What Makes a Story Go Flat? Part 2

Previously on The Motivational Editor:
Have you ever read a novel where the story felt flat? Probably you’ve read plenty, and if you’re like me, you didn’t even finish the book.

While there are many things that can contribute to this problem, this series is going to look at 3 of them: desire, stakes, and change.

Today, we’re examining stakes.

For the purpose of this blog post, I’m going to look at two levels, the story-level and scene-level.

Stakes at the Story Level

Story-level stakes are what’s at risk if the protagonist fails to achieve their story-level desire. It must be something the protagonist wants to avoid at all costs. They play out over the course of the story. An example we can all understand: if the police don’t identify and catch a serial killer (desire), the stakes are that more innocent people will die.

To help you as you write your story (or outline), ask yourself “What happens if my protagonist fails to achieve their story goal?

What’s at risk?

• Something external such as life, freedom, safety?
• Something internal such as identity, self-worth, beliefs?
• Maybe it is relational like love, trust, belonging?

If your protagonist can walk away from the story goal without any real cost, the stakes aren’t high enough.

At the Scene Level

Scene-level stakes are what’s at risk for the scene POV character right now in this scene. An example building the one above: if the police fail to recover evidence before the crime scene is contaminated, they may lose the evidence needed to identify the killer.

Every scene must contain 3 things: desire, stakes, change.

• The POV character of the scene has a desire (goal) for that specific scene. This desire is the engine that drives the scene (just as desire drives the story goal).
• The stakes apply pressure to the character and create tension for the reader.
• Change: the scene ends in a different state from which it began.

If there is little to nothing at risk if the character in the scene fails to gain their scene desire (meet her goal), there is no tension for the reader. The scene falls flat, even if the reader can’t quite identify why.

A reader may be forgiving of a few flat scenes, but too many and they will put the book down.

Examine your scenes. What does the scene POV character want? What are the stakes if they fail to achieve it?

Stay tuned, next month, we’ll cover change.

Related posts:
What Makes a Story Go Flat? Part 1