I was helping a writer friend brainstorm and we were trying to figure out why a set of characters would want a certain thing to happen in the story i.e. STAKES that felt real enough. I had the rewarding opportunity to bring my day job experience into it (a thread).

When I plan my stories, I never look at character, plot and world separately. Tons of writers I know begin with any one of those things, but for me all must come together at a planning stage, otherwise I know I'll run into trouble later.

This doesn't mean they come together seamlessly. But I must have a solid handhold in all of them, and all of them must speak to each other, so that when they march down a story, they march down together.

My friend, however, starts with character arcs exclusively: a very valid, very solid place to start. And that's why when we diagnosed the problem, we went straight to worldbuilding: an area they felt needed work.

Yet deeper examination revealed it was not a worldbuilding problem but a problem of character stakes. And it was not a problem of unrealistic stakes like we'd thought.

It was a problem of realistic but NON-URGENT stakes.

This is a more subtle distinction than is immediately obvious. Stakes are a factor of urgency and significance.

Urgency implies a ticking clock for the character.

Significance implies how much the character cares.

Both are different & necessary for a compelling narrative.

As a matrix then, stakes can be divided into:

- significant but not urgent
- significant and urgent
- insignificant and not urgent
- insignificant but urgent

This is a concept from my day job as Project Manager which I use to divide tasks and priorities.

All those types of stakes have their place in a story but dividing them like that can

- help you see how to amp them
- match them with other elements in the story
- and most importantly diagnose if stakes are the problem, so you don't go fixing something that isn't broken.

I wrote about it more in depth, from diagnosing the problem to fixing it in my newsletter, which you can read for free at https://kritikahrao.substack.com/  but here is a snippet.

Essentially, because each of those types of stakes are different, the way you treat them and how you use them are different; and that depends on where you are in the story, and if the stake is a main plot stake or a subplot stake (amongst other things).

When broken down, these things follow a pattern. And there are multiple interrelated elements.

But almost always a problem of "Not Good Enough Stakes" can be analyzed in the matrix of urgency vs significance. Once you've figured that out, the solution will likely present itself.

As always, this is my opinion and there are no hard rules in writing. I hope this was helpful If it was, consider subscribing to the newsletter: this is usually the kind of stuff I talk about and it doesn't always make its way to Twitter in as much depth.

#khrwriting