How to Keep Readers Engaged Using Story Stakes
Stakes in stories are crucial. They keep the reader invested by creating engaging tension and intrigue. They're the, so what?
Uh oh, character A is late for work again. So what? If he's late one more time he's fired, and he's barely making the payments for his house as it is. This means he'll lose a roof over the head of his four children.
Stakes.
The thing is, stakes are surprisingly simple to implement. You just have to be on top of yourself. Stay clear on what your protagonist wants and what their plan is to get it. Don't let the story get off track.
4 Steps to Creating Stakes
To create stakes that will keep a reader gripped until the very end, you really only need 4 things:
A Burning Desire (established through a Vulnerable Motivation rooted in a Wound)
A Plan to obtain that Desire
Threats to The Plan
To sum up: If The Plan doesn’t work, then the Character will lose their Burning Desire (i.e. stakes).
The best way to understand these steps is to see them in action. So let’s dive right into some examples, shall we?
People We Meet on Vacation
I just finished reading People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. The main character in this story is Poppy Wright.
Let’s see what it looks like when we plug the 4 ingredients into her story.
Character: Poppy Wright is a young travel journalist. She is quirky, extroverted, smart, and ambitious (easy to root for).
Burning Desire: Poppy’s Burning Desire is to rekindle her friendship with her best friend, Alex.
The Vulnerable Motivation for this Desire (established throughout the course of the story) is that Alex is the only person in the world that quenches Poppy’s feelings of loneliness. Poppy has felt lonely since she was in middle school and came face to face with her first bully (Wound).The Plan: Poppy’s Plan to obtain her Burning Desire is to recreate one of the summer vacations she and Alex used to enjoy together. She believes that if she can execute the perfect vacation, their friendship will go back to the way it used to be.
Threats to The Plan: Threats to Poppy's Plan come in many forms. Crappy rented cars, broken air conditioners, misinformation about their hotel room, back spasms. The list goes on.
This is key.
When the Burning Desire & The Plan are clear, it’s easy to keep tension high throughout the story by constantly throwing in new Threats to The Plan.
Always, of course, with that negative impending consequence in mind: If The Plan gets derailed, they lose out on their Burning Desire forever.
To sum up: If Poppy doesn’t execute the perfect vacation, then she may lose her best friend for good.
Stakes.
Let’s try another one. Let’s take a look at the 2007 film, Juno.
Juno
Character: Juno is a pregnant high school student. She is spunky, spirited, funny, and good-hearted.
Burning Desire: Juno’s Burning Desire is to adopt her baby into the right family.
The Vulnerable Motivation for this Desire is simply to do the right thing. Juno has an odd and unconventional family, but they love her and have set a good example.
Her Wound is the fact that she got pregnant as a sixteen-year-old. This significant experience has helped shape the path Juno chooses.The Plan: Juno’s Plan is to find the perfect parents for her baby. She believes that if she can find the right family, her baby will have a better life.
Threats to The Plan: Threats to Juno’s Plan come mostly from her own naivety.
Whereas Poppy was acutely aware of all of the Threats getting in the way of her Plan, Juno, for the most part, is blissfully ignorant.
Threats come more from us seeing things that Juno does not, rather than from Juno's own anxiety. For example, we can see it might be inappropriate when she drops in on the family by herself. Or when she starts building a relationship with the potential father. We think The Plan might also be threatened by the uncertainty of her relationship with the baby's biological father, Paulie.Juno is living life as an oblivious sixteen-year-old, but we, as the viewer, are invested in her Plan. We want the adoption to go through. We want the baby find to a good home (because this is what Juno wants). But we recognize the red flags along the way.
To sum up: If things don’t go smoothly with Juno’s adoption, then her baby won’t have the loving home it deserves.
How to Establish Stakes
But how do you start? This is always one of my go-to questions when it’s time to take a nice idea and actually put it into practice.
So what needs to happen on page one in order to establish stakes?
In People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry set up stakes by demonstrating how strong and unique Poppy and Alex’s friendship is.
She does this by starting with an endearing scene on one of their previous summer trips. We can tell from that first chapter how important the relationship is to Poppy, and therefore instantly become invested in her rebuilding that relationship (and hopefully upgrading it to something romantic).
In Juno, we instantly see stakes via a different approach. Unlike in People We Meet on Vacation, Juno does not establish something the titular character is afraid of losing. It doesn't have to. Also, we don’t yet know her Burning Desire.
Juno utilizes something I like to call obvious stakes.
Obvious Stakes
We can tell from both Juno’s reaction and the fact that she is a teenager that there are obvious stakes at play.
Our experience in the world as humans helps us to know that in almost all cases, there is something to lose when a teenager becomes pregnant (their future, their relationships, their confidence, their baby, etc.). Because of this, the writer didn't have to set up the thing that Juno would lose.
That pre-built knowledge is enough to give us stakes right from the beginning.
The Great
Let's take a look at another instance with both stated stakes, as well as obvious stakes: The opening scene of the television series, The Great.
In this scene, protagonist Catherine is with her friend, who relays gossip she heard about Catherine's family: that they are nearly destitute (these are stated stakes - we know Catherine will need to do something to save her family from financial ruin).
