How to Write Stakes in Storytelling
I’ve been wanting to revisit the concept of stakes, as I’ve been trying to think of new ways to explain it to writers. It’s super important to make sure you actually have stakes stated on the page, but not all stakes are equal. You need to have *significant* stakes. Here is how to do all that.
I’ll be honest, back in the beginning, it was kind of hard for me to wrap my head around “stakes.” Something about the term itself felt elusive, then when I started to get it, it felt too restrictive creatively.
What do I mean by stakes? And why are they important?
Stakes are essentially what is at risk in the story.
But still, for newer writers, I think that definition leaves them wanting.
Because the concept of “risk” can seem vague as well. Or the risk seems so obvious, that the writer never states it in the text.
Writer: Well, obviously the protagonist’s life is at risk! THAT’S THE RISK!! Why do you keep asking me for the stakes???
Lately I’ve found it more helpful to think of stakes like this.
Stakes = Potential Consequences
Consequences. That’s a word that is creeping into my mind more and more as an editor and a writer.
State potential consequences in the text.
Remember how I have been talking on and off for months about how audiences want to look forward in the story? And that tension and hooks work by getting the audience to look forward? Readers keep turning pages, because we’ve gotten them consider what could happen. Now they need to find out if it does happen.
It’s not just about the consequences.
It’s about the potential consequences.
Often in the industry you’ll hear people say “Raise the stakes!”
It means raising/growing/increasing/amplifying what is at risk.
It means strengthening, deepening, broadening potential consequences.
And the audience wants and needs those potential consequences in the text, either stated directly or implied powerfully.
If you took English classes in college, you may have had your professor talk about the “So what?” question when it came to writing essays. Maybe you were writing an essay about animal rights in factory farming. Well, so what? Why do we care about that? Or maybe you were writing an essay about how eating dinner as a family has a positive impact on children. Well, so what? Maybe you were writing an essay that compared Dr. Faustus to Dr. Jekyll. Well, so what? Why do we care?
Stories where the stakes (aka, potential consequences) don’t make it onto the page may result in similar responses from others.
Why do I care what happens to this character?
I’ve been thinking about how one of the keys to fixing this is making sure the potential consequences, the stakes, are on the page.
You can take this back to my essay examples. When we include the potential consequences in our essays, we answer the “So what?” question. What are the consequences of factory farming on animals and humans? What are the potential consequences of eating dinner as a family? What are the consequences of Dr. Faustus and Dr. Jekyll and what conclusions can we draw from their stories?
When we talk about potential consequences, we talk about what is at risk and why we should care.
Say in the beginning of your story, your protagonist is given the task of delivering an invitation for a royal wedding to her Aunt Sadie.
It’s your job as a writer to convey the potential consequences that will satisfy those reactions.
If Aunt Sadie doesn’t receive the royal invitation, then a rift will come between the royal family and the protagonist’s, resulting in financial and familial devastation (let’s say the set up explains why this is so).
Okay, so now I’m starting to care about the wedding invitation–and whether or not Aunt Sadie gets it.
We now have financial and familial wellbeing at risk, or in other words, at stake.
But this also works in the opposite direction, which it seems like everyone in the industry forgets to talk about.
Consider the positive potential consequences as well.
If Aunt Sadie gets the invitation, then she can go to the wedding, where she hopes to network with someone of high prestige in order to start her new business, a bakery chain, that our protagonist is dreaming and dying to work in–baking is her passion.
Okay, now I’m caring about the invitation even more. Because whatever happens to it will either bring really good consequences or really bad consequences. Not only are family and finances at risk, but the protagonist’s dream is affected as well.
To take it even a step further, you can sometimes add potential consequences to potential consequences.
If our protagonist isn’t able to help her aunt get the bakery going within the year, then she’ll be doomed to work for her father as a stenographer, which she’d hate.
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