#falling action

Falling action takes different forms, depending on the narrative, the genre, the storytelling form, and the author’s style. There can be falling action in novels, films, plays, short stories, and epic poetry. Some examples of how falling action serves a narrative include:

William Shakespeare’s Othello (1603): In William Shakespeare’s Othello, the climax occurs when Othello, having been manipulated by Iago into believing that his wife Desdemona has been unfaithful, murders her. This occurs in the play’s final act, but considerable action follows it. Shortly after Desdemona’s murder, Othello, confronted by Emilia, Iago’s wife, begins to realize Iago’s treachery and the fact that his wife had remained faithful. Iago’s rage leads him to murder his wife, Emilia, although Othello knows the truth by now. Consumed with regret and the impossibility of redemption, Othello kills himself in the tragic resolution.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883): In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, the climactic action occurs when the buried treasure goes missing, prompting a final deadly showdown between the mutineers and the remaining members of the schooner’s crew. Shortly afterward, the actual location of the treasure is revealed, and the falling action of the plot covers the recovery of the treasure, its transport back to the ship, and the return to civilization.

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915): In The Metamorphosis, the scene featuring Gregor’s appearance while his sister plays violin leads to a climactic emotional breakdown and the angry lodgers’ denunciations. This is then followed by the falling action of Gregor’s death, the lodgers being kicked out, the charwoman disposing of Gregor’s corpse, and the family taking a day trip, wherein their mood lifts as they contemplate the future.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925): Many critics consider the violent scene of Myrtle’s accidental death the plot’s climax. The distraught George, mistakenly assuming that Gatsby was Myrtle’s lover and responsible for her death, murders Gatsby. This is followed by Gatsby’s funeral and Nick’s ruminations on human character and fate, which close the novel.

AMITY: 

On top of everything, Amity was failing.

She stared at the email from Pride U’s administration for what felt like an hour, until the screen went fuzzy, her eyes burned, and Amity realized she had started to cry again. With tears dribbling down her face, she had shut her laptop quickly, grabbed a change of clothes, and darted into the shower so no one else could hear her. It didn’t make any of it better. Sure, her other classes were fine, but an incomplete meant that she couldn’t graduate. She’d have to repeat the semester. 

And what sucked the most was that Amity’s work in Professor Salvador’s class was good. Her notes? Her outlines? Her annotated bibliographies? Even the creative collaborative project everyone poured themselves into. She believed in that writing more than she believed in any of her fanfic, and it was original stuff. Even with Magnifico gone, Amity had clung to the fact that she was still a good writer. His magic might have given her infinite ideas and inspiration, but it didn’t give her her talent. 

And now none of it counted. 

It pissed her off. 

She got out of the shower steaming– the heat from the water painting her skin red, her eyes puffy but no more tears to shed. Amity grabbed her phone. At that point, the group chat had already gone off. She added her agreement to the chorus, ready to take back what she had worked so hard for, professor or no professor. The anger fueled her to the library. She and Kleo got there first. 

“Things will be much better once we fix this pile of selkidomus scat,” Amity growled. “There aren’t even that many classes until revision starts! There’s got to be a way for us to push back.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, Giselle nodded solemnly. 

ARIEL:

If Ariel could just lay on the floor and do nothing she would- but she couldn’t, it was unfair! Unjust! And she planned to use her voice for good now!

Except what did she prove, who would care? No one would.

“What if we just made another professor look at the work. Shove it in their face until they can’t do anything but mark it and tell us how wonderful we are.”

Hey she didn’t promise her voice would be any smarter.

DEVYN:

Devyn wanted to believe it was true. It was the kind of thing that they’d have eagerly jumped on merely a few weeks ago. If there was something they wanted to do, they would be able to do it, no matter what. They just had to put the effort in. Except they had put the effort in and it had been used against them, taken and twisted into something it wasn’t supposed to be. They had been the ones to “fix” it but they had nothing to show for it, and they certainly couldn’t reveal their involvement lest they make the situation worse. What was there to do?

With everything that was happening, it was becoming more clear that sometimes it didn’t matter how much you worked, how much you wanted, or how much you wished–sometimes, bad things just happened.

It was a mindset that they weren’t used to and were having a hard time wrapping their head around. It was almost reminiscent of that first year of college, when everything had gone horribly wrong, and they had no choice but retreat back with their family and lick their wounds. Were they really going to do that again? Were they doomed to this cycle?

Their brain latched onto Ariel’s words. “We have it. We have the work. Maybe if we submit it to the department, along with the syllabus, they’ll know that we did it?”

AMITY: That should be enough, except they all knew that Professor– that Magnifico’s syllabus had been bare bones. This was an ‘independent study,’ which made it difficult for any third-party to truly assess them. That was Amity’s fear anyway, when it came to shoving their work in the administration’s faces and demanding their credits.

But maybe if they put in a little more effort.

