Philipp Humm

5 easy ways to raise the stakes in storytelling

November 24, 2023

Greetings fellow storyteller!

Let’s talk about one of the most important ingredients of your story: stakes. 

Stakes are the ‘why should I care?’ factor in your story. They’re the reasons that make your audience invested in what happens next. Think of stakes as the consequences and importance attached to the choices your characters make. They’re the tension that keeps your audience glued, wondering about the outcomes. 

Today, you’ll learn five simple techniques to raise the stakes in your stories. 

Let’s dive in!

 

Raise the stakes technique #1: Share the character’s goals

Let’s start with the heartbeat of your story—your character’s goals. Share with your listeners what your main character wants to achieve. But don’t just share any shallow goals, share emotional goals. What do I mean by that?

Example:

  • Shallow goal: “I want to finish a marathon”
  • Emotional goal: “I want to finish a marathon to make my dad proud“ or “I want to finish a marathon to be a role model for my kids.”

So, peel back the layers until you reach the core emotional goal. Get your audience not just cheering for the success but emotionally invested in the journey.
But it gets even more powerful if you combine it with the next technique.

Raise the stakes technique #2: Foreshadow the result

You can increase the stakes even more by telling your listeners what happens 1) if the character succeeds, and 2) if he or she fails.

Take us into what is going on in the protagonist’s head. What are they thinking?

Marathon example:
I could increase the stakes if I shared my

  • Hopes: “The moment I run through the finish line, my dad will be waiting there, smiling, hugging me deeply, telling me how much he loves me.”
  • Fears: “If I don’t cross the finish line, my dad will be so disappointed. It’s not that he’ll tell me what a loser I am, but his silence tells me everything. I’ve let him down yet another time.”
Emotions in storytelling

Raise the stakes technique #3: Show impact on others

You can increase the stakes by showing how other characters are affected by the protagonist’s actions.

What will happen to these other characters if the protagonist succeeds or fails? This increases the pressure on the protagonist.

Marathon example:

I could increase the stakes if I shared how it changes my dad’s life. I could say,

  • “Finally, my dad will feel proud to mention me in front of his friends. Every time they asked before, he just changed the topic because he felt embarrassed that I had done nothing with my life.”
  • Or “I gotta finish this. Otherwise, my kids will think that it’s ok to just give up. They will miss any discipline in life to be successful.”

Raise the stakes technique #4: Make 'em the underdog

Pick any adventure movie and think about the main character. Take Frodo from Lord of the Rings, Luke from Star Wars, or Jake from Avatar at the beginning of their journeys. They’re weak, clueless, and clumsy. On the opposite, their enemies seem crazy powerful. Impossible to beat. Making the protagonist of your story the underdog will heighten the sense of potential failure.

Marathon example:

I could increase the stakes if I shared how little prepared I was. I could say

  • “I can’t really say that I was in great shape. I had maybe run two times before in my life” 
  • “I was in such poor shape that the stairs to my apartment on the second floor gave me a daily asthmatic attack.”

Here’s one last, but really effective way to increase the stakes:

Hourglass

Raise the stakes technique #5: Add a ticking clock

You can make your stories immediately more interesting by introducing a time constraint.

When your protagonist is pressed for time, the urgency increases, and the stakes become higher.

Marathon example:

If I told you that I’d have a year to prepare for my Marathon, you’d be unimpressed. You’d be like, “Cool. Good for you. There are just another hundred million people who do the same thing.”

But if I told you that I had only 2 weeks to prepare for that because this is the last chance I’d ever have to participate, you’d be like “Wow, this is juicy. 2 weeks is crazy. Did you make it?”

closing

There you have it, storytellers! Five no-nonsense techniques to pump up the volume on your narratives and keep your audience hooked. 

Remember, it’s not about complicated plot twists or fancy words; it’s about making your audience care. Dive into your characters’ emotional cores, illustrate the impact on others, show how the character is not qualified for that task and throw in a ticking clock.

Craft your tales with these techniques, and watch as your stories transform. 

Happy storytelling!

P.S. Looking for more ways to spice up your story? Check out this article on 3 Storytelling Techniques To Deliver Unforgettable Stories.

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