[Writing]: Rising Action & Arcs

One of the difficult parts of starting a novel is assuring the tension progressively gets more intense. They call this concept "rising action" and generally looks like this:

Many of these graphs only show the 1 arc and I think that's improper. I think the entire thing must be analyzed.

A great example of this is the movie "THIS IS THE END". It's a comedy, so I think it's well suited to my style of education.


At first, they're all just at a party and the only building conflict is between Jay and Seth. Jay doesn't like James Franco. That's the conflict...It's boring, but at least engaging and characterizing.
Then, all of a sudden the whole world starts to end. Shit goes bananas. Earth quakes start. People get sucked up by blue lights. This is the start of the yellow arc and it's a vision transition.

Through the movie, and making up about 1/4th of it, the characters hide from danger but don't directly confront it. Then, a new danger is presented and some dramatic shit goes down and Jonah Hill turns into a demon. This is the interlude to the "orange" portion of the movie.

Now, it's not just character drama, they're literally fighting demons. After some dramatic balls to the wall action, the characters defeat the demon and venture well outside the normal confines of the movie's setting (ostensibly they've been locked in a house the entire time--that's the movie!). Now, they're outside and the world has gone to shit seemingly over night.

Old characters are reintroduced and a massive conflict between them breaks out. This is the climax of the orange arc.

Enter the giant demon. It is literally half the size of the city. It is literally Satan.

So we've gone from Character drama, to character violence drama, to demon drama, to final boss of characters, to final boss of hell. See how it works?

I won't spoil the entire movie (I'm lying I did already), but that's the gist of plotting.

NOTES:

• Pick your antagonists well and have more than just 1.
• Keep your character's actions plausible and inline with their established "way of things"--but always push them out of comfort.
• Avoid deus ex machina.
• Plot accordingly and in advanced whenever possible.
• Know who is fighting who and create layers to protect both sides, especially the antagonists.
• Always keep a trick in your sleeve, especially if it means revisiting familiar places or showing familiar faces. This is a great tactic with characters who you assume died, or simply forget about that reoccur later.
• People like what is familiar, especially if time has passed and it's in a new context or setting that feels possible.

Most plot arcs, especially at the end, come with or are triggered by a plot twist, but not always. Make sure you've built enough suspense as well. If you've done this all well, it will feel like things are getting more intense and your reader will thank you for it.