Creative Exercise: Start with a Story’s Climax…

I’ve been gearing up to write more in the new year and because of that, I’ve been thinking of ways to make my stories more compelling. One of the things I thought of was to figure out what the climax of my story would be—the point at which there’s the most tension. Then, take that and start writing and never look back. Sure, there’s fiction (whether books or movies) that utilize the technique of showing the climax but they then jump to sometime earlier so you can see the events leading up to it. My idea is to not do that. Go forward. The thinking is: how much more interesting can you make your story when you start with the maximum emotion. It’s a way to force yourself to make it as riveting as possible. Stephen King was a jumping off point for this idea, but so was TV writer Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul). In this post, I go further with this idea and implore you to use it as a creative exercise in your storytelling (whether novels, films, TV shows, narrative podcasts, etc). Feel free to ask me any questions or offer some of your thoughts on social media.