We are now more than halfway through National Novel Writing Month, which means you’re probably starting to think about the climax of your novel. This can feel like a very high-pressure part of your story. Fortunately, it’s also widely considered to be the fun part. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of bringing it all together, you’re certainly not alone. Let’s break down what the climax is and exactly what it needs to have in it.

What is the climax of a novel?

The climax is the moment in your story where the most intense expression of the central conflict comes to fruition. It’s the worst-case scenario, the long-awaited face-off, the perfect storm. Your characters have either been preparing for, dreading, avoiding, working towards, or blindly circling around this moment since the very first page. It is often regarded as the highest point of tension in the story.

How do you come up with the climax?

Maybe you went into the novel knowing what the climax was going to be. But if you didn’t, take a minute to think about the sources of conflict in your story. What is the main conflict, and how bad could it possibly get? For an added boost of awfulness, is there a way to interweave a lower-priority conflict into this? Basically, how do you make as many subplots as possible totally blow up in everyone’s faces, all within a few chapters of each other?

Now arrange those successive crises so that they build on each other, creating the tone you’re going for in each specific moment. Remember that a relatively weak conflict, like an argument with a neighbor, will be made to look even smaller if it was immediately preceded by a stronger conflict, like a death threat from a supervillain. You could do this deliberately to create irony or comedy (“I just got a death threat, and want me to care that you’re mad about the color I painted my garage?!”), or switch it up so the smaller conflict precedes the bigger one, thereby feeding it and making the situation feel more dire (“I already have the homeowner’s association on my ass – when it rains, it pours”). (This was a very dumb example, I know, but hopefully you get the picture.)

How long should the climactic sequence be?

The lead-up to the climax usually starts several chapters before the actual climactic event. The climax itself, meanwhile – the actual sequence of events resulting from those conflicts – is usually a couple of chapters long. They can be long chapters, but there won’t be many of them. This part of the story needs to feel exciting and punchy, not drawn-out. Treating it as one cohesive unit is a good place to start in terms of making that happen.

So, is that the end of the book?

No, but you’re getting there. Following the climax, there will be a wind-down period called the denouement, which brings the story to its emotional resolution. (Come back next Sunday to hear more about that, by the way!) The climax itself might provide some of this resolution – the big bad dies, the heist is successful, the cursed amulet is destroyed – but your characters will probably still have some leftover emotions to process when all is said and done. That’s what the denouement is for, not the climax. My point is, don’t feel like you have to tie everything off here. The climax isn’t about tying off the ends, it’s about bringing them together so that they can be tied off at all.

A good way to think about it is to ask yourself, “What needs to happen so that this story can end?” Usually the result will be something big and potentially messy. That’s your climax. It’s the thing that facilitates the ending.

However you look at it, one important thing is clear: you’re almost done! Give yourself a huge pat on the back for how far you’ve made it through this crazy month. Your very own taste of resolution is close at hand. You just have one conflict first: writing the book.

Happy writing!