Rising Action: How to Build Toward Your Story's Climax

In Toy Story 3, there’s a scene where Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), and the other toys are inside an incinerator, and all seems lost. The audience goes through a range of emotions; they’re crying, scared, hopeful - and their eyes are glued to the screen, emotionally invested in the plight of these animated characters.

This climax earns every emotion, not because of the scene alone, but because of the rising action that leads up to it. It’s the emotional and dramatic peak of the story, a road that brings us to an inevitable, satisfying, and powerful payoff.

What Is Rising Action in a Story?

Whether it’s a TV show, movie or book, rising action refers to a sequence of events that builds suspense, tension and audience investment in the overall story. Rising action occurs after the protagonist’s world is established and the inciting incident takes place, often the longest part of the story and usually occupying most of Act II. This catalyst pushes the hero into their journey and rising action starts.

Action doesn’t mean fight scenes, car chases and shooting, but rather the increasing challenges, complications and setbacks the protagonist must face. The goal is to keep the viewer engaged as the character goes through escalating scenes of conflict, discoveries and turning points.

To understand rising action fully, it helps to see it within the context of the entire narrative. The amount of time dedicated before the rising action starts is dependent on the story you want to tell. 

One way to look at rising action is through the lens of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. At the beginning of the Hero’s Journey, the audience gets a glimpse into the protagonist’s world as it currently stands. Sometimes they’re roaming around their world as a computer hacker (The Matrix), maybe they’re a farmer in a galaxy far, far away (Star Wars), or they’re just a Barbie girl in a Barbie world (Barbie).

Then, the protagonist has a call to adventure, or inciting incident. This disruptive moment is where the rising action begins.

Rising action builds until it reaches the climax of the story. Everything that has preceded it has come to this moment where the protagonist is truly tested and must confront the central conflict. Whatever happens beforehand should be designed to increase tension and narrow the path toward that final confrontation.

Think Avengers: Endgame. The movie starts out five years after Thanos snapped his fingers and erased half of all life in the universe. As the remaining Avengers assemble and regroup, and the audience sees the ordinary world in which they live, the rising action starts when Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) exits the Quantum Realm and claims time travel is possible.

The rising action takes place until the final showdown between Thanos and the Avengers. With the snap of his fingers, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) restores the universe (sorry for the spoilers, but the movie is 7 years old now.) The Avengers then return to their new ordinary world, concluding their adventure.

Sometimes the amount of time dedicated to a story after the rising action is small, other times, when a lot needs to be wrapped up it takes longer (think Stranger Things.)

Without effective rising action, stories tend to feel flat, rushed or pointless. If the audience isn’t invested in what they’re watching, they’ll walk away. Rising action:

• Builds tension as every new challenge, complication or trial increases suspense and anticipation.
• Develops character because it helps reveal who they are when faced with escalating challenges, whether they win or lose.
• Makes the climax earned because the movie, TV show or book has been leading up to the moment

There are plenty of great rising action examples in movies and TV shows nowadays. Here are a couple to explain what rising action is.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Any Mission: Impossible movie will have to have action scenes, but rising action isn’t what that means. The final mission for Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) involves stopping an AI figure that is threatening the globe. Hunt faces escalating complications as he and his crew take part in dangerous operations, deal with betrayals and race against the clock to stop a force that imperils humanity.

Here are some of the beats that help build rising action in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning:

• The team assembles and pursues multiple leads
• Each mission reveals new information about the antagonist
• Allies are compromised, captured or killed
• Hunt faces escalating physical and strategic obstacles

The Last of Us

The Last of Us, a TV show based on a video game, mainly follows two characters: Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) traveling across a post-apocalyptic United States encountering infected people. Ellie may be the key to humanity’s survival, if they can actually survive the elements, the infected, and those who let power go to their head.

In TV, there will be both rising action within the single episode as well as tension increasing throughout the season. Here are some of the moments that help build rising action through the episodes leading to a climactic conclusion.

• Encounters with hostile survivors
• Conflicts within survivor communities
• Growing emotional attachment between Joel and Ellie

Each episode acts like a mini rising-action sequence that feeds into the season’s larger climax.

Ready to write some rising action in your screenplay? Here are some storytelling principles to make your rising action strong.

1. Escalate the Stakes: Each major sequence should make the situation more difficult or more dangerous for the protagonist. If a problem is solved too easily, the tension disappears.
2. Add Complications: Rising action thrives on unexpected obstacles, which can include new antagonists, internal conflicts and time pressure.
3. Use Turning Points: Turning points include twists and major reversals. This can reveal new information, force the protagonist to change their strategy or add new stakes. Movies like the Knives Out film series thrive on these.
4. Make It Character-Driven: Good rising action happens when the character must make choices. If things happen randomly to them, the stakes aren’t as high. Look no further than a movie like Marty Supreme.
5. Keep the Pressure Increasing: The protagonist’s life shouldn’t get easier. Throwing obstacles their way should make their life harder.

Based on theories of a 19th century novelist, Freytag’s Pyramid is a storytelling model involving a 5-act structure, instead of the standard 3-act structure. Freytag’s Pyramid starts with exposition to explain the ordinary world of the protagonist before an inciting incident thrusts them into the climbing rising action before reaching the climax.

Similar to the Hero’s Journey or the basic 3-act structure, Freytag’s Pyramid is another way to help write their story and include rising action.Learn more about Freytag’s Pyramid here.

Rising action puts your protagonist on a journey filled with conflict, tension and emotional investment. The key to doing rising action the right way is remembering that it’s structured escalation. Each moment should raise the stakes, place obstacles in front of the protagonist and force them to make decisions.

Rising action done right makes the climax of the story exciting and satisfying for the audience.