Thread: Story after the climax?

Hello,

In my POV novel I am planning for a huge climactic battle in which an Empire is disintigrated and I was wondering if after that it would be possible to continue the story with how everything is rebuilt, but still keep it interesting.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

I think its possible, so long as you set up the fall of the empire as stage in some greater story. It would also work pretty well with different books in a series.

An option may be to use an epilogue.

If the rebuilding is a whole story in and of itself with a new plot, protagonist, characters, etc then you can alway continue that in a second story. Don't just think you have to write about what happens next just because there is something that happens next. After all, unless all your characters die and there is no one left to carry on in their footsteps there will alway be more to a story.

Also, as TWErvin2 said, an epilogue is always a possible way to go. I believe that epilogues though should be short and have something to add to the story. Sometimes what pass for epilogues are just way too long though.

I think that the hardest part of a story is ending it. Deciding where that end is can make the difference between a good story and one that has outlived itself.

Originally Posted by Goldensilence33

Hello,

In my POV novel I am planning for a huge climactic battle in which an Empire is disintigrated and I was wondering if after that it would be possible to continue the story with how everything is rebuilt, but still keep it interesting.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Story after the climax?
Smoking in bed, what?
jk
If the ending is the battle, then only the immediate aftermath would fit. Rebuilding would be a second story or an afterthought(epilogue)

epilogue? Who put the ue in epilog? Epi-over, near, log: the record of an event. what is the ue? Oh, epilog is right too.
never mind.

To answer your question, you have to ask yourself this: what is the main conflict? (or what are the main conflicts?) If they have been wrapped up, then the story is over.

If the main conflict is the war, then the final battle and surrender would be the end. If the main conflict is a character trying to get back to his family, then there should be enough plot after the battle (that can incidentally describe some of the rebuilding) as he struggles to get back to them.

Your goal is to establish clear conflict, then make the conflict as intense as possible, then find a logical but slightly unexpected way to give your reader all the resolution they need, and not a drop of extra explanation. I've read somewhere that a story should be as long as a short skirt: long enough to cover what matters, but short enough to keep things interesting. I'm not sure how much I agree with both sides of the analogy, but it's memorable.

Another question to think about is who are you writing it for? Stories end, and after the end, it is nice to know what happens down the road, but if you think about it, some of the best books don't tell you. The battle is won, and the conflict resolved, and the hero looks around and wonders what the place will look like in a decade. Then it is over. This is another area where you can let the reader fill in the blanks for what happens afterward. You did your job and gave the story the ending it needed, and you left the reader to determine what happens afterward. It's really up to you, but short and to the point is far better than a long drawn out after story piece.

One of the most irritating things I find as reader is to have the book end too soon after the big climax. I think it makes the story feel rushed at the end. I like for loose ends to be tidied up, so that they reader has some idea of what happened afterwards. Which is what I just did in the novel I finished two days ago, which may be why I am saying this now.

I read one years ago, and I forget the author... but he did something similar and treated the epilog as a short story... twenty pages or there abouts with a nice little twist at the end and told from the perspective of a very minor character.

You could end up with an anti climax if you include too much story telling after the climax. Make the rubuild a second story.

Originally Posted by Goldensilence33

I was wondering if after that it would be possible to continue the story with how everything is rebuilt, but still keep it interesting.

Sure it's possible! There's even a word for it: dénouement.

Take 'To Kill A Mockingbird' as an example (because it's the perfect novel, IMHO).

Bob Ewell--the terrible repugnant villain of the story--attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout as they walk home on a dark night as they walk home from the pageant. Jem's arm is broken in the struggle, but amid the confusion, some mysterious person kills Bob Ewell, rescuing the children.

Conflict resolved and story over, right? Heh. Not quite.

The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley. The sheriff arrives and informs Atticus that Bob Ewell has been killed in the struggle. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of holding Jem or Boo responsible. Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective and regrets that they never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.

Scout's line: "Well, it [turning Boo in] would be sort of like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn't it?" comes in the dénouement--and that's the line that makes you cry.