S2E2 Rising Action/Renna Germain

Hello, and welcome back, y’all! Today our guest is Miss Renna Germain, and she’s here to talk about rising action and how it fits into our storytelling! Let’s jump right in!

1. What is rising action in your own words?

“I always think of rising action as after the main character starts off on their journey, it’s all the obstacles leading up to usually what’s a middle of the story twist or big, important moment. The rising action is everything that leads up to all the trials and problems and fights (if there is fights in your story) that happen in between those two points of the big middle point and then the character going off on their journey in the beginning.”

2. Why is rising action so important?

“Rising action, at least in my opinion, is really important because it’s where you can put all the foreshadowing. It’s very key for character development, and just generally, like, getting to know your characters, getting to develop character dynamics and their personalities a little bit more, and seeing different sides of a character, and even possibly hinting at villains and possible big battles to come (if you’re writing fantasy), and all the fun stuff like that.”

Riley says: It’s kind of important, because…it’s that point that happens before your turning point. So like, if you don’t have your rising action, then your turning point is just going to seem like this sudden decision that’s thrown at your character.”

3. What are some of your favorite examples of rising action from one of your books?

“In the novel that I recently finished editing, my main character is trying to take down this evil baron and her kingdom, and part of her rising action is building a team of sorts to go after this big bad villain. And her rising action–a lot of it–is one, getting to where she knows people are, then trying to convince them, and then getting to know them and getting to lean more on them as allies, and actually going through all of that in a slower way because you can’t just go from ‘oh, I made this decision to fight this big bad villain, now I have allies, ok we’re fighting the villain.’ You need all that in between to develop the side characters; to build that team.”

Riley says: “Rising action is basically your mingling point. So when I say mingling, I mean your characters are talking to each other, they’re making a plan, they’re figuring it out, so like, everything is changing for them.”

4. How does your rising action affect your side characters?

“One of the things I really like about rising action is actually, like, using that to develop side characters. And this is very much the point when you can bring in those smaller side quests and allow your side characters to have some agency in the story–where they get to make choices and they get to affect the plot, because there’s a lot more room in the rising action than some of those bigger moments for them to have their chance to shine and have their chance to do their thing.”

5. Besides your characters and besides your plot points, why is rising action so important?

“The reason I see it as so important is because–and this ties into like, character arcs and plots a lot–is you need that time to one: let the story breathe occasionally between all of the intense moments; two: it allows for almost a more realistic and more intentional story of where it’s like, you have that time, and you have that time in real life to grow and change, it doesn’t always happen as a light switch. And so, it’s good to have that in stories, where you have that time for the characters to change in subtle ways. Maybe not in some dramatic ways, but in little ways like making a right decision here, making a better decision there, and growing and building up to the point where then you can realize and have that hit moment of like, ‘Oh, I changed a whole lot over all these little things,’ and you need those little things in that time to make the bigger moments more impactful.”

Thanks for hanging out with us and today’s episode! See you in the next one!

-Sophia Wheeler (Writer)