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Teach your students how writers use rising action to keep readers interested. Students will watch a video lesson, analyze and identify rising action in samples, then do a project and take a quiz. Rising Action. This part of the story begins to develop the conflict(s). A building of interest or suspense occurs. Rising Action in Cinderella. Cinderella’s fairy godmother makes it possible for her to attend the ball, but she must leave at midnight. She dances with.
All action that leads up to the climax, including Elizabeth's initial rejection of Darcy, her change in feelings, and Lydia's actions, count as the rising action. All action leading to Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage count as the falling action. Click to see full answer Subsequently, one may also ask, what is the climax of Pride and Prejudice?
Rising action is the time between your inciting incident and climax.
Your inciting incident has launched your story in this new direction. The rising action is the longest section of your novel.
Rising Action Definition
Most novels will contain 2 to 4 dramatic events during the rising action – each more severe/significant/worse than the last.
The Role of Rising Action
Think of rising action like climbing a mountain. The tension is going up, up, up. Make sure your rising action does the following four things.
#1 – Move the Story Towards the Climax
Your reader should always, always feel like important things are happening during rising action.
It’s not going to be easy or smooth. New obstacles will crop up, old issues will resurface.
However, you need to add ones that will be organic. You can’t have something happen just to happen – it needs to enhance your story. Work with it.
You’re going to move toward the climax like you’re climbing a mountain and it’s getting steeper and steeper. You need to create (or build on) tension, suspense, and/or drama. You need to be constantly changing the current situation.
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#2 – Develop Characters
A novel is a marathon, not a sprint. The rising action is when your characters really develop. This is the longest period of time you have to show your characters developing.
#3 – Develop Relationships
This is the time to build your relationships. Be sure to include a variety of relationship types and depths.
#4 – Success and Failure
It’s not a straight path of wins to the top. For every win, there should be a harder loss.
Rising Action Examples from Award-Winning & Bestselling Fiction
The Rising Action is the longest part of a novel and usually contains a few dramatic events. Let’s look at a dramatic event from some bestselling and award-winning novels.
LESS
LESS, published in 2017, is a satirical comedy novel by Andrew Sean Greer.
LESS won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Rising Action Dramatic Events:
- Mexico
- Italy
- Germany
- France
- Morocco
- India
Analysis of Dramatic Event #2: Italy
Less goes to Italy for an awards ceremony. He’s been nominated but thinks there is no way he would win.
#1 – Moves towards Climax
The dramatic events of this novel are all related to periods of time on Less’ journey around the world. A couple of things happen in this chapter to move the plot towards the climax:
- The narrator tells of a time when Less was at a different awards ceremony and felt like the enemy due to his writing.
- Less wins the Italian award.
#2 – Develops Characters
This chapter continues to develop Less as an awkward and oblivious man. For example, the presence of teenage girls makes him uncomfortable at the pool and it isn’t until later he realizes they’re the judges.
#3 – Develops Relationships
Less’ relationship with Freddy and his relationship with Robert are both explored through flashbacks. Freddy takes care of Less when he feels inferior & Less follows along after Robert’s success.
#4 – Success or Failure
The chapter demonstrates that Less feels like a failure – but he wins.
GONE GIRL
GONE GIRL, published in 2012, is a mystery, thriller & suspense novel by Gillian Flynn. The movie was released in 2014.
GONE GIRL spent 8 weeks at #1 on the NYT Bestseller List. It’s estimated the novel sold more than 15 million copies worldwide by 2016.
Rising Action Dramatic Events:
- A treasure hunt – accompanied by the police.
- Maxed out credit cards & a staged scene
- Amy’s alive & Nick knows it
- Amy comes home
Analysis of Dramatic Event #3: Alive
This was my favorite part of the novel.
#1 – Moves towards Climax
This is where Nick begins to clearly understand Amy’s plan to set him up for her murder. It’s an excellent dramatic event to increase tension for Nick and does its job of making him look guilty to outsiders.
#2 – Develops Characters
Rising Action Of A Story Is Typically Characterized By What
Amy’s alive! This definitely develops her character. She’s now an active participant in the story (well, she always was but now the reader is aware of it).
Nick’s realization about the deep shit he’s in adds a new element to his personality. It’s no longer just about finding his wife to prove his innocence, now he has to maneuver in Amy’s trap.
#3 – Develops Relationships
Here is when we start to see a more accurate portrayal of Nick & Amy’s relationship. It’s still going to be biased because we see everything through their eyes but a lot of their secrets are exposed now.
#4 – Success or Failure
This is a massive success for Amy. But it plays out to be a loss for Nick.
Writing Prompts & Exercises for Rising Action
Exercise: Analyze More Novels
Every genre will be a little different. Choose some of your favorite novels and some novels in the genre you want to write in (if they’re different). Analyze the rising action of each novel.
- How many dramatic events are there during the rising action?
- For each dramatic event:
- How does this help move the story to the climax?
- Does it develop characters? How?
- Does it develop any relationships? Which ones? How?
- Is it a win or a loss for the protagonist? Why? What could have happened differently?
Exercise: Analyze LITTLE RED
Answer the questions from exercise one about the rising action of LITTLE RED-CAP.
Exercise: Adapt LITTLE RED
Now that you understand the rising action of LITTLE RED, it’s time to extend it. What if something else had happened?
Your task: Write a new dramatic event of at least 400 words. You can reimagine the plot in any way, or keep to the current plotline and have something else happen on Red’s way to her grandmothers.
Prompt:
You’ve found a genie who promises to grant you three wishes. But be careful what you wish for – this genie grants the opposite.
Your task: Write a dramatic scene of at least 400 words.
Writing Notebooks!
I love writing notebooks. I never, never, throw them away. I carry one with me everywhere. I use them for writing short prompts, or warmups. Check out these fun inexpensive notebook!
 ![Conflict of a story Conflict of a story](/uploads/1/3/7/4/137492359/290192677.jpg)
Up, Up, and Away
Photo grid app for windows 8. It’s time to leave the familiar world and climb up, up, and away!
Make sure you have 2-4 dramatic events that each follow the 4 elements of rising action!
When you’re done with rising action, what happens? The climax! Check out How to Write a Climax next.
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What is rising action?
You know how a story gets exciting and you want to keep turning pages to see what happens? Simply put, the events in a story plot that build that excitement are the 'rising action'.
Rising Action Definition for Kids:
Rising action is how the events in a story build excitement until they reach their most exciting point (called the 'climax'). After the rising action and climax, the story starts slowing down and wrapping up (called 'falling action'), bringing the story to an end.
Why Does a Story Need Rising Action?
In a story, the main character wants something. The plot is all about why the main character can't get what he wants right away and how he keeps trying to get it. Rising action is when the story builds as the character keeps facing obstacles and trying to overcome them.
Rising action is the in the story because stories need some sort of conflict to be interesting. The main character can’t just get what he wants right away because the story would be boring, and very short.
Rising Action works along with Climax and Falling Action to make a story flow. This story structure pyramid is how an author gets readers caught up in the events of the story, keeps readers interested, and then helps them emotionally feel like the story came to an end.
Rising action is the in the story because stories need some sort of conflict to be interesting. The main character can’t just get what he wants right away because the story would be boring, and very short.
Rising Action works along with Climax and Falling Action to make a story flow. This story structure pyramid is how an author gets readers caught up in the events of the story, keeps readers interested, and then helps them emotionally feel like the story came to an end.
Rising Action Definition in Images
Freytag's Pyramid Image
This image simplifies Freytag's pyramid for kids, showing children how dramatic stories are often structured. This simplified version of the story structure pyramid is based on our Super Easy Storytelling Formula.
Identify Rising Action Worksheet
To help students understand what rising action is and how it affects the structure of a story, try this free printable worksheet on Identifying rising action in a story.
Rising action definition- Example
Let’s use this basic story formula and a really simplified story to show what rising action is:
A lizard + wants to be a rockstar + but he can’t sing
{Beginning of the story, a.k.a The Exposition. Introduce main character and set up the story} A tall, florescent green lizard stood admiring his shimmering form in the mirror. Running his bulbous fingers through is wild, blue hair he popped himself into a dance pose he was sure would get the audience screaming. He was born to be a rockstar-- with one teensy problem. The only thing making people scream was his awful singing. When Lizard (he pronounced is Liz- arggh, kind of like a pirate), opened his mouth, the noise that came out had people screaming for him to stop. If he was going to be the rockstar he knew he was born to be, he needed to learn how to sing.
{Middle of the story, a.k.a Rising Action. Add conflict and action.} One day while he was browsing through cds at the record store, Lizarggh overheard some rockers talking about a secret grotto at the top of Rockopolis Mountain. Legend says that anyone who drinks from the dark pool in the grotto instantly gains a voice as smooth and deep as its waters. Lizzarggh knew what he had to do. He laced up his combat boots, slipped a power bar in his satchel, and started climbing.
{Add a twist of more Rising Action until the Climax} After hours of hacking his way through brush and struggling over boulders, the tip of the grotto peaked above the next hill. With a rush of renewed energy, Lizzargh took off, bounding over rocks until they felt like they were shaking loose under the impact of his feet. Wow, he must have some strong feet, he thought, because they were really starting to tumble now. Oh no! He realized Rockopolis Mountain was really rocking! It was an earthquake shaking loose the stones. He leaped and grabbed for a tree branch, and swung his legs up to capture the bough. He popped his suction cup fingers into action keeping a death grip on the branch.
{Add Falling Action} Finally, the leaves stopped shaking, the ground settled, and Lizzargh lowered one toe, gently nudging the rock beneath him to check for stability. No rocking. No rolling. He straightened is leather jacket, shook his blue hair back into a stylishly wild disarray, and sprinted up the mountain like a pack of biker lizards were after him.
{The End, a.k.a Denouement. Wrap up the action and create resolution} He should have been wary. He should have been careful. But blame it on the rocking and rolling of that mountain, Lizzargh was too amped to hold back. He dove in and gulped down the silky water. He rose above the surface, flung his sodden locks out of his eyes, and wailed his highest note. It was awesome. It soared. It rocked and it rolled. He was going to make it. Finally he could be the rockstar he was born to be.