Stakes in a Story: Definition and How to Raise Them

Stakes are what a character stands to gain or lose if a scene or a story goes against them, which is the reason a reader has any investment in the outcome.

The scene that is competently written and still dead is usually a stakes problem. Write a breakup where neither character minds whether they break up, and nobody in the audience minds either. The craft is intact and there is nothing riding on it.

A quick test from one of our live edits: what happens if the characters stop whatever they are doing and grab a cup of coffee? If the honest answer is a shrug, the scene needs stakes.

The four levers on a flat scene

The most useful diagnostic here comes from the screenwriting site Scriptshadow: when a scene falls flat, there are four levers to try, and they are stakes, resistance, urgency and emotion. Can any of them be raised?

Stakes is what is at risk.
Resistance is how hard the other character makes it. One person who wants to talk against one who does not will carry a scene on its own.
Urgency is why it has to be settled now.
Emotion is what the outcome costs the person it lands on.

Urgency is the one most often missing, and the cheapest to add. In The Runner, a feature screenplay by Jeffrey Doka, the editor behind Final Boss Editing, one line puts a clock on a chase:

JAMES

God, they're at full bore. Forty seconds before they make us land.

From The Runner by Jeffrey Doka, page 5.

Why it works: the stakes were already clear (an F.B.I. plane, a cargo of drugs). The line adds a number, and every second of the next page is now spent against it.

Declare them early

Stakes need declaring early. A reveal that withholds a foundation piece of the book (the goal, the risk, the deadline) does not build mystery; it removes the reader's reason to care during the pages before it.

Make them compound

The compounding version is stronger than the static one: each failure should close a door, so that the mistake made in chapter four is why the option in chapter nine no longer exists. Stakes that reset every chapter feel like a series of episodes. Stakes that accumulate feel like a story.

Common mistakes

Stakes that are only stated. A character saying if this fails, we all die is not the same as the reader believing it. Show a smaller version of the loss early.
Stakes that are too big to feel. The end of the world is abstract. The end of one marriage is not. Tie large stakes to one person the reader knows.
Stakes nobody chose. The strongest stakes follow from a decision the character made, so the loss is partly their fault.

Frequently asked questions

What are stakes in a story?

Stakes are what the character will lose if they fail, or gain if they succeed. They are the reason the reader cares how a scene turns out.

How do you raise the stakes?

Make failure cost more, make it cost sooner, or make it cost someone the character loves. Raising the stakes rarely means a bigger explosion; it usually means a more personal loss or a shorter deadline.