My son, Oh Wise One

It's cold outside. My husband is at work and the kids are hanging with me while I work on my current WIP.

So my 12 year old son and I are having a
literary discussion. Well, he's talking and I'm trying to edit. The whole time he's rambling, he's swinging the sword he used on Halloween.

Son: What part are you editing?

Mom: I'm working on Chapter 29.

Son: Have you hit the climax yet?

Mom: (Thinking furiously since I do write romance…) Uh, no. Not yet.

Son: So you’re still in the rising action.

Mom: (giggles slip out) Uh, yeah. There’s lots of action going on.

Son: You’re out of the exposition by now though, right?

Mom: Huh? (ducks under swinging sword)

Son: Well there’s five key components to any movie or book.

1. Exposition

2. Rising Action

3. Climax

4. Falling Action

5. Denouement.

Mom: Day old…what?

Son: Here, I’ll draw you a picture. (draws a box split in three sections).

The Exposition is broken into three parts:

1. Setting

2. Characters

3. Conflict

From this start, you build into your Rising Action. (He draws a connecting vertical line up from the box).

Then you hit your Climax (draws a connecting horizontal line). You know in Lord of the Rings when Frodo throws the ring into the lava? That’s the climax.

And it goes into (draws a connecting vertical line down) Falling Action. This is all lthe stuff that happens after the climax.

Mom: Gimme an example (sits straighter, picks up and swings the sword)

Son: Well, after Frodo destroyed the ring, there wasn’t so much gloom in the world. Falling Action. Then there’s dayumah—

Mom: Day-you what?

Son: (grabs pencil again and writes) D-E-N-O-U-M-E-N-T.

Mom: Den-oo-ment?

Son: It’s pronounced day-you-mah. It’s French. It means resolution. You know in old fairy tales when the knight saves the princess locked in a tower? And in the end, it says they live happily
ever after? That’s the Denouement.

Mom: (grabs pencil and writes herself a note) *Contribute more to son’s college education fund*

How many of you have had an ah-ha moment with your kids? Been taught something stunning? Were amazed by young minds? Me...all the time with my boys.