In Novels Falling Action is Often Followed by

Falling Action Definition

What is falling action? Here’s a quick and uncomplicated definition:

The falling action of a story is the section of the plot post-obit the climax, in which the tension stemming from the story’s primal conflict decreases and the story moves toward its conclusion. For case, the traditional “good vs. evil” story (similar many superhero movies) doesn’t end as soon every bit the forcefulness of evil has been thwarted. Rather, in that location tends to exist a portion of the story in which the hero must restore regular lodge to the world, clean up the mess they made, or make a render journeying domicile. This is all part of the “falling action.”

Some additional fundamental details nigh falling action:

• Falling action is just one function of the structure of a story’s overall plot. The falling action follows the climax, or the moment of peak tension in the story.
• Falling activity is often confused for dénouement, the last office of the story. They’re similar, simply not the same. We’ll explicate the central differences in this entry.
• The contrary of falling action is rising activity, which occurs before the climax and in which the story’south main conflict unfolds and tension builds.

Falling Action Explained

The falling action is an important but often overlooked part of plot structure in which the key disharmonize of the story is moved toward complete resolution. Generally speaking,
most
works of writing that take a plot can be said to have a section of falling activity. But not
every
story has a falling action—and fifty-fifty for stories that practice incorporate it, the falling action isn’t ever well-defined or piece of cake to identify. Here are a few of the key defining features of falling action to assistance you place it:

• The falling action begins with the climax.The climax frequently answers the story’south biggest question (such equally “Who did it?” or “Will they win?”), but it doesn’t respond
  all
  the questions or resolve the story’s main problem completely. Rather, the climax makes that process or resolutionpossible. In other words, the falling action tin’t begin until after the climax.
• The falling activity “winds down” the tension.Later on then much time has been devoted, in the rising action, to building up the story’s cardinal conflict, it’s of import in the wake of the climax to dispel some of the built-up tension. And so information technology’south common, during the falling action, to see the characters
  themselvesrelax a little, with the end of their struggle now in sight.
• The falling action sometimes introduces a new conflict.Many people call up of the falling activeness equally the department of the story devoted exclusively to de-escalating the conflict that was congenital up during the ascension activeness. And while this
  is one of the main purposes of the falling action, plot twists and new conflicts can besides exist introduced during the falling activity.
  • For case, it’south common for writers to use falling activity to describe the hero’s journey back home after they succeed in their quest. But merely because the climax has already occurred doesn’t mean the trip dwelling has to exist uneventful; oft, characters face up new problems (albeit smaller ones) during the falling action, which can be a expert way of adding interest and suspense. The falling action can also show how the protagonist has grown (equally they may at present deal with obstacles differently than they did before the rising action and climax).
  • As another case, if the story’s hero died saving the world during the climax, it might be revealed during the falling action that it was all part of their plan, and they actually survived.
  • Similarly, sometimes the antagonist is defeated during the story’s falling action rather than its climax.
• The falling action ends with a resolution.The end of the falling action is marked by the resolution of the story’southward main conflict. What this looks like in practice depends on what the main conflict of the story was: in a mystery, the criminal might be thrown in jail, while in a romance, the lovers might go married. Resolutions aren’t always happy, and sometimes they don’t give the audience a feeling of complete closure, but they ever makes it clear that the story is cartoon to an terminate.

Falling Action vs. Dénouement

Falling activeness is often confused with dénouement, a dissever function of the structure of plot. The dénouement is part of the full general process of bringing the story to a point of resolution, and then it’southward piece of cake to encounter why it would be confused with falling action, just the two parts accept some very specific, key differences that are important to sympathise.

• Dénouement is the final function of the story, in which loose ends are tied up, and the upshot or “issue” of the events of the story is hinted at, if not shown.
  • For example, the dénouement might give the audience a sense for what the future volition hold for the characters, or how they were inverse by the story.
  • This part of the story is unremarkably quite brief, even compared to the falling action: the most well-known dénouement is “and they lived happily always afterwards.”
• Dénouements, past definition, occurlater on the resolution that marks the end of the falling activeness. Whereas the falling action results in the resolution of the major plot indicate, the dénouement resolves issues or conflicts that are of a secondary nature to the main issue of the story.
• Like an
  epilogue, the dénouement may besides show how the events of the story fit into the broader scheme of history or the lives of those involved.

To fully understand what makes dénouements different from falling action, take a wait through our entry on dénouement, where you tin can find some clear examples.

Falling Action and Freytag’s Pyramid

One of the kickoff and near influential people to create a framework for analyzing plots was 19th-century German writer Gustav Freytag, who argued that all plots can be broken down into five stages:

• Exposition
• Rising action
• Climax
• Falling action
• Dénouement

Freytag originally developed this theory as a way of describing the plots of plays at a time when almost plays were divided into v acts, but his v-layered “pyramid” tin can also be used to clarify the plots of other kinds of stories, including novels, curt stories, films, and television shows. Here’s the pyramid every bit originally defined past Freytag:

One of import thing to annotation about the shape of Freytag’s pyramid is that it shows all parts of the story as having equal length, with climax at the very eye of the diagram. Nevertheless, this is actually a bit misleading, since the falling action is normally much shorter than the rising action, and begins close to the story’s cease rather than in the eye. Therefore, a slightly more authentic version of Freytag’s pyramid (modified to show a shorter, later falling action) might look something like this:

Freytag’s Pyramid Doesn’t Fit All Plots

While Freytag’southward pyramid is very handy, not every piece of work of literature fits neatly into its structure. In fact, many modernist and postal service-modern writers intentionally subvert the standard narrative and plot construction that Freytag’s pyramid represents. We mention this here because falling action is often spoken about in relation to other parts of Freytag’s pyramid, and because agreement
where
the falling action typically occurs within a narrative may assistance you identify it. And so while the falling action is frequently spoken about in relation to other parts of Freytag’southward pyramid, in that location may be times when information technology’southward easier to determine what office of a story is the falling activity based on criteriaother than its position relative to other sections of the plot, such as what part of the narrative winds down tension or suspense.

Falling Activeness Examples

In the examples that follow, we’ll explicate each story’s falling action in relation to its overall plot and so you have a full understanding of how falling action operates inside the story.

Falling Action in “Little Ruddy Riding Hood”

Here’south a simple example from a story that almost everyone is familiar with. In “Footling Red Riding Hood,” the climax occurs when the wolf, disguised as the grandmother, eats Little Red Riding Hood. During the falling action, a nearby woodsman (having heard Lilliputian Ruddy Riding Hood’s cries of distress) comes to her rescue, cut open the wolf and saving both Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. This is a story in which the antagonist (the wolf) is defeated during the falling action rather than the climax—a reminder that the falling action isn’t always devoid of pregnant plot developments.

Falling Action inA Streetcar Named Want

In Tennessee Williams’southward A Streetcar Named Desire, the rising activeness begins when Blanche Dubois arrives at the home of her sister, Stella, and reveals that she has, nether mysterious circumstances, lost possession of their childhood home. Stanley, Stella’s married man, is immediately suspicious of Blanche, who in plow is very critical of Stanley and derides him constantly for his low class and “archaic” ways. The tension between these three characters grows over the grade of the months that Blanche stays with the couple in their tiny apartment, and the mystery around the circumstances prompting Blanche’s visit as well continues to grow, until 1 day Stanley tells Stella everything he has heard near Blanche’s sordid past from others: that she was fired from her teaching job for having an affair with a seventeen-year-old boy, and began working equally a prostitute at a local hotel. Tension reaches a new height after this revelation, as it’south unclear how all the various characters will reply to the new data. The play reaches a climax when Stanley finally confronts Blanche and, it’south strongly suggested, rapes her.

In the following scene, weeks have passed, and Blanche’s mental state has deteriorated completely. Information technology seems that she has told Stella about her rape, but that Stella doesn’t believe her. It’south revealed that Stella and Stanley have made arrangements to have Blanche committed to a mental asylum. A doctor and nurse arrive to have Blanche abroad. Seeming to have only the vaguest agreement of what’s happening, Blanche reluctantly agrees to go with the doctor. The scene constitutes the entirety of the play’south falling action, ending with the resolution (a direct effect of the climax): Blanche has lost her mind.

Falling Activity in
The Lord of the Rings

J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy tells the story of Frodo, a hobbit who must journeying to a unsafe and faraway land in order to throw a magical ring into a volcano and, in doing so, destroy Sauron, a major force of evil that threatens the entire world, including everyone he loves. People often say that the final book (or film) of the trilogy ends with one climax after some other, in a seemingly endless succession. Simply this is really a mistake. While it’s truthful that the plot of the film continues for quite some fourth dimension after the climax (in which the ring and Sauron are destroyed), it is
not
the case that each new plot development that occurs after the picture show’south climax is a climax in its own correct. Rather, many of the seemingly “climactic” plot developments that follow the bodily climax are part of the falling activeness, in which the heroes must make the long journey home.

For instance, the scene immediately post-obit the climax—in which the volcano erupts and the heroes must escape—is part of the falling activity sequence. The tension stemming from the key conflict has already been dispelled, but some tension remains surrounding the question of how and whether the heroes will become domicile.

What’s the Part of Falling Action in Literature?

Not all pieces of writing that have plots also make use of falling action—some plots end very suddenly after the climax, for example—but most plotsdo have a section in which the activeness “unwinds.” That’s because the falling action serves many different purposes in a story. Hither are some of the main reasons a writer might build their plot with a section of falling action:

• To carry the plot from its climax to a resolution.
• To permit fourth dimension for “unwinding” or de-escalating some of the tension that was built up during the ascension action past showing the characters going through the process of re-ordering their lives or restoring the natural balance.
• To go along the audience engaged afterwards the climax by introducing 1 or more smaller conflicts during the falling activity.

Other Helpful Falling Action Resources

• The Wikipedia Entry on Dramatic Construction: This page covers basic plot structure, including a department on falling activeness.
• The Dictionary Definition of Falling Action: A basic definition.
• 1 of the final scenes from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy:
  This scene might seem “climactic,” only it’south actually just one office of the picture’s falling activity sequence.