Question of the Day: How to Find THE END
October 22, 2022Question of the Day: How to find THE START
November 2, 2022Dark Night of the Soul. One of the most emotionally devastating, yet brilliantly fulfilling moments in any story. Done correctly, this moment will move your readers to tears, then scoop them back up and fling them to untold emotional heights.
Some of you who have looked through my posts (especially some of the Question of the Day or other Story Structure posts) will have come across this term before. The Dark Night of the Soul is exactly what it sounds like. This is the deepest, darkest pit your MC will face in your entire novel. In this post, I’ll guide you through how the DNoTS relates to character development and theme, where it should be placed in your book, and how it interacts with the Climax and Resolution scenes.
Character Development and Theme
As your character goes through their fanciful journey, they will encounter obstacles which will change them on a fundamental level. In other words, they will develop. The vector along which they develop is called the Theme. This is the fundamental lesson they have to grasp before they can become a character who will truly be able to beat your bad guy.
Why am I telling you all this? Because the DNoTS is the moment where they finally finish their character development and internalize that theme! You cannot write a Dark Night of the Soul without understanding your character, their journey through character development, and the fundamental lesson or truth they must understand in order to finish their character development.
Any story which lacks a sufficient DNoTS will have characters who never quite reach their potential, or whose journey toward their potential will seem too easy. A story without a DNoTS always feels unfulfilling, like the author didn’t quite dig deep enough, or the characters never really learned anything.
A story with a badly focused DNoTS will feel chaotic, like the author couldn’t quite make up their mind about what the character was supposed to be learning, or what the book was really about.
What makes a DNoTS badly focused? There are a few things: the main bad guy didn’t directly cause the DNoTS, the lesson the MC learned wasn’t the same lesson sprinkled throughout the story, the stakes weren’t high enough, the stakes weren’t properly foreshadowed, or a secondary character experienced the DNoTS instead of the main character the reader has been following. Any of these things will manifest themselves as an unfocused DNoTS which doesn’t carry quite the right message to your reader. This will leach the emotional impact from the end of the book and make your resolution feel wrong.
In contrast, a well-written DNoTS can deepen a reader’s attachment to your MC and make the resolution and climax of your story pop. This is the hardest hitting emotional moment in your entire story. Remember, if you can’t hit the emotional lows, then the emotional highs won’t feel nearly as fulfilling for your readers.
Dark Night of the Soul Placement
You have to imagine that this moment doesn’t get chucked into the book whenever the writer feels like it. This moment is the culmination of all the trials the MC has gone through – the conclusion of their character development, although not the conclusion of their story. So, where should it go?
At the end.
In fact, if you’ve read my Question of the Day post on how to figure out the ending of your book, you’ll know that the DNoTS figures quite heavily. If you haven’t read that one, take a moment to give it a quick look.
The DNoTS goes at the place in the story where the bad guy has just won. That doomsday your MC has been fighting against the entire time? Yeah, it just stormed into town streaming chaos behind it.
Bill Cypher has just arrived, and there is nothing Dipper or Mabel can do about it.
The siege of the castle has fallen apart, and the Telmarine army has all the Narnians trapped. There’s nothing they can do to prevent the coming genocide except go into a suicidal fight.
Flynn Ryder has betrayed her, and Rapunzel has gone back to Mother Gothel because mother really does know best.
Whatever doom your MC has been fighting against for almost the entire book is now here. They have failed, and their dreams are crushed.
Or are they? The DNoTS is all about answering that crucial question. This is the last moment your MC can learn the central lesson which has been beating them soundly about the neck and shoulders. If they can finally figure it out, grasp that lesson, and turn it on the enemy, they can finally win!
Connection Between Climax, Resolution, and Dark Night of the Soul
If you haven’t figured it out already, the DNoTS is the catapult which launches the MC toward victory. Until they’ve gone through the deep pits of hopeless despair and watched the villain give their final monologue as the world-ending missiles launch behind them, they haven’t managed to seize the lesson which will finally lead them to victory.
The Dark Night of the Soul is the first half of the end. It’s the beginning of the climax, and the moment their character development finally comes to a close. In the DNoTS, the character finally becomes someone who can actually beat the bag guy. The DNoTS is the first half of the climax!
As for the resolution, the purpose of that scene is to show the new normal: the evolved character with their new capabilities. Without the Dark Night of the Soul, the resolution looks exactly like the introduction. The MC would be the same person they started as, and the story wouldn’t feel fulfilling. The resolution should be framed in such a way that it can accentuate the events of the DNoTS and climax. It should show off the character changes which took place in the DNoTS.
As you can see, a good resolution is impossible without a DNoTS. Likewise, the two halves of the ending determine the events of the resolution and inform the final picture left in the reader’s mind.
I hope that you now have a better understanding of where the DNoTS stands in the structure of your story. It’s the cornerstone of character development, the moment the theme comes to fruition, and the moment which launches your reader into the final battle and resulting resolution.
Fellow Word-Nerds: did I miss anything? What is your favorite DNoTS moment? Share it with me in the comments below!
