Critique_This_WIP

With the art of writing reaching increased levels of growth and facing more demands from our readers, we – as writers – are under the pressure to meet and exceed high and ever-changing expectations. We’re always learning new ways to keep those readers turning the pages and – hopefully – turning first time readers into lifetime readers.

So, you’ve gotten your novel nearly complete. You’ve wrote a plot-twisting, page-turner of a novel. You’re characters are sympathetic and believable, and the readers love them. Now all you have to do is write the climax (or Black Moment, as some call it) and type The End.

Great!

So what do you want to add as you’re story’s climax?

Your story’s climax is just that. (Wikipedia’s description): In general, a climax is a point of greatest intensity or force in an ascending series; i.e., a culmination. This is the part of your story that has the ability to completely satisfy your reader or leave them feeling as if their lover left them moments before release. Not a pleasant feeling. And certainly not a feeling we want to invoke in our readers, and not a good way to grow your reader base.

What can you do to ensure you don’t leave your reader unsatisfied?

Serve Up A Little Poetic Justice:

The punishment should fit the crime. Every antagonist (villain) can’t be killed just to get rid of them, just as some don’t deserve to simply go to prison. And what about the womanizing bad boy who finally found the woman he loves? Of course he’ll realize it when he leaves her behind and can’t find happiness in any other woman’s arms *yawn*. We’ve seen those played out a hundred times. Which means editors and agents has seen them about a million times.

Serve up a little poetic justice to keep things fresh. Play off your characters, instead of a carbon-copy lesson that we’ve all read about time and time again. However you serve up the poetic justice, keep it true to your story and not just for the sake of.

Increase Reader’s Emotional Involvement (using powerful emotions):

Your reader must feel the danger as your hero and/or heroine’s life hangs in the balance. They must feel the sense of loss and despair that true love is slipping through your characters fingers. That way, once your climax resolution is complete, they’ll have that sense of satisfaction.

A drawback to writing romance is your reader already knows that –even during the darkest of your “black moment” – somehow, someway, your hero and heroine will be safe, in love, and if not actually living happily-ever-after, they will at least be on the right path for such a ending.

Even if your hero or heroine is on their “death bed”, bleeding profusely and about to take their last breathe, and still your reader knows something will happen to save your character’s life so that the hero and heroine will have that Happily-ever-after moment. That makes it tougher for us romance writers to surprise them and makes it even more vital that we play on their emotions to give them a satisfying ending.

Character’s Development and Growth:

What better time for your character to learn and grow then in the time of life’s trials and tribulations? Isn’t that when, we – as humans – grow and learn?

Let’s say your heroine’s always been soft-spoken and done as her mother and father suggest. She’s been thrown together with the town bad boy on a community project to clean up graffiti. While she knows her family wouldn’t approve, she starts a brief affair and ends up falling in love with him.

But, she keeps their affair hidden from her parents. On several occasions her parents have seen them together, and she uses the excuse that she’s his sponsor. She must learn to stand up for herself, for the man she loves, but it truly terrifies her to go against her parents’ wishes. They’ve done so much for her…

If she wants a shot at happiness with the man she loves, she’ll have to grow a backbone and face her parents. She’ll have to learn and grow to overcome years of natural character traits.

Surprise Your Reader:

That moment right after all is lost if vital for resolving the climax and leaving your reader satisfied. Give them something they didn’t see coming. Think outside the box, but keep it realistic. Perhaps something that was hinted at throughout the book, but didn’t cause the reader to think too much about it. The suddenly, all those little pieces make sense and it leaves your readers surprised.

The degree of the surprise is all dependent on what type of novel you’re writing and your own personal writing style. Whether big or little, intense or subtle, give your reader more then what they were expecting!

Which brings me to the next, and final, element.


Make the Novel Whole & Fill-in the Gaps:

With our readers increasing acceptance and new found outlook on entertainment, everything doesn’t have to be spelled out in big, black and white letters anymore. Now days, you can add shades of grays, blues, and pinks. But you’ll still have to fill in the gaps and resolve conflict to have a complete novel.

Make sure you’ve answered all those questions and hooks throughout your novel. If your core conflict was your hero clearing his name from a dirty FBI agent, you can’t leave that hanging. The core conflict must be resolved and cleared up before you type “The End” and begin submitting.

But other conflicts – such as sub-plots and romance (only through certain publishers and “line” is this acceptable) can sometime simply be hinted at or implied through clever writing. The core conflict must be solved, and all others must be – if not fully resolved – at the very least, hinted at.

What books has left you feeling unsatisfied and why? What books offered the greatest surprise in climax resolution? What are the things you, as a reader, look for most in your reading pleasure?