I'm antsy today, having to wait to announce some good news, so until then, here's a post I originally wrote last summer for the Romance Writer's Revenge blog. I hope you enjoy it!
Every story needs stakes, the higher the better.
It took me a while to understand this concept. A long time ago, when an agent called to talk with me about one of my manuscripts, she said my stakes were about a 4.7, and I needed to ratchet them up to an 11. I realized I was striving to give my characters a breezy, conflict-free life filled with rainbows and lollipops, which is understandable, except it makes for a less-than-compelling story.
When a story has high stakes, the characters have to make difficult choices. Each option has unbearable consequences, but with darn good reasons for being that way. Characters naturally want to go with the easy alternative, but they aren't allowed to, because there aren't any easy alternatives.
This provides built-in tension, and the reader stays around because he/she wants to know which impossible choice the character will ultimately make. If it's a choice the reader knows the character doesn't WANT to make, but HAS to, there is also built-in sympathy for the character.
I have an example of this from a TV show I watch, called Flashpoint, which is about a SWAT team in Canada (known as the "Strategic Response Unit", or SRU). I love the characters, and the way they joke about being important enough to wear the "cool pants", as well as their heroism and bravery in a variety of emotionally tough situations.
In one episode, the SRU team is desperately trying to stop a madman who is intent on blowing up the city, potentially harming hundreds of people. As one of the team members approaches the building where the suspect is hiding, he steps on a landmine.
It's easy to understand the awfulness of this scenario, even without seeing the character's response when he hears the click under his boot. There are definitely some high stakes here. If he lifts his foot, he blows up. Even though he is in tiptop physical shape, there's a certain limit to how long he can stay motionless in that one position.
After watching this show for many weeks, I've gotten used to this team getting themselves, and others, out of impossible situations. They are used to it, too, and they respond as they always do, not even worried about the outcome. One of the other team members is best friends with this guy, and the episode opened with them just back from a vacation together, laughing as they showed pics of their antics to the rest of the team.
The best friend races around trying to find ways to fix this horrible situation, and I'm on the edge of my seat fervently hoping it can work out. I tell myself the SRU team has proven time and time again they can rescue people from dire situations. I don't even want to consider the possibility that it won't work out. It has to work out, because I want everything to be okay for these people I care about.
However, it soon becomes clear that the available solutions aren't working. It's not possible to fix this, and everyone but the best friend acknowledges it--including the man standing on the land mine. He doesn't want to admit it, but he knows. And he's aware he has a decision to make, choosing between two horrifying possibilities.
He can lift his foot and be killed instantly.
Or he can stay put and let his best friend continue the risky maneuver of moving something on top of the land mine, in the remote hope that it will work and not blow up both of them.
Those are some Level 11 high stakes. The kind that have you wishing there was a Door #3 to choose instead.
However, high stakes don't always have to literally involve "life or death". In my characters' lives, "life or death" is a little different, with "life" being the new direction they take, and "death" being the end of the old life they hold on to so tightly, before they encountered the person they love and everything changed so drastically.
Still, high stakes come with an emotional cost, no matter which choice is made. That is what keeps us glued to the book, maniacally turning the pages, or tapping the screen, worried about the land mines threatening to detonate the characters' hearts. We have a stake in the outcome now, too, because we've invested our own emotions in the story.
So what kind of stakes have you given your characters? What choices do they face, and what are the consequences of each option? How do you make the stakes even higher?
Is this Cliffhanger Day and no one told me? LOL I hope the guy didn't blow up AND I'm VERY VERY curious about your news!
Hmm..I'm often tempted by Door #3 because it is attractive as a stall tactic when I don't know what to do with the consequences of choosing option A or B. LOL So I'd leave the poor guy with his foot on the land mine and go to a flashback earlier in the day or switch to other characters important to him. It might not change the outcome (still have to choose A or B), but the delay might work for suspense. Then I'd say I planned it that way. LOL
Another thing I tend to do is make it known what the character absolutely MUST NOT do...and he or she *somehow* does it anyway. For example, my heroine who *must not* appear crazy to relatives who will take advantage of this weakness is overheard talking out loud to her ghost husband...or my heroine who is a witness hiding out from the bad guys *must not* draw attention to herself, but makes a scene in a public place. I love it when the stakes are laid out upfront and things still go wrong. But then I have to figure out the next "now what?"
Posted by: Melissa | May 21, 2012 at 08:19 PM
LOL, Melissa -- maybe it is Cliffhanger Day! Sorry for the short notice. :)
I can see where Door #3 is a good stall tactic, especially if you say you planned it that way when you can't use it in the end. LOL
I like your MUST NOTs. That's a great way to create conflict for your character, and it really raises the stakes when they have to fix the things that go wrong as a result. I think I have a tendency to create some knotted situations for me and my characters and I'm usually adding some swear words to the "now what?" LOL
Posted by: Donna Cummings | May 21, 2012 at 10:39 PM
* Every story needs stakes, the higher the better. *
True for a suspense, but not so sure for a romance. If suspense is hot though, then the hotter the better works for me. As long as there are also cool 'getting to know you' and warm tender 'starting to love you' phases.
I guess its really 'horses for courses' LOL
I'm also agog, wondering what the good news will be.
I hope it is something 'out of this world' exciting Donna. *smile*
Posted by: Quantum | May 22, 2012 at 01:11 PM
Q, it took me a while to understand what was meant by "high stakes", especially since my characters don't face the equivalent of a minefield under the foot. LOL
I ultimately decided it had to be something vitally important, to the characters, and to the reader. It couldn't be something easily resolved, with the characters skipping off to pick out wedding rings. LOL So there definitely has to be the cool "getting to know you" and warm tender "starting to love you" phases. There just has to be something strong interfering with that--internal, external, etc.
I don't know if my news qualifies as "out of this world" exciting, but it makes me very happy. :)
Posted by: Donna Cummings | May 22, 2012 at 04:10 PM