In order to be good to their readers, authors have to be pretty nasty to their characters. An epigrammatic writing prompt once suggested:
Think of the worst thing that could happen to your character. Then think of 10 ways to make it worse.
That is how you up the stakes—by presenting your characters with hefty odds and your readers with no choice but keep turning pages.
In his hit movie Inception, writer/director Christopher Nolan offers a masterful example of how to raise the stakes
Inception (2010), Warner Bros.
Start By Showing What Is at Stake
The first half of the movie shows his team of characters preparing for a difficult job. Before they even get to the job itself, Nolan has already proven many things are at stake for these people, including amnesty, freedom, happiness, and even sanity.
These things, in themselves, are enough to convince viewers to invest themselves in the characters and to bite their fingernails at the prospect of the trickiness of the upcoming job.
But Nolan didn’t stop there.
Inception (2010), Warner Bros.
Raise the Stakes Via Complications
When the characters do arrive at the job site, they are immediately hit with a wave of unexpected complications.
Inception (2010), Warner Bros.
Practically everything that could go wrong does:
- The characters are surrounded by an army of violent assailants.
- They discover their standard safeguards are no longer in place.
- Their timeline is shortened drastically.
- The secrets of one character in particular threaten to crash down on all of their heads.
Nolan accomplishes all these complications in just a few minutes, thanks to their natural evolution from his plot. And the result is a ramping up of adrenaline and intrigue viewers are unable to turn away from.
