Tag Archives: raising stakes

Technique

Personal, timely stakes for suspense and immediacy

3 Comments
This entry is part 26 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

One of my writing friends, Marnee, is working on digging deeper and raising the stakes on her WIP. I loved the way she described this:

I wanted all my characters to have a stake in the outcome of their actions. And, I wanted that “stake” to be something immediate. It couldn’t be something without a timeframe. My hero only has a certain time to catch the villain because once the villain realizes he’s on to him, he’ll disappear and my hero will lose his chance. My heroine needs to take the “job” my hero has offered because she needs the money—fast. My villain can’t run and hide even when he’s foiled because of . . . well, something I haven’t figured out yet.

Their needs have to be immediate and volatile and in complete opposition. And they have to be completely invested. No turning back.

I like the combination of personal stakes and a deadline—a great way to create suspense and immediacy, as Marnee points out.

I also like that she’s taking the time to do this for the villain (even if she hasn’t gotten the answer yet). “To be evil” is not a sufficient motivation for the villain’s heinous action. We want our villains to be rounded characters with believable motivations, not just amorphous evil that our hero’s got to defeat. They have to have a dog in this fight or they’ll cash in their chips and go home. So why this person? Why this (despicable) action? It could be something as simple as money—but there are lots of ways to make money. Why this way?

What do you think? How do you do this in your works?

Photo by Dayna Mason

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Technique

Suspense fix: Raise the stakes

4 Comments
This entry is part 3 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

Although I came across this advice over and over again, I hadn’t planned to include it. I thought it was already covered in the 37 ways to build tension and suspense, and I didn’t want to just list those again. But just mentioning “raise the stakes” probably isn’t quite enough for how important this technique is.

Quite simply, if the stakes aren’t high enough in your book, other fixes may not be able to compensate. If Grandmama’s prized teacup poodle is the only one who’s going to suffer if the bad guys win, other attempts at suspense and tension may seem forced. (Is Butch really going to pull a gun over Gigi?)

Donald Maass (Writing the Breakout Novel, 59-80) and Noah Lukeman (The Plot Thickens, 121-123) both specifically point to raising the stakes. In the suspense structure we looked at earlier, establishing the stakes was a crucial goal of Act I, as was raising them in Act II.

So, how do we do that? Maass gives a few ways: establish a high value on human life (especially if this hero[ine] is going to have to kill), and create public and private stakes—ways in which the public at large and the characters on a personal level will suffer if they lose. In Revision And Self-Editing, James Scott Bell also gives specific ways to raise those stakes:

  • Plot stakes: brainstorm new ways things might go wrong for your Lead—and push yourself. Go crazy; there are no bad ideas. Come up with at least 6 ideas.
  • Character stakes [Maass’s personal stakes]: put the character into a dilemma. Stick him between a rock and a hard place and make him choose. List all the reasons why he must take option B and why he shouldn’t take option A—even though he needs to (and will) take option A. And/or make it personal—threaten or hurt the Lead, or better yet, someone they care about.
  • Societal stakes [Maass’s public stakes]: How might society be hurt if things go wrong? How can you show that, on a small scale or through extrapolation? (231-233).


Finally, Noah Lukeman points out that even seemingly small events can have big personal stakes—he uses the example of getting the trash to the garbage truck in time. Not a major stressor for most of us, but if you’ve forgotten for the last three weeks, and your landlady’s going to evict you if you don’t get that garbage out of your place, suddenly it matters.

So give Gigi a rest.

What do you think? How else can you raise the stakes?

Photo credits: black poodle—Rachel K; white poodle—buhreee

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