Unlocking Your Story’s Climax

Live attendance is not required: enrollees can watch the recording at any time after the workshop!

You’ve spent the beginning and middle of your novel carefully creating drama and building up tension, and now the reader has reached your story’s climax — its most important part. The climax is where the reader expects a big payout for all of that buildup. If you leave them hanging with a weak climax, they’ll leave your book feeling let down and disappointed. Don’t let that happen!

All good climaxes follow some basic core rules — and these are rules you can learn and practice before applying them to your own story. Join author, developmental editor, and book coach Jacquelin Cangro in this in-depth workshop that will show how to unlock the power of a memorable narrative climax that will leave your readers feeling satisfied and eager to read your next book.

You’ll learn how to unleash the thrilling tension your story deserves, how to improve your pacing leading up to your climax, and useful suspense-building strategies. You’ll also cover approaches to captivating readers with high-stakes drama and emotional peaks, techniques to ensure the payoff matches the buildup, methods to wrap up subplots and complete your protagonist’s arc, and more.

This workshop is the concluding part of Jacquelin’s series Unlocking Your Story’s Inciting Incident and Unlocking Your Story’s Midpoint. If you attended either of those, then this workshop is a must. But even if you didn’t, that’s OK too — this workshop is a standalone session that will be a huge asset to any writer seeking to perfect the most powerful and emotional moment in their narrative.

Jacquelin has spent twenty years at Random House and Simon & Schuster — this is a unique chance to learn the craft of climaxes from an industry insider with decades of experience!

Zoom schedule

Everyone enrolled in this webinar will receive a copy of the recording afterwards, so you can review it later in case you missed it.

• Saturday September 7, 2024 1:00pm US Central time — 2 hours

How this workshop works

This workshop is a live Zoom webinar. Sign in from anywhere in the world and participate live as the instructor conducts the workshop, with time for Q&A at the end.

Student praise for Jacquelin Cangro

Jackie’s enthusiasm, energy and humor made the class a pleasure; she was fun to spend time with.

Excellent. Jackie’s exercises were really helpful. I felt that this one class pushed my novel forward more than any class I’ve ever taken. And she was so kind and fun to listen to.

Class was a solid A. Jackie knows her subject and presented it so well and in a perfect sequence. Jackie addressed all questions and [the class] was managed better than any remote class I have had. Excellent instructor. Will take more of her classes.

Excellent! Jackie taught this class very well with loads of useful information for a beginning writer. I enjoyed her teaching style since she’s very kind, patient, inclusive, thorough, supportive, and thoughtful. Jackie’s responses to my questions were always quick and appreciated. Great teacher, great class!

Questions about this class?

We’re happy to answer any questions you might have!

• Contact us and a real person will get back to you ASAP.

About Jacquelin Cangro

With more than twenty years of experience at Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, Jacquelin Cangro is a seasoned developmental editor, creative writing instructor, and book coach. She provides guidance, feedback, and accountability for dedicated fiction and narrative nonfiction writers. Learn more at jacquelincangro.com.