: Re: A climax where the goal is instantly achieved - Is it satisfying? I wasn't entirely sure how to phrase the title, so if a better way to put it occurs to anyone, please feel free to edit

@Shakeerah107

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It depends largely on how you've lead up to it over the course of the novel, not just in the final scene. The reader won't be disappointed about not knowing the outcome of the battle if Steve's decision is sufficiently important to the reader, and sufficiently unsure up to that moment. We have to be seriously worried that he won't do it, and someone (maybe him, maybe the dead person, maybe someone else) has to work hard and sacrifice to get him to the point where he does.

What sounds most disappointing in what you've described is that "right before the climax, someone tells him (with their dying breath) to take a stand. Steve then does so." Is that all it took? Why didn't they tell him this before? Doesn't he have to wrestle with himself at all? What finally propels him? (Maybe Steve's great love for this person compelled him to do whatever he could to defend their now-dead body from enemy mutilation. Whatever--you probably have something in mind that's not in your question.) The point is that the reader will be disappointed if the goal is achieved in one conversation. It's not enough for Steve's conversion to be important to the reader--it also has to be hard-won.

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