Weight and Dynamics
Usually this part of the book is marked by great activity and high temperature. And here, categorically, there can be nothing superfluous. Not even a hint of it. In the main body, a small amount of the superfluous can be forgiven. But the climax demands a ground burned clean by merciless fire — a ground on which what remains is not just important, but unbelievably significant for the world the book has created.
As a result, the weight of every letter in the climax increases substantially. As does the responsibility of the author. Weight, precisely — that’s the main criterion of the climax. Yes, the dynamic quality of events matters, but this part of the book can also be built in a different mode. You can even reduce the activity, and the significance will remain — because this is the finalization of everything that’s been happening in the book.
That’s why, for beginning writers, the climax is a real test, since it carries the requirement of maximum weight combined with equally maximum cleanness.
Do I Believe, or Don’t I?
In the ideal version, you have to achieve absolute belief on the part of the reader that everything happening is true. That all the heroes are real. That everything happening carries enormous meaning. Focus and attention, joined together with absolute certainty in the realness of the heroes and the events. That is the absolute measure — and the height that, at the very least, you have to strive toward.
Where to Start
The task is complicated, which means it’s time for concrete advice.
Where do you start working on the climax? Oddly enough — with the main body. Look at where it has brought you, and at whether everything is ready for bursting into a world of fast-developing events and high temperatures.
This is the moment when you’re already sitting in a racing car, while the mechanics give it one final check for readiness to tear down the track at high speeds. Without them, none of this would exist. But a minute from now, you’ll forget about them and rush off to meet the explosion.
The reader, too, has to forget what was happening earlier. Not entirely, but largely — they have to perceive everything through the prism of the fact that they already know the heroes, their actions look logical, and what is happening can be believed in.
That’s exactly what you need to look at and check at the end of the main body. How fully the heroes are revealed. Whether there are any dark spots left in them that might make their actions in the climax unclear — breaking the rule of the reader’s complete immersion in the book.
Everything has to be clear, logical, and grounded. And this has to be created by the main body.
The Author’s State
Are we starting to write the climax? Not yet. I’ve already written an article on mood. The next thing is obvious. If you want to write something dynamic, you have to correspond to it with your own state. Tiredness or low spirits will not help in any way to create something active — let alone something aggressive.
Pull yourself together — or pick a different time for writing the text. The choice is yours. But you have to clearly answer “yes” to the question of whether you are charged up enough to be ready to create the best climax in the world. Only that way.
Of course, it often happens that a writer “rolls” on the move from one part of the book into the next. So a great deal happens by itself. But the mood has to correspond to the work — and no one knows better than you whether you are ready for the climax or not.
Don’t Force What You Don’t Feel
Don’t try to do more than you feel. A very common mistake is the attempt to make the climax maximally dynamic, because — as if — that’s how it has to be.
You have to understand: there’s no official dynamism-meter. And cranking anything to the maximum has never normally turned out well in any field. So the task isn’t so much to try to correspond to some rules, but to write the way your inner feeling and your understanding of your own book dictate.
Beyond that, there’s a simple thing to recognize. Every writer has their own literature, their own style, and their own particular stage of life — which creates the corresponding mood for perception. You have to find what is yours, and then what you write will be natural and good.
So don’t try to force dynamism and make everything as the-most, the-most… Don’t worry that the climax might come out too pale and insufficient for the reader’s enthrallment. You can always rewrite it. But the second time, you’ll be doing this with some experience and with a clearer understanding of what has to be in the climax — and what is never going to appear in it.
Make the Climax Manageable for Yourself
It can happen that the climax may turn out to be too complex a part for you. Usually this happens because too much has to be held at the peak — and that’s quite difficult.
There are two ways out.
The first lies in dividing the participants into several sub-scenes / sub-groups. Then you can write each of these parts separately, and only afterward bring them together into a single thing — uniting them at the moment when everything is in motion.
The second lies in a sober attitude toward what has to be written. Ask yourself whether so many heroes and so many events are really needed in the climax. It can happen that some of them can have left the train earlier — and what’s left for you is to write only the parts with the most important inhabitants of your book-world.
For example, in those same books of mine — The Defective Ones and Not Like the Others — everything reduces to the thoughts and the perception of those heroes who are decisive for the world that’s been created. So even if you start the climax with a large number of participants, you’ll still bring all of the reader’s attention down to a single point with one or two heroes.
In Closing
And finally. As always, while giving certain concrete pieces of advice, what I’m striving for above all is that you understand how to write — not that you repeat. The logic of events and the feeling for your own text will, summed together, weigh significantly more than any concrete piece of advice.
That’s why, regardless of what exactly you have to write, it’s located, first and foremost, inside you. And it’s for you to decide what your book will be — and what will be written there.
— I write fiction on commission. If you have a story you want to see told, here’s how we can work together. More on writing and the craft of books — in the blog.
Vasyl Kovalchuk, 30.04.2026
