Rising action

In practice

Rising action is the stretch of a story where things get harder. Once the inciting incident knocks the protagonist off course, each new scene adds an obstacle, a complication or a revelation that raises the stakes, until the pressure can only be released by the climax. It is usually the longest part of a story, and the part where most stories either grip the audience or lose it.

The key word is rising. Events should not just follow one another; each one should make the situation more difficult, more dangerous or more personal than the last. A detective who follows three leads that all go nowhere has a plot. A detective whose second lead implicates her partner and whose third puts her own family in danger has rising action.

In a screenplay, rising action covers most of the second act, from the protagonist's first commitment to the moment before the final confrontation. Screenwriters build it with escalating set pieces, reversals and a midpoint that changes the game. If a stretch of the script could be cut without the stakes dropping, it is probably not rising.

One scene of rising action

Before this scene, the heist was risky; after it, the crew has lost a member, the police may know their plan and Cal has to decide whether to trust Lena. One beat adds three new problems without solving any. That is what rising action does: every scene leaves the characters in more trouble than it found them.

What rising action is

Rising action is the series of events in a plot that build tension between the inciting incident and the climax. It is one of the five parts of the classic plot diagram: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. In that diagram, rising action is the long climb up the left side of the mountain.

The idea comes from Gustav Freytag, a German writer who in 1863 described the structure of five-act drama as a pyramid. Freytag called this phase the rise. Teachers simplified his model into the plot diagram students learn today, and the term rising action stuck, even though most modern stories do not follow Freytag's five acts.

Rising action is driven by conflict. The protagonist wants something, and every scene puts something in the way: an antagonist, a rival, a deadline, a mistake, a secret coming out. Each obstacle forces a choice, and each choice should cost the character something and push the story closer to a moment where everything is decided.

Rising action vs. climax and falling action

The rising action leads to the climax, the point of highest tension where the central conflict is decided: the final battle, the confrontation, the choice the whole story has been building to. Rising action asks the question; the climax answers it. If a story's climax feels weak, the problem is often a rising action that did not build enough pressure.

Falling action comes after the climax. It shows the consequences of what happened and ties up loose ends, leading to the resolution, or denouement. Falling action is usually short, because once the main question is answered, the audience's attention starts to fade. Rising action is usually the longest part of a story, and falling action one of the shortest.

Students often confuse the two because both involve events and change. The test is direction: if an event makes the conflict harder or the outcome more uncertain, it is rising action; if it shows the result of a conflict that has already been decided, it is falling action. The climax is the turning point between them.

Rising action examples in film and literature

In Jaws, the inciting incident is the first shark attack. The rising action follows: the mayor refuses to close the beaches, a boy is killed, a bounty brings out amateur hunters, the wrong shark is caught, another attack hits the Fourth of July crowd, and finally Brody, Hooper and Quint go to sea. Each step raises the danger and narrows the options until the final fight with the shark.

In The Hunger Games, the rising action runs from Katniss volunteering in her sister's place through training, the interviews, the opening of the Games, her alliance with Rue and Rue's death. Each stage makes the Games more personal and more political, building to the final standoff with Peeta. In Romeo and Juliet, the lovers' secret wedding and the street fight that kills Mercutio and Tybalt drive the play toward its tragic end.

In a mystery, rising action is often a chain of clues that each complicate the case: a new suspect, a second murder, an alibi that falls apart. In a romance, it is the series of obstacles that keep the couple apart even as they grow closer. The genre changes, but the shape is the same: complications pile up and the stakes climb.

How to write rising action

Escalate every scene. Before writing a scene, ask what is worse at the end of it than at the start. The answer can be a new obstacle, a lost ally, a revealed secret or a deadline moving closer. If nothing is worse, cut the scene or rewrite it so it raises the stakes.

Vary the complications. A story where the hero faces the same kind of obstacle again and again feels repetitive, even if each one is bigger. Mix external problems (an enemy, a storm, a locked door) with internal ones (doubt, guilt, a flaw that causes a mistake), and include at least one reversal, where something that looked like progress turns out to make things worse.

Make the protagonist's choices cause the trouble. Rising action is strongest when the character's own decisions create the next problem, because that ties the plot to who they are. Use a midpoint to change the game halfway through, and make sure the last step of the rising action leaves the character with no choice but to face the climax.