In a post on DIY MFA, Gabriela Pereira discusses the importance of the denouement to your novel. “The denouement is that ‘sigh of relief’ that happens after the climax, that extra scene or two (or many) that allows the story to wrap up and come to a satisfying conclusion,” she explains.
Without a denouement, you may leave your reader unsatisfied. “The purpose of the climax is to answer the major dramatic question of the story, the question that drives the story forward and gives it momentum,” Pereira says. “The denouement, on the other hand, provides follow-through that gives context to the MDQ’s answer, in addition to giving the story closure.” In other words, the climax answers the question, and the denouement tells us why it mattered.
Your denouement doesn’t have to be lengthy. It can be a short scene or an epilogue, or a full chapter, provided it gives a sense of closure. That doesn’t mean every question must be answered. The denouement “also needs to make us feel as though the story and the characters extend beyond the pages of that one book,” Pereira writes. “In other words, the purpose of the denouement is seemingly contradictory: while it provides closure, it also creates a feeling of expansiveness, as though the story could keep going on, even after we’ve put the book down.”