However, Catherine quickly explains she has accepted an arranged marriage with the Emperor of Russia, to which her friend freezes, reacting not with Catherine's dreamy optimism, but with obvious horror.
This entire scene takes place in under one minute. One minute! But in this crazy short opening, we get so many things:
Catherine's characterization: she is rife with innocence, optimism, and excitement.
Catherine's Burning Desire: to have a great love story.
Stakes: Catherine's family is near financial destitution.
However, none of Catherine's story takes place with her family. In the very next scene, she arrives in Russia, alone. So the stated stakes of her family's financial ruin are less about what Catherine will do to save them, and more about framing her as someone who is so starry-eyed she doesn't see the bad in people (this is really nailed in when her friend literally calls her a "child").
So really, these stakes are more about Catherine's characterization.
But if that's the case, what are the stakes for the journey Catherine is about to embark on?
This is where obvious stakes come into play (and I love it).
Obvious Stakes in Action
Remember, stakes are a threat to the character's Burning Desire, which, for Catherine, is a great love story.
Catherine thinks her Burning Desire is about to be fulfilled. Her tone tells us how excited and optimistic she is about her upcoming marriage. She's not anticipating any threats. However...
Her friend’s reaction lets us know this is not the fairytale situation Catherine thinks it is. And, more importantly-
We know based on our knowledge of Russia’s history and the time and setting of the story that Catherine moving from a home where she is used to being taken care of into a palace filled with strangers (in 18th century Russia). Therefore, obvious stakes let us fill in the gaps: this is probably not going to be the romantic ending Catherine is expecting.
Seriously. If you haven’t watched this show I highly encourage you to just watch the opening scene so that you can see in action how to set up character + stakes quickly and effectively.
(Note: The opening scene is innocent, however there are a LOT of triggers for this series, so please go in cautiously, knowing what to expect.)
How to Maintain Stakes
You are likely writing a novel, which means your story is long and has a lot of threads running through it. So in order to keep stakes top of mind throughout your story, you’re going to have to create a few things:
More stakes
Bigger stakes
Specific stakes
Maintain Momentum with More
You might create more stakes by introducing further obstacles to the protagonist’s goal/Burning Desire.
For example, in People We Meet on Vacation, we get backstory featuring some of Alex and Poppy’s respective love interests. One of these love interests is still in the picture, and represents an outside and elusive threat to Poppy’s Plan of winning back Alex as her friend.
Maintain Momentum with Bigger
You might create bigger stakes by demonstrating how the consequences of failing to complete The Plan are actually worse than we anticipated.
For example, in The Great, Catherine quickly learns that it’s not just her great love story that is on the line, it’s her life. If she doesn’t learn to adapt to Russian court (which becomes a big part of her Plan), she may very well be assassinated.
Maintain Momentum with Specifics
You might create specific stakes by introducing specific obstacles to the protagonist’s Burning Desire.
For example, in The Great, Catherine quickly discovers a new great love: Russia. She decides at the end of the first episode (this is all covered in the trailer), that her marriage is not at all what she had in mind. So instead of focusing on her relationship with Peter, she will stage a coup and overthrow Emperor Peter in order to help the citizens of Russia.
Unfortunately, constant new and specific Threats to her Plan emerge.
In one episode of The Great, one such Threat is the death of the Bishop.
After the Bishop dies, it is up to Peter to appoint a new one. But Catherine and her supporters are vying for a particular Bishop who is known for being more amenable, and who will therefore make it much easier for Catherine to carry out her Plan.
Thus her goal for this episode: figure out how to manipulate Peter into appointing the Bishop of her choosing.
As you might guess, there are many obstacles that get in the way of this Plan (which is really just a checkpoint on the road of her Master Plan).
Threats are comprised mostly of members of the court with opposing views and opinions, as well as their own agendas. It is up to Catherine to figure out how to navigate these specific Threats in order to negate the stakes in this episode (losing out on the best Bishop for her cause) in order to carry out her Master Plan.
Master Plan vs. Checkpoints
My point is that it’s your job as a writer to have a bird’s eye view of the protagonist’s Master Plan:
Poppy's Master Plan is winning back her best friend.
Juno's Master Plan is adopting her baby into a good family.
Catherine's Master Plan is enacting a coup and becoming Empress of Russia.
But there will likely be smaller, more specific checkpoints that come into play throughout their journey. And the consequences (stakes) of failing to achieve these checkpoints will threaten their overall Master Plan.
Checkpoints might be:
Fixing the air conditioner in Poppy and Alex's crappy Airbnb.
Juno getting to know the potential father of her baby (in an appropriate way).
Catherine figuring out how to appoint the correct Bishop.
Failing these checkpoints might create minor discomfort, but more than that, it would threaten each of these protagonists' Master Plan.
Questions to Create Stakes
So if you’re ever stuck, ask yourself these questions:
What is my protagonist’s Burning Desire?
How does this scene fit into that Plan?
Is there a smaller goal/checkpoint in this scene that they need to complete in order to achieve their Master Plan?
If you can answer these questions, you’ll be on your way to plotting a riveting story that keeps the reader turning pages right up until the very end.
The fastest way to write a strong story is with an effective outline that plots your novel’s beating heart.
In Outline Your Novel, you’ll learn exactly what these beats are, why they matter, and how to outline them effectively to make your story sing.
