Storyworthy Summary (C9): 5 Tips for a Compelling Story

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There’s really only one reason your audience will continue to listen to your story.

Stakes.

People might be physically present while telling your story, but without stakes, it won’t be compelling enough to keep their mind from wandering.

Stakes are the potential consequences or outcomes that characters face in a story. They are what drive their motivations and decisions.

Stakes answer questions like:

• What is the protagonist’s goal?
• What is at risk?
• What is the protagonist fighting for or against?
• What will happen next?
• How will the story end?

Some examples of stakes from famous movies include:

• The Empire in Star Wars
• The iceberg in Titanic
• The ticking bomb in Speed

Biff in Back to the Future

Without stakes, or if the stakes aren’t high enough, no one cares what will happen next. It’ll be a boring story.

Sometimes, your story will have high stakes naturally infused into it. For example, if you don’t get to dinner on time, your girlfriend will dump you. Or perhaps winning a race means you get the prize money to pay the rent.

For all other stories, there are 5 strategies you can use to increase stakes or add them in.

We’ve all heard the expression “the elephant in the room.”

The elephant in a story is what everyone is thinking about. It’s large and obvious. It’s the clear statement of the need, want, problem, peril, or mystery. It’s what the ‘is about.’ It’s the reason people are listening. It tells them what to expect.

You must present this elephant very early on in the story, otherwise the audience has no reason to listen. Try to get it in the first thirty seconds.

The elephant can also change throughout a story. The need, want, problem, peril, or mystery that you present at the start does not have to be the same one throughout the entire story.

You can offer one expectation and replace it with another.

In fact, changing the elephant’s color is an excellent tactic. Put your audience on one path, and then when they least expect it, show them that they were actually on a different path all along.

A good way to do this is with the ‘laugh, laugh, laugh, cry’ formula. With this, the audience thinks they are in the midst of a hilarious caper, then they suddenly realize there is a much deeper meaning - your moment of change.

The ‘laugh, laugh, laugh, cry’ is especially useful when it is a heavy story.

A backpack increases stakes by increasing the audience’s anticipation about an upcoming event.

It is when you hype up all your hopes and fears in that moment before moving the story forward. Your goal with the backpack is not only to build anticipation about what will happen next, it is also about making your audience experience the same emotion you felt at that moment.

A good way to deliver the backpack is by explaining your plan to achieve the goal. Think about any good heist movie. When the audience knows the plan, they are invested. They want it to succeed, and if it doesn’t, they too will feel disappointment.

Each time you make a new plan in your story, you give the audience a new backpack.

Backpacks are most effective when the plan fails. Struggle is what makes stories interesting. Audiences want the protagonist to succeed in the end, but they want him or her to suffer first.

Breadcrumbs are used to hint at an upcoming event. You want to put the idea out there while keeping the audience guessing.

The best breadcrumbs are when the outcome is truly unexpected. You want the audience to wonder what will happen, but you want the actual outcome to be something impossible to predict.

Breadcrumbs lead to a surprising twist in the story.

Examples of breadcrumbs in famous movies include (spoiler alert):

• The hints that the unnamed character played by Edward Norton in The Fight Club and Tyler Durden are the same person.
• The subtle clues Dr. Malcolm Crowe is actually dead in The Sixth Sense.
• The small hints throughout the movie that reveal the lengths the magicians go for their craft in The Prestige.

There comes a time in every story when you get to the moment everyone has been waiting for.

It’s what your breadcrumbs, backpacks, and other stakes have all been leading up to.

You want to milk the moments just before this moment, and you do it using the hourglass.

The hourglass technique is used to slow everything down. Describe things that don’t need describing, and describe them in detail, and/or summarize what has already happened. These things are unnecessary and redundant. In any other circumstance you would not include them in the story. But they are perfect for stalling before the ‘reveal.’

Additionally, slow your speaking pace and reduce your volume. Draw the audience in. You want them at the edge of their seats.

A crystal ball is a false prediction you make to make the audience wonder if what you have predicted will come true.

It’s the easiest of these five techniques to use because you use it every day. In life, the vast majority of humans are constantly trying to anticipate the future. It’s human nature, and it is critical to imitate this human nature in your stories.

When telling your story, recount those in-the-moment predictions whenever the prediction seems plausible and only when it’s an intriguing or exciting possibility.

Here are some random examples of crystal balls:

• I sat in the waiting room for my job interview, feeling nervous. I couldn’t stop thinking