How to Raise the Stakes in a Story — and Instantly Make Your Novel More Compelling
HIT PLAY OR READ THE POST BELOW:
If you've gotten feedback that your novel just isn't that engaging or interesting, it can be confusing to figure out what's falling flat. To you, it's certainly interesting — that's why you wrote it, after all. So what went wrong in your execution of the story? What isn't resonating with the reader?
As a professional book editor, I've worked with hundreds of authors and reviewed and edited even more manuscripts. I'm here to reveal one of the top reasons why your story is not landing with your reader: the stakes are too low.
This is something that is quite complicated and not always easy to see in your own work, but once you're able to identify it, you’ll be able to take your story from a slow-burn read to an absolute page-turner. Here are some tactical tips on how to raise the stakes in your story.
What Are Stakes in a Story, and Why Are They Important?
You might have heard your beta readers, critique partners, someone in a writing workshop, or even me or a different book editor talk about the stakes of a story. But what does that mean? What are the stakes in a novel?
Put simply, the stakes in a story are what your main character has to gain or lose from the events of the plot. Ultimately, the events of the story have to matter in some way or another. There have to be concrete and significant consequences, because if not, the reader will sit there wondering, “What am I reading for? What am I trying to find out? What am I waiting to see unravel?” They're going to eventually disengage with the story if they cannot identify the stakes.
Now, to you, the stakes might feel clear or they might feel strong enough, but oftentimes — more than you would think — the stakes actually need to be significantly heightened to get the reader emotionally invested in the story. Think about it this way: we don't just want to read a book where characters are mulling about, just going about their day-to-day life, because that's frankly boring. We want to see the characters engaged in some type of action and sequence of events that mean something to them, that transforms their lives in one way or another.
I'm not saying that you have to write an ultra-high-stakes, action-packed thriller; the same even goes for a slow-burn romance. There are still stakes attached to each and every story, I promise you.
So, let’s go over three methods for how to raise the stakes of your story and thereby make the narrative more propulsive.
How to Raise the Stakes in a Story: 3 Methods You Can Use
1. Create a Personal Connection
Your stakes might feel too low if the protagonist is actually quite detached from the major plot events of the story. They're not directly involved or directly affected by what's going on in the plot, and thereby there's a separation between what actually matters to that character, who's the person we care about, and what we're seeing in the plot action.
This particular issue most frequently arises in mystery and crime novels, because you often have a detective or investigator character, or even an amateur sleuth character, who is solving a crime, but that crime involves random strangers. They don't know those people; they're not attached to them in any way, but the act of solving the crime still has to have personal stakes for us to care about watching this story unfold and get connected to the protagonist.
Think through questions like: Why is it important for the main character to solve this crime? How are things going to personally change for them if they solve this crime or if they don't?
One way to address this is to make the main character have some kind of personal connection to either the victim or someone who is a suspect in the crime. Automatically, that significantly raises the stakes, because now we understand why the main character is so invested in seeing the crime solved. They want to see justice for this person who they know or they want to see if this person that they know is actually a criminal.
This strategy doesn't just apply to murder mysteries, of course. Say that you have a sci-fi novel about an intergalactic battle between dueling empires. Again, the question is: why does your main character care on a personal level? Perhaps their family is part of a dynasty that runs one of the empires, or perhaps one of the empires is targeting someone that they know specifically.
Make sure there is a concrete reason for the main character to be entangled in the plot action, whatever that may be. Make them care about the people that are involved in those events, because otherwise, your reader won't care.
2. Make the Situation Dire
When thinking about the consequences and potential outcomes of the events of the novel for your main character, there's a sliding scale of how severe those consequences could be. For instance, of course it's bad if the main character loses ten dollars, but it is much, much worse if they lose ten thousand dollars.
For the purposes of your novel, which is meant to be compulsive and page-turning and exciting, you want to make sure that the consequences are significant enough to truly transform the main character's life. Otherwise, the stakes will feel pretty low.
So, for instance, if your character is in a position where the events of the story could result in them losing money, you can go a step further and define that they might lose their house if things don't go the way that they need them to go. That makes the situation more intense and thereby creates more suspense and intrigue and excitement for the reader.
Another example would be, say, that one of the main characters has a family member who is ill or sick. You could take it a step further and have that character get hospitalized. That immediately raises the stakes. Again, making the situation more dire and more intense is going to make the reader automatically more invested in the story.
This is not about creating melodrama for melodrama's sake or writing a soap opera — that's not what we're going for. But the reader has to have the sensation of, “Oh my gosh, I need to see what happens,” because that's going to be what compels us to keep reading. If the question is whether or not the main character is going to lose ten dollars, we're not going to have that feeling. We aren't going to feel the stakes of them losing that. So, make sure that the consequences are tangible and significant.
3. Craft a Secret
If your plot doesn't have a natural way to incorporate the main character having a personal connection at stake or making a situation more dire with negative consequences, then it could be a good idea to use the tactic of creating a secret that they are harboring.
This is a great way to raise the stakes in a story because the reader will feel that there's going to be some kind of negative outcome if that secret is aired. For instance, if you're writing a romance, perhaps the main character is holding the secret that they have a child from a previous marriage, and they know that their new romantic partner does not want children. This has high stakes because we understand that the relationship will be threatened if that secret comes to light.
The key with this technique of crafting a secret is to ensure that there is a plausible and compelling reason for the main character to think that the secret would actually damage their life in some way. In other words, the reader has to be just as convinced as the main character that airing the secret would be devastating, because if the character thinks it's a really big deal but the reader doesn't think it's that big of a deal or that it would have a negative consequence, then it's not going to work to raise the stakes. We have to be just as convinced as them that there is a lot riding on them keeping this secret.
I hope this helped you understand the role that stakes play in making a compulsive, propulsive narrative and helped you learn how to raise the stakes in your story. Thanks so much for reading and happy writing!