Falling action

The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Falling action

Falling action: In a tragedy, that portion of the plot that follows the climax or the crisis and that leads to and culminates in the catastrophe. (In other genres — fiction, for example — the falling action leads to and culminates in the resolution of the plot.) Falling action is one of five structural elements associated with Freytag’s Pyramid, a model developed by nineteenth-century German writer Gustav Freytag for analyzing five-act plays (tragedies in particular).