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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24640
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The [denouement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure#D.C3.A9nouement.3B_resolution.2C_revelation.2C_or_catastrophe), or resolution, has many story-related purposes, many of which Wikipedia nicely summarises, but it also has a reader-related purpose: that of gently guiding the reader out of the story and back into the real world.

Many of us fanboys and fangirls are very familiar with a kind of [postpartum depression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_depression) that overcomes us when a great book (or tv series) ends. I'm not listing movies here, because a movie does not last long enough for its protagonists become a familiar and habitual part of our lives. The reading of a novel (and the viewing of a tv series) on the other hand can take many days or weeks (or even years), during which we have half lived in the story's world, and half integrated the story's characters into our own. And then suddenly the narrative ends, and the character are wrenched out of our lives, and we out of theirs, and if you are at all like me then you will have shed many tears over that traumatic experience.

So what the denouement does for us is let the characters, instead of being brutally run over and unexpectedly wrenched from our lives by the speeding car of a climax, lie in bed for a few weeks, allowing us to say our goodbyes and come to terms with the natural end of the narrative.

So if you write someting that is at all intriguing, then do your readers the favor of having some few minor things happen after the big bang and let the story slowly peter out.

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Of course not all stories need a denouement. They are most fitting after a long epic. Some stories have to suddenly break off to work.

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If you cannot decide now, just write the story with the second climax. Then let it rest a while to distance yourself and read it again later with fresh eyes.

I had a scene in the first draft of a novel that felt both wrong and right. It had the emotional quality that I wanted, but really didn't make much sense on the level of story logic. But I couldn't bring myself to delete that scene, so I just wrote it in and left it there. Coming back to rewrite the story after a couple of months working on other things, my infatuation had cooled off enought that I could see how wrong that scene was and rewrote it. I didn't delete it completely, but changed it to something that made sense and felt right.

Writing is a lot of experimentation. You don't have to polish that section for your current draft, just write it roughly and see how it turns out. Maybe after getting it out of your system you are free to see how you could change it to something that feels good.

And trust your gut: if you doubt, then it's probably a bad idea. Good ideas feel right.

Original score: 3