Make A Scene (32 page)

Jacob quickly falls in love with Marlena, the acrobatic star of the circus, who is married to the tempestuous August, a man who takes out his anger on the animals—in particular, a new addition, an elephant named Rosie, who quickly tires of her abuse.

For pages the tension builds between August and Jacob, as well as among the disgruntled circus employees and their employer, "Uncle Al," who often withholds their pay. These many tensions build for the entire novel until one day, when a bunch of men who were "red lighted" (thrown off the train overnight) come back for revenge during a performance with the intention of ruining the circus.

Gruen signals the climactic event in a cacophonous way:

I reach for it, but before I can pick it up the music crashes to a halt. There's an ungodly collision of brass that finishes with a cymbal's hollow clang. It wavers out of the big top and across the lot, leaving nothing in its wake.

Grady freezes, crouched over his burger.

I look from left to right. No one moves a muscle — all eyes point at the big top. A few wisps of hay swirl lazily across the hard dirt.

"What is it? What's going on?" I ask.

"Shh,"
Grady says sharply.

The band starts up again, this time playing "Stars and Stripes Forever."

"Oh Christ. Oh shit," Grady jumps up and backward, knocking over the bench.

"What? What is it?"

"The Disaster March!" he shouts, turning and bolting.

The climactic event gets underway with a literal crash of cymbals, and what happens from there is mayhem and chaos—animals and circus-goers fleeing and screaming, people being run over and attacked, all leading up to the penultimate moment (I won't give it away completely, but you'll get the feeling of what's to come):

My eyes sweep the tent, desperate to the point of panic.
Where are you? Where are you? Where the hell are you?

I catch sight of pink sequins and my head jerks around. When I see Marlena standing beside Rosie, I cry out in relief.

August is in front of them—of course he is, where else would he be? Marlena's hands cover her mouth. She hasn't seen me yet, but Rosie has. She stares at me long and hard, and something about her expression stops me cold. August is oblivious—red-faced and bellowing, flapping his arms and swinging his cane. His top hat lies in the straw beside him, punctured as though he'd put a foot through it.

Rosie stretches out her trunk, reaching for something.

In this climax, the opposite forces—the innocent elephant and the brutal animal trainer—clash, and the result changes Jacob and Marlena, and even Rosie, for good.

Some climactic moments will test your protagonist directly. He will rise to the challenge and prove himself worthy of something—he will deliver that ring to the fires of Mordor. Some will take things or people away from your protagonist, leaving her to deal with an emotional experience that changes her. Either way, climactic scenes, like epiphanies, are about change; but climactic scenes are about more permanent change. A protagonist can come to an epiphany without reaching the ultimate event of the narrative. But once you arrive at the climactic event, nothing will be the same.

POST-CLIMACTIC EVENT

When the climactic scene is over, your work changes. No longer do you have an imperative to drop in new plot information or create suspense. The scenes that follow a climactic one are about resolutions, sorting through the aftermath of the event and determining where to go next, showing that your protagonist has changed. You do want to be sure that all plot and character questions are answered, however.

In
Stranger in a Strange Land,
Michael's death gives his followers motivation to keep up his work—to turn the world into a better place. In
Geek Love,
the loss of her family and her livelihood forces Olympia to finally become her own person, and it allows her to tell her daughter, Miranda, the truth of her origins. While the climax leads to loss, it also leads to a better future for Miranda. In
Water for Elephants,
Jacob and Marlena can now create a different kind of life for themselves, and those who suffered under brutality of one sort or another are able to get free of it.

Your climactic scene is a big one in the narrative—it is, in essence, the point that the entire narrative is driving towards, the moment of no return, and it should be written with care.

CLIMACTIC SCENE MUSE POINTS
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• Use as many of the elements of a scene as possible to build a well-rounded, complex climactic event: action, dialogue, setting details, emotional content, dramatic tension.

• Each protagonist will have only one climactic scene.

•The climax event must be directly related to the significant situation.

•The climax is a point of no return that must change your protagonist permanently in some way.

• Keep the stakes high.

•The climactic scene is the high point of action and drama—all scenes that follow it will be slower and more reflective, and contain less action.

All good things must end. But as the aphorism goes, the end of one thing is also the beginning of another. Final scenes, then, are the end of one chapter in a protagonist's life. A rare few protagonists will actually die at the end of a narrative, but in general your final scene is the conclusion of the events that your first scene opened with—your significant situation. However, the final scene need not feel completely over and done with. In fact, a final scene may very well feel like a new beginning. This scene should:

• Provide a snapshot of where your protagonist is after the conclusion of your plot

• Be reflective in tone

• Provide a full-circle feeling by recalling the significant situation

• Move at a slower pace

You
may
also save one last surprise, answer, or insight for the final scene, but this isn't something that's necessary.

Though the final scene marks the end of your narrative, in the reader's mind, your characters and settings may very well live on, so you want to put as much work into creating a memorable ending as you did into your captivating beginning.

LEADING UP TO THE FINAL SCENE

Before we go on to look at the structure and content of your final scene, let's discuss the final
scenes
—yes, that's plural—that come before the very final scene of your narrative. The three to five scenes that come before the last scene have the job of supplying answers to outstanding questions that your plot has raised (see chapter eight). Those scenes are where you solve the crime, return the kidnapped child, or bring the lovers back together, thus tying up your plot, decreasing tension, and bringing a sense of resolution to your narrative. The job of the true final scene is to show the reader where your protagonist is now, how he has changed, and what he thinks or feels as a result of the consequences of your significant situation and its offshoots.

Showing Character Transformation

The final scene is the last impression your protagonist will make upon the reader. Unless you have a very, very good reason for your protagonist not to have changed (if, for instance, the plot of your novel was that people were trying to change him through brainwashing, cult activities, or some other form of coercion, then a successful arc would portray your character
resisting
change), your protagonist should not be the same person he was when he started out. The principle areas where your character is most likely to reflect change are in his attitude, job, relationships, and even location. Whether he has a new outlook, a new lifestyle, a new love, or a new sense of self—character change is the defining factor of your final scene.

Concluding the Significant Situation

As a result of your narrative's significant situation, a world of consequences has unraveled for your protagonist, taking him on a complex and interesting journey. That journey eventually has to conclude in a way that makes the storyline feel finished. If the story is a murder investigation, the reader must learn whodunit by the end. If it's a romance, the reader should glimpse the happily ever after. You get the idea—the final scene of your narrative will either be the literal conclusion of the significant situation, or the point in time that comes just after the situation ends.

The final scene is the place where your protagonist reflects upon, deals with, or accepts the consequences of your significant situation.

Final scenes inevitably have a contemplative air about them and may not be as long as other scenes because there's no need to introduce elaborate new actions or plot situations. The final scene is a snapshot of where your protagonist finds himself at the end of his journey, and should offer just a glimpse. Most tension and drama should be concluded or winding down by then. (You rarely leave a narrative on a suspenseful note unless there's definitely a sequel coming.) The ending is a place of reflection, and right from the launch of your final scene, you want to make this clear by slowing down the pace and providing room for reflection or interior monologue.

OPENING YOUR FINAL SCENE

Counterpoints and reflective exposition are two popular techniques for kicking off your final scene because both methods allow you the opportunity to fully illustrate to the reader just how much the events of the story have changed your character.

Counterpoints

A fantastic way to show that your character has changed as a result of your significant situation is to open the final scene with a counterpoint to the first scene, so that the reader has direct and specific cues about how your character has changed. What this means is that you set up your final scene to resemble your first scene, but you change the details to reflect the kind of change your character has undergone.

For example, in Kate Atkinson's literary mystery novel
Case Histories,
cop-turned-private-investigator Jackson Brodie's final scene opens with a distinctly lighthearted tone, with the words (in French) "goodbye sadness." He has solved his case, accepted that his ex-wife will never take him back, and found himself attracted to Julia, the quirky woman he met while investigating her sister's death. There's a carefree tone and mood to the scene. He's driving in his convertible, playing music on the radio, and wishing he could get rid of Julia's dull sister Amelia so they can flirt more effectively: