As you begin to write each scene, determining the character goals is essential, but without stakes the goals will have no impact on your reader.

What are stakes? Stakes are simply what your character has to lose if they don’t reach their goal. What will or won’t happen for your character if they miss their goal.

Stakes help to build the conflict in your novel and make your reader care about your character. If the reader doesn’t care, the book is set aside unfinished.

How do you brainstorm stakes?

1. Identify Goal
2. Determine why it matters to your character.
3. Determine why the goal should matter to your reader.

Identify Goal

In order to develop stakes that work in a scene you must decide what your character’s purpose is in the scene. Read the following story clip:

No one would rescue him. That was certain. Daniel swiped at the blood that dripped from his forehead. If he didn’t make the next EVAC point, he’d be stuck until morning.

Here we see that Daniel’s goal is to make it to the next EVAC point. The stakes that follow are rather weak. So what if he is stuck there until morning? Why does it matter?

Determine Why It Matters To Your Character

Be stuck in the woods overnight, or at a campground, or where ever Daniel is doesn’t matter unless we had more stakes. As is, we assume that he is probably in the military. But unless he is trapped in a dangerous place, or has a reason he needs to make it out we really aren’t going to care. Let’s ramp up the scene so it shows why our character wants to meet their goal.

No one would rescue him. That was certain. Daniel swiped at the blood that dripped from his forehead. His torn and blood spattered uniform clung to his damp body like a second skin. If he didn’t make the next EVAC point, he’d be stuck until morning. That is if he lived through the night.

Now we have made his humanity more clear. We know he is a wounded soldier on a dangerous battlefield. Life and death stakes are a big motivator for him to read his goal. This builds the stakes.

Determine Why the Goal Should Matter To Your Reader

Readers tend to care about heroes on the battlefield. That is a strong draw. How can you intensify the readers investment in the characters success? By adding in genre specific boosters.

Romance Genre:

No one would rescue him. That was certain. Daniel swiped at the blood that dripped from his forehead. His torn and blood spattered uniform clung to his damp body like a second skin. If he didn’t make the next EVAC point, he’d be stuck until morning. That is if he lived through the night.

Daniel crouched low against the rocky ledge and pulled a faded photo from his vest pocket.

Emily.

He’d promised her he’d come home. He kept his promises.

The story doesn’t have to go this way, but if we build the romantic stakes for a romance it will draw the reader that loves romance.

Speculative Fiction:

No one would rescue him. That was certain. Daniel swiped at the blood that dripped from his forehead. His torn and blood spattered uniform clung to his damp body like a second skin. If he didn’t make the next EVAC point, he’d be stuck until morning. That is if he lived through the night.

The ghoulish grunts of his enemies preying on the unfortunate drew closer. He was the target. He alone knew the genetic flaw that could bring down the whole enemy army. If they captured him, there would be no one left to tell.

The alliance would be overcome.

This is one way to add in the importance of the stakes for readers in your genre.

Stakes Review

Stakes are one of the elements in a novel that keeps a reader invested in the story. Each scene should have a clear goal and stakes that matter to both the character and reader. Try adding stronger stakes to your scenes to make them have more punch.

***

Michelle Lim is the author of the new book Idea Sparking: How to Brainstorm Conflict inYour Novel. Also a romantic suspense author whose manuscripts have earned recognition in The Rattler Contest 2012, the Genesis Contest 2011, and the Frasier Contest in 2010. Michelle is the Brainstorm/Huddle Coach at My Book Therapy and serves as Vice President of MN N.I.C.E., a local chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers. Check out her blog at: http://thoughtsonplot.wordpress.com/.