Falling action is the part of a plot that comes after the climax and before the resolution. The central conflict has just been decided, and the falling action plays out what that decision set off: the escape or the arrest, the dead counted, the secret out in the open, the last danger dealt with. In a short story it can take a single paragraph. In a novel it usually runs from a few pages to a few chapters, and it ends once no question about the main conflict is left open.
On the classroom plot diagram it is the downward slope after the peak: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. “Falling” describes the tension, not the quality of the writing. The reader no longer wonders who will win, but there is still something to find out. Some stories have very little falling action, or none, and that can be a choice rather than a fault.
Falling action vs. climax and resolution
The three beats are easiest to tell apart in one example. Here is the end of Macbeth.
Hail, King, for so thou art. Behold, where stands
Th' usurper's cursed head: the time is free.
Climax. The event that resolves the main struggle is the duel in which Macduff kills Macbeth.
Falling action. The events that show its consequences follow fast and in public: old Siward hears that his son died fighting and answers, “Why then, God's soldier be he!” and Macduff brings in the head and hails Malcolm as king.
Resolution. Malcolm's closing speech sets out the new order: his thanes become Scotland's first earls, the exiles are called home, and everyone is invited to see him crowned at Scone.
Falling action starts with the first beat after the outcome of the main conflict is decided. Where it stops is harder to see, because in most novels it shades into the resolution over the same few chapters. The rule the denouement entry uses works here too: falling action is still about the conflict, and the resolution begins once the outcome is no longer in doubt.
Falling action
- Follows straight from the climax, often within pages.
- Is still about the conflict: escapes, arrests, deaths, confessions.
- Can still surprise: a wound turns out to be fatal, a villain gets away.
- Usually moves fast, in short scenes or summary.
Resolution or denouement
- Begins once the outcome can no longer change.
- Ties off the remaining threads, subplots included.
- Shows the new normal: a wedding, a funeral, a new routine.
- Can slow down and linger, especially in comedy and romance.
Mysteries show the line clearly: the culprit's arrest or death is falling action, and the detective's explanation is the denouement. An epilogue is something else again, a separate section set after the story, often years later.
What falling action does
The climax answers the question the inciting incident raised. The falling action answers the questions the climax creates: what did it cost, will the loser get away, who knows yet? Most falling action does two or three of these jobs:
| Job | What it looks like | Example |
|---|---|---|
| JobCounts the cost | What it looks likeWho is dead, hurt, ruined or freed by the climax | ExampleMacbeth: Siward learns that his son died in the battle |
| JobSettles the loose threat | What it looks likeThe escape, capture or death of an opponent who outlived the climax | ExampleThe Hound of the Baskervilles: Stapleton's trail ends in the mire |
| JobKeeps one question open | What it looks likeA late doubt about the outcome, or a danger the reader sees coming | ExampleThe Great Gatsby: Gatsby waits for Daisy's call while Wilson hunts for him |
| JobShows a first change | What it looks likeSomeone acts differently because of what the climax revealed | ExampleThe Great Gatsby: Nick finally takes a side |
| JobTurns toward the new normal | What it looks likeA rescue, a journey home, the first morning after | ExampleMoby-Dick: the Rachel picks Ishmael out of the sea |
Falling action examples
Four more examples from public-domain works, running from a chapter to a single line.
But the next instant Holmes had emptied five barrels of his revolver into the creature's flank.
That sentence is the climax: the hound dies and Sir Henry lives. The rest of the chapter is falling action, because the hound's master is still loose. The detectives find Mrs. Stapleton tied to a beam in his house, and the next morning, in the Grimpen Mire, Sir Henry's stolen boot and a trail of footprints that vanishes in the mud. Holmes concludes that Stapleton is “forever buried” there. The last chapter, “A Retrospection,” is the denouement.
“They're a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
The climax is the Plaza Hotel scene in Chapter VII, when Daisy admits she once loved Tom too. On the drive home, Gatsby's car kills Myrtle Wilson. The falling action runs from there to the end of Chapter VIII: Gatsby keeps watch outside Daisy's house until four in the morning, waits for a call that never comes and is shot in his pool. The tension has changed direction, not gone, because the reader sees George Wilson coming before Gatsby does. And in the shout above, Nick takes a side for the first time.
The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth?—Because one did survive the wreck.
The chase ends with Ahab dragged under and the Pequod sunk, and Melville gives the aftermath one page. Ishmael drifts on Queequeg's coffin, which the ship's carpenter had turned into a life-buoy, until he is found by the Rachel, which “in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.” A very long novel can have a very short fall.
Rainsford leaps off a cliff into the sea, swims around the island and is waiting in General Zaroff's bedroom when the general comes up for the night. Zaroff tells him the loser will be fed to the dogs and the winner will sleep in that bed. Connell skips the fight altogether. His last sentence says only that Rainsford had never slept in a better bed, and the reader works out the rest: falling action and resolution in a single line.
Some stories have none at all. Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) ends on the narrator's confession, and Frank R. Stockton's “The Lady, or the Tiger?” (1882) stops before the reader learns what came through the door. Stopping on the climax hands the aftermath to the reader, which can work when the climax already shows the cost, or when the open question is the point.
How to write falling action
Draft it with the climax chapter open beside you. The steps work in a first draft and in revision.
- List what the climax broke
Write down who is hurt, what was lost, which secret is out and who is still free. Each item is a candidate for the falling action, and anything the reader wouldn't miss can happen offstage.
- Keep one question open
Hold the most pressing item back for a few pages: the villain who got away, the injured friend, the verdict. It is Freytag's force of the last suspense in modern form, and it stops the tension dropping to nothing the moment the climax ends.
- Show a change in action
Give the protagonist, or the narrator, one act that proves the climax changed them, as Nick's shout does. One gesture does more than a paragraph of reflection.
- Speed up
Summary is allowed here, and short scenes help, because readers can sense the ending and want it to move. The guide to pacing covers when to summarize and when to play a moment out.
- Stop when the conflict is closed
Once the last question about the main conflict is answered, hand over to the resolution. In the three-act structure template both share the final rows, which makes it easy to see when the ending has more chapters than it needs.
On a full draft, attach the chapters after the climax and ask the Strokes Assistant to list the questions about the main conflict still open after the climax and where each one is answered. One that is never answered is a loose end; one answered three times is the long goodbye.
Common falling action mistakes
- Skipping it. The book ends on the last blow, and the reader never sees what the climax cost. Unless the abrupt stop is the effect you want, give the aftermath at least a scene.
- The long goodbye. Scene after scene of aftermath, each of which could be the last, and readers feel every one as another ending. Merge them, or keep the one that matters.
- A brand-new conflict. A fresh villain on the last pages tells the reader the story isn't over, which in a standalone novel can read as a broken promise.
- The explanation dump. The defeated villain explains everything, or the hero does. Explanation usually sits better in the denouement, and it lands better short.
- Rescue by luck. Readers tend to accept chance at the start of a story and resent it at the end. If a coincidence catches the escaping villain, the protagonist loses the last thing they could still do.
Practice: find the falling action
Mark the climax, the falling action and the resolution in each short plot. Answers below.
- A baker won't sell her building to a developer. At the zoning hearing she produces a 1924 deed that forbids demolition, and the council votes the project down. That night two of the developer's men are caught breaking in. In spring she opens a second counter next door.
- A chess prodigy beats the champion who once accused her of cheating. He demands the security footage, which clears her. A year later she teaches a free class in the hall where they played.
- A lighthouse keeper rows out in a storm and saves a schooner's crew. On the rocks one sailor stops breathing, and she keeps him alive until dawn. In spring the board gives her an assistant.
Frequently asked questions
What comes after the falling action?
The resolution, also called the denouement: the final stretch, where the remaining threads are tied off and the characters' new normal is shown. Some books add an epilogue after it, often set months or years later. In short stories the falling action and the resolution often share a paragraph, and sometimes a sentence.
What is the difference between falling action and resolution?
Falling action is still about the conflict: the villain escapes or is caught, the injured survive or don't, the secret comes out. The resolution starts once the outcome is no longer in doubt and shows the new state of things. A quick test: if a scene could still change who won or what it cost, it is falling action.
How long should falling action be?
As long as the open questions need, and no longer. In a short story that can be a paragraph or a sentence; in a novel it usually runs from a few pages to a few chapters. If several scenes in a row could each be the last, it is probably too long. If the reader never sees what the climax cost, it may be too short, unless the abrupt stop is the effect you want.