“We could go another step,” said Amity. “Maybe we could also write…process papers. You know, something that talks about what we learned and why those skills are valuable. Like, research skills, critical thinking and analysis, and literary craft. We can show our work, but also explain our work.” 

ARIEL:

Now that was a brilliant idea. Ariel wasn’t afraid of a little more work and when you had to prove something you had to dig your heels in and go for it. It was a brilliant plan and she wasn’t surprised that Amity had come up with it.

“Yeah I think so- We can pull all of our sources show the research process that it wasn’t just a simple project or one that we could half ass. We put a lot of time and effort into this.” Ariel sat up to start writing notes, anything she remembered from the process all the way back to the beginning of the semester.

KLEOPATRA:

Kleopatra hadn’t said anything. 

She had nothing, really, to say. It felt difficult to care about losing out on a semester of work—when they’d almost destroyed the town and everyone’s lives. Maybe they deserved to repeat a semester. It felt like a fitting punishment. Especially for Kleopatra. After all, she was the one who had started this ball rolling. She had let Magnifico manipulate her—and, then, manipulate all of her friends. 

Maybe they hadn’t really learned anything at all. 

As the voices rose and fell around her, that was all she could think about. 

What was the point of trying to say any differently? 

“The administration might just say no because he wasn’t even a real writer. How could he have taught us anything?” she said quietly, staring down at her own blank notebook. For once, all her inspiration had ran completely dry. 

DEVYN:

Devyn nodded enthusiastically at Amity’s suggestion. The work itself was one thing, but the administration would likely appreciate them going above and beyond in submitting even more work. They couldn’t possibly say no to that, right? Ariel was already taking notes and Giselle was already thumbing through past materials when Kleo spoke up.

They deflated slightly. Although there was an air of determinism about them, there was also the incident that was hanging over all their heads. One that they couldn’t fess up to, and one they wouldn’t be able to explain away in a process paper.

“They don’t know he wasn’t a real writer,” they pointed out sheepishly. Despite everything that happened, there was no official explanation for it. A Plot of Wishes and Words was a series that still existed, written by Salvador Sanchez, who was, as far as anyone else knew, their teacher. Whether he “became” Magnifico or why he disappeared after the incident, none of it was verifiable and likely couldn’t be used against them.

But that didn’t dissipate the distaste that sat on all their tongues. Because that wasn’t the point.

The point was that they’d all been tricked and manipulated. Everything they thought they had been working for was a lie. Whatever growth they thought they had experienced had happened under false pretenses.

That didn’t mean it didn’t happen, though.

“And even if he wasn’t a real writer, we are. This study wasn’t him teaching us, it was us researching for him. Everything we did, everything we wrote, we did that,” they signed, emphasizing the “we”. “He took so much. But he can’t take that.” 

AMITY: Amity frowned at Kleo’s point.

She didn’t necessarily…agree. Yeah, technically proving Magnifico was…Magnifico, from the book, would be hard to do. Pride U might be magick-friendly, but it was a mundus institution at its heart and there was no actual physical evidence that proved Sanchez was Magnifico in disguise. Less hard would be proving he was a fraud in general, though.

But like Dev said, they were real writers. And showing their work, explaining their work, proved it. They’d let their talent speak for them.

“You’re right. Dev’s right,” Amity said. She met Kleo’s troubled gaze. “It was an independent study, technically. He might have overseen us but we did all the work. The least we can do is try, and if Pride U takes away the credits then… well, fuck them! But they can’t without us putting up a fight.” 

ARIEL:Ariel was always up for a fight, it was the little sister in her that wanted to be heard and made sure she wasn’t lost in the background.

She would do exactly that now and fight until she couldn’t.

“I’m up for a fight. I’ll get my boxing gloves.” Ariel teased with a wink, maybe it wouldn’t cheer up Kleo but she was already in a better mood.

KLEOPATRA:

Everyone shook their heads. They denied that they hadn’t learned. That they hadn’t grown.

And, maybe, there was some truth to that. She wanted to believe that. She wanted to think that everything they’d done the last year meant something. It just was hard. She felt like she was in quicksand, everything slipping around her. There was nothing sturdy to grasp. 

But Devyn reached out their hand, Giselle hers, Amity, and Ariel. All of them stretched out towards her. 

All Kleopatra had to do was grasp them back.

So, she did. 

Her head bowed and nodded. She laughed, a small, breathless laugh at Ariel’s comment. Her head shook. And although her voice wobbled, she spoke: 

“Okay. Yeah…you’re right. It–it isn’t all a waste. We still learned something. It was our writing. And it is really good.” That, she did believe. “We’ll just have to compile it all.” The stack of paper alone would be impressive, she already knew. “We will have to be organized and prepared to argue if we get push back.”  Which, personally, made Kleopatra a little sick to her stomach. She wasn’t good with authority.