Why you must raise the stakes to the limit in your novel.
how to make the reader want to turn the page. how to create tension on each page.
So you want to write a novel that will grab everyone’s attention and have them turning the pages as quickly as possible. Can it be done? There is one technique that will work.
In this blog, we will be talking about Why you must raise the stakes to the limit in your novel...
WHY YOU MUST RAISE THE STAKES TO THE LIMIT IN YOUR NOVEL
Table of Contents
“It’s not mission difficult, it’s mission impossible”. Those words were said in the movie “Mission Impossible 2.” Why is that quote important to know as a writer? A movie is just like a novel, it has to have major stakes in order for the reader to keep on reading. You cannot make the protagonist’s quest where the stakes are minor or no one will want to turn the page. No one will care if the bad guy wins if the bad guy goal is something simple.
Imagine reading a book where if the bad guy won nothing happened. It would be a pointless book to read. You need to increase the stakes to compel the reader to want to turn the page. Make them not want to put the book down. Minor goals for selfish reasons do not accomplish this.
AND THE CLOCK IS TICKING DOWN
In the book, “Angels and Demons” a bomb has been hidden somewhere in the Vatican City and will go off within 24 hours, blowing up the Vatican. The protagonist Robert Langton has to find the bomb the save the day. These are high stakes. It’s not like a bomb with tear gas will go off making things bad for a few people exposed to it for a few hours. The stakes are about blowing up the entire Vatican City and it will happen during conclave, in which there are thousands of people outside in St. Peter’s Square. So many people’s lives are at risk. And the clock is ticking down.
When you’re in a bookstore reading the back of the book’s blurb trying to get an idea if it’s worth buying you’ll not be compelled to do so if the stakes are low. You don’t want to read about “mission difficult” you want a full thrill ride “mission impossible”. You want something that will pull you in right away.
WE DAYDREAM WE ARE IN THE STORY
Anytime we read a book we daydream we’re in the story doing things we know cannot be done in real life. That’s why we read. It’s our time to daydream. Why read a book if the characters are going to do something we could do in our own lives. We want to get lost in the world of the book we’re reading. Having the good guy doing the impossible.
We like reading James Bond novels because he’s forever going places around the world, stopping bad guys who want to destroy the earth. We know we’ll never do such a thing, but it’s fun reading about it. However, if the bad guys were out doing something minor like tax evasion it would lose it’s appeal. Imagine James Bond traveling to little small towns to stop mail fraud, it would be difficult to care about the book. The bad guys have to up to no good in a big way, wanting to destroy the world. The stakes have to be high for us to care about them being stopped.
IF THE STAKES ARE LOW WE STOP READING
Hamlet is not about a guy trying to avenge his father because his uncle scammed him out of a few dollars. Hamlet’s father has been killed by his uncle of all people and Hamlet wants to solve it. Two men conspire to murder Hamlet with poison. The stakes are high. This pulls us in. If the stakes were low we would pass on reading it.
Indiana Jones is going after the Ark because the Nazis want it. If they get it first they’ll have a weapon to win the war taking over the earth. It’s not like the Nazis were after the Ark because Hitler wanted it in his office to look at. It wasn’t like the Ark would’ve given the Nazis a slight advantage. This was a weapon to win all of World War 2, letting the Nazis take over the entire earth. Those are pretty high stakes.
THE STAKES HAVE TO MEAN SOMETHING
However, you need to remember the stakes have to mean something to the protagonist. When you look at Indiana Jones he wasn’t just some guy walking down the street who the government ask to go after the Ark. He was an archeologist who was known for doing anything to acquire an artifact. Who wanted the Ark in safe hands, not wanting the Nazis to have it. The Nazis hired Belloq to find the Ark. He wasn’t some stranger we meet halfway through the movie. He was able to outsmart Indy earlier and had better connections. We meet Belloq in the beginning of the movie, so when we encounter him again we have a connection with him. If he was introduced halfway through the movie we would feel nothing for him. Indy and Belloq have a connection to each other raising the stakes.
Hamlet had to investigate a murder, but it wasn’t a stranger killed, it was his own father killed by his uncle. This pulls him in. His mother is involved in the story because she ended up marrying the man who killed her husband. Everything Hamlet holds close to him is now being threatened. He can’t walk away from it.
THE HERO CAN NOT WALK AWAY
You don’t want to write a story where your protagonist can walk away at any time. If there is a safe way to leave the reader will ask, “then why not take it?” You don’t want your protagonist putting themselves into danger when there is no need. The reader will wonder why are you doing this. The protagonist has to be in danger when there’s no other option. They would like to walk away from the danger, but they cannot.
Remember to have your protagonist active. Nothing is worse than reading a book where the lead character stands around and does nothing while the minor characters are doing all the hard work. Putting their life on the line while the “hero” does nothing but takes the credit in the end. Your protagonist should be leading the charge. Like in a war the leader is the first one on the battlefield, not hiding out of sight while others fight. It’s the one who leads the charge who we cheer for.
GET THE HERO INTO THE MUD
If your hero is a detective have them looking for clues. Don’t have them standing around as other minor characters find the important clues or they just stumble across the big clues. This does not make the reader want to turn the page. We care about the characters who do the groundwork. Getting “into the mud” to look for clues. Someone who’s not afraid to get dirty to stop the bad guy. By the time you finish reading an action novel, the hero shouldn’t look too pretty. Because they did the hard work. Look at John McClane in the movie “Die Hard” by the time the movie is done he looked like he’d been through the gutter.
Have your protagonist good at something. There’s nothing worse than reading a book where the hero is some dumb guy who can’t do anything right. (Unless it’s a comedy, where it’s used to make jokes, but the dumb guy has to save the day anyway, in the end). We like reading about someone who has a special skill. Where they use the skill to outsmart the villain. Be it fighting, intelligence, insight.
THE VILLAIN HAS TO BE SMARTER THAN THE GOOD GUY
The bad guy has to be worthy to up the stakes. Not some wimp who’s annoying. The reader wants to see a powerful villain leaving the reader nervous for the hero. We wonder if the hero can actually win. Have the villain one step ahead of the hero throughout the book, where the stakes get higher from the start. The shark in “Jaws” was not some small little shark. It was a 25-foot great white. It can’t get scarier than that. In Sherlock Holmes, his villain is “Professor Moriarty.” Nicknamed the “Napoleon of crime.” Sherlock is very smart, so smart to a point where no crime interests him because he can solve them in minutes. But Moriarty can outsmart Sherlock which bothers him.
The reader finds this interesting. We’re concerned for what Moriarty will do next, because we wonder if Sherlock can actually stop him. Because the villain is smarter than the hero, it makes us turn the page.
A ROLLERCOASTER UP AND DOWN
You want the stakes in your novel to feel like a rollercoaster slowly moving up. The reader should feel the tension rising, the worst part is reading a novel where you don’t sense anything building. A thriller novel should feel like it’s closing in on you, as though time is running out. If the story feels as slow at the end as it did in the beginning it lacks something.
Always remember to raise the stakes, raise them some more and just at the last chapter when the reader thinks it can’t get any more stressful, raise them again. Leading to an amazing finish. Where the reader can’t help but hand your book over to someone else saying, “You got to read this.”
you might be interested in these blogs…
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HOW TO WRITE YOUR OWN EPIC TRILOGY NOVELS
PUT YOUR PROTAGONIST IN THE GREATEST DANGER
