they gave up.
Even stories that hit the ground running must slow down sometime. As the writer it weighs your stomach with each doubling down of tension asking you, “Again?” If you have a passion for writing you don’t want to repeat yourself. You said what you wanted to say five seconds ago, you can go a few chapters before reminding everyone that war is hell or rotgut isn’t worth the savings. Plan out your strategic breaks so you don’t sound like a child in the backseat reiterating their drive-thru order. A quick barometer is if you can’t think of how to make a scene bigger, stop there and move to falling action. Collect your thoughts and when the falling action gets repetitive, start up the rising action again. Repeat with increased stakes till the climax and let the final falling action tie up the loose ends, no more.
Colin Klawans 