The Resolution (Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 12 of 12)

The Resolution is a bittersweet moment. You’ve reached the end of the story. You’ve climbed the mountain, and now you can plant your flag of completion at its peak! But as the finale of all your work, this is also the finale of all the fun you’ve experienced in your wonderful world of made-up people and places. The Resolution is where you must now say goodbye to your characters and give readers a chance to also say goodbye.

Your story and its conflict officially ended with your Climax. Most stories require a subsequent scene or two to tie off loose ends and, just as importantly, to guide readers to a final emotion. Like those great ensemble scenes at the ends of the original Star Wars movies, this is the last glimpse readers will have of your story world and its characters. Make it one they’ll remember!

What Is the Resolution?

Conceivably, you could close your story at the Climactic Moment since your story and its conflict officially ended there. But if most stories were to end immediately after the Climax, the result would be some very disgruntled readers.

After all the emotional stress of the Climax, readers want a moment to relax. They want to see the characters rising, dusting off their pants, and moving on with life. They want to glimpse how the ordeals of the previous three acts have changed your characters; they want a preview of the new life your characters will live in the aftermath of the conflict. And if you’ve done your job right, they’ll want this extra scene just to spend a little more time with characters they’ve grown to love.

As its name suggests, the Resolution is where everything is resolved. In the Climax, the protagonist overcame the villain and won the love interest; in the Resolution, readers now get to witness how these actions will make a difference for the characters moving forward.

For Example:

• The film Serenity ends by showing Captain Mal Reynolds and his surviving crew heading back to space, now free of the Alliance’s dogged pursuit, while Mal and Inara and Simon and Kaylee take a step into their future relationships together.

The Resolution is not just the ending of this story but also the beginning of the story the characters will live in after readers close the back cover. The Resolution performs its two most significant duties in capping the current story while also promising the characters’ lives will continue. This is true of standalone books and even truer of individual parts in an ongoing series.

For Example:

• Ship of Magic, the first book in Robin Hobb’s The Liveship Traders trilogy, is  open-ended: its Resolution promises protagonist Althea Vestritt will pursue and rescue her liveship Vivacia, which has been captured by pirates.
• The standalone book Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard ends with a few short scenes explaining the protagonist Jamie’s adjustment to his post-war life outside of the Japanese POW camp and hinting at his future growing up in England.

Where Does the Resolution Belong?

Creating the perfect ending boils down to one essential objective: leave readers satisfied. The Resolution begins directly after the Climax and continues until the last page. Resolutions can vary in length, but shorter is generally better. Your plot is over. You don’t want to test readers’ patience by wasting their time.

The length of your Resolution will depend on a couple of factors, the most important being the number of remaining loose ends. Using the scenes leading up to your Climax to resolve as many subplots as possible will free up your Resolution to take care of essentials.

Another factor to consider is the tone with which you want to leave readers. This is your last chance to influence their perception of your story. How do you want to end things? Should the final emotion be happy? Sad? Thoughtful? Funny?

One of my favorite Resolutions is the final scene in Disney’s The Kid. Its closing scene promises reconciliation between the main character and the woman he loves, indicating the future progression of his transformed life. It strikes the perfect note of happiness, hope, and affirmation. Strive to leave your readers with a similarly powerful and memorable scene.

Examples of the Resolution From Film and Literature

Pride and Prejudice: After Darcy and Elizabeth proclaim their love for one another in the Climax, Austen ties up her loose ends in a few tidy scenes that include the Bennet family’s reaction to the engagement. From her perch as an omniscient and distant narrator, Austen caps her story with a final witty scene in which she covers the book’s two culminating weddings and comments on Mr. and Mrs. Darcy’s and Mr. and Mrs. Bingley’s future lives together. Her Resolution is a beautiful example of hitting a tone that sums up the story and leaves readers feeling exactly how she wants them to.

It’s a Wonderful Life: The closing scene of this classic has viewers crying all over the place every Christmas. The movie wastes no time moving on from the Climax, in which George’s friends bring him above and beyond the $8,000 he needs to replace what was stolen by Mr. Potter. The Resolution immediately fills in the remaining plot holes by bringing the entire cast (sans the antagonist) back for one last round of “Auld Lang Syne” and hinting that the angel Clarence has finally earned his wings. This tour de force of an emotionally resonant closing scene leaves readers wanting more while fulfilling their every desire for the characters.

Ender’s Game: Card takes his time with a lengthy Resolution. In it, we’re given what essentially amounts to both an epilogue explaining some of Ender’s life after his defeat of the aliens (he leaves Earth to try to make peace with both his superstar status and his guilt over his xenocide of the aliens) and an introduction to the sequels that will follow (in which Ender takes charge of finding a new home for the sole remaining alien cocoon).

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World: After tying off all existing loose ends from the plot’s overarching conflict, the story closes with a surprising scene in which Jack realizes the Acheron’s captain masqueraded as the ship’s surgeon in order to attempt a takeover of the ship once it sailed away from the Surprise. The final scene—in which Jack matter-of-factly orders his ship to once again pursue the Acheron, while he and Stephen play a rousing duet—gives us both a sense of continuation and a perfect summation of the movie’s tone.

Top Things to Remember About the Resolution

1. The Resolution takes place directly after the Climax and is the book’s last scene(s).
2. The Resolution ties off all prominent loose ends and answers all salient questions. However, it must also avoid being too pat.
3. The Resolution offers a sense of the characters’ continuing lives. Even a standalone book should hint at this forward momentum.
4. The Resolution gives readers concrete examples of how the characters’ journey has changed them. If someone transforms from a selfish jerk, the Resolution needs to dramatize this change of heart.
5. Finally, the Resolution strikes an emotional note that pays tribute to the book’s tone (e.g., funny, romantic, melancholy, etc.).

As you write your closing lines, consider all the words that have come before. Dig deep to cap your story with an intellectual and emotional Resolution. Congratulations, you now know how to structure a story!

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And now we’ve come to the end of our series! I hope you’ve enjoyed these last few months’ journey through the exciting landscape of story structure. You now have the tools to identify and understand the important plot points in any story and to consciously apply them to your own books. With the knowledge of story structure in your writing toolbox, you can deliberately craft and tweak your stories to make certain you’re giving readers the rise and fall and ebb and flow that will suck them into your story world and convince them of the credibility of your characters’ strong arcs. Happy writing!

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! How many scenes does your story’s Resolution contain? Tell me in the comments!

Related Posts:

Part 1: 5 Reasons Story Structure Is Important

Part 2: The Hook

Part 3: The First Act

Part 4: The Inciting Event

Part 5: The First Plot Point

Part 6: The First Half of the Second Act

Part 7: The Midpoint

Part 8: The Second Half of the Second Act

Part 9: The Third Act

Part 10: The Third Plot Point

Part 11: The Climax

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, or Spotify).

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