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The Simple Fix When Your Characters Don’t Grip The Audience
Your character is not broken. Your stakes are.
Want to write a compelling character? Give them something to lose that matters deeply, even if they don’t know it. Then, guide the audience to piece together why it matters.
In Past Lives, Nora exists at the intersection of two identities: the life she left behind in Korea and the one she built in the US. Celine Song adds complexity to Nora’s stakes by bringing back her childhood love, Hae Sung.
His presence disrupts the dynamic with her American husband, forcing Nora to confront the yearning for the culture she left behind.
Compelling Characters Run on Stakes
Stakes create emotional depth by answering ‘why it matters’ in connection to the character’s goal and conflicts.
- Goal: What the character wants. The tangible or intangible thing they strive to achieve or protect. The goal sets the story’s destination.
- Conflict: The character’s struggles to achieve their goal.
- Stakes: What your character risks losing — not just if they reach their goal, but when they decide to pursue it.
When stakes mesh with goals and conflicts, the story unfolds naturally, and characters become magnetic.
Finding Your Character's Stakes
The Story Spine (popularized by Kenn Adams and beloved by Pixar) is a straightforward device for plot building:
The Story Spine:
“Once upon a time… And every day… Until one day… Because of that… Because of that… Until finally…”
This tool works well to outline the goals and plot movements that push your story forward. To dig deeper into your character’s motivations, try using a Because Chain — an approach that connects your character’s motivations in a series of cause-and-effect statements.
Start with their immediate goal and ask ‘because’ after each answer. Here’s how it works for The Devil Wears Prada:
- Andy must meet Miranda’s impossible demands →
- because failing would cost her job →
- because losing her job would destroy her journalism career →
- because failing in New York means returning to Ohio →
- because returning home would confirm her deepest fear: that she’s ordinary.
By the end of the chain, we see that Andy’s true stakes aren’t just about a job but her desire of being extraordinary.
Use the Because Chain to spot how external risks reflect internal desires.
Pressure Test Your Stakes
Well-developed stakes tighten our guts because they push characters to their limits. Here’s how to pressure-test them:
“Does what’s at stake force your character to change?”
High stakes should challenge your character on a fundamental level, pushing them out of their current state. If they can walk away unchanged, the stakes may not be strong enough.
In Kitty Green’s The Assistant, Jane starts as a dutiful assistant who believes hard work will lead to success in the film industry. But when she realizes her everyday tasks enable her boss’s toxic behavior, her job becomes a moral crisis. What is at risk(her Professional Future) pushes her to transform into someone who can accept complicity to survive in the industry.
“Is there any way to undo what happened?”
High-stakes moments should have irreversible consequences. If your character can undo or easily recover from the events in a scene, the stakes will feel flat. Make failure or success permanent to amplify the tension and emotional weight.
In The Banshees of Inisherin, Colm’s cutting off his fingers represents irreversible stakes, destroying his ability to play music and any hope of reconciling his friendship. The physical and emotional damage can never be undone, making the stakes of their conflict permanent and devastating.
“A year from now, will this moment define who they became?”
Stakes that matter should ripple beyond the immediate scene, shaping your character’s future internally (identity, values, sense of self) and externally (relationships, roles, goals). If it doesn’t haunt them a year from now, the stakes might need to be higher.
In Sound of Metal, Ruben faced a heavy choice. He could sell his drums to fund cochlear implants. This would help him regain his old life as a musician. Or, he could reject the surgery and embrace life in the Deaf community. This crossroads would redefine his identity, reshape his relationships, and determine the course of his future.
Practical Tools To Raise Your Stakes
If your stakes aren’t hitting hard enough, here are some ways to push them:
- Layer Internal and External Conflict: Combine outward stakes with inward stakes. In Black Swan (2010), Nina’s external goal is tied to her internal struggle to achieve perfection and battling mental decline.
- Make It Personal: Tie the stakes to the character’s deepest fears, desires, or values. The more specific the stakes, the more visceral they’ll feel. Lady Bird’s stakes are personal. She wants to attend a college on the East Coast. The move marks her independence and a life bigger than that of average Sacramento.
- Add Time Pressure: A time count can heighten tension and force your characters to reveal themselves under stress. In Before Sunrise, Jesse and Celine’s single night together creates urgency for what’s at stake.
- Design Your Character’s Traits to Amplify Stakes: A tough situation should, by design, feel excruciating for them.
In The King’s Speech, Bertie’s (King George VI’s) stutter is more than a trait — it’s a defining story element that connects his intimate fears to the nation’s need for stability.
Build Stakes That Make Your Story Unforgettable
Give readers and viewers a deeper reason to commit to the story.
Past Lives drives this home in its final scene. Nora and Hae Sung’s goodbye is heart-wrenching. Not from the unfulfilled love. What hits us is watching Nora sever the final thread to her Korean culture. Without its meticulously designed stakes, Past Lives would be another love triangle.
A compelling story isn’t just about what a character wants. It’s about what they will risk to get it. Build stakes that matter, and your character will grip the audience on a deep, emotional level that resonates long after the story ends.
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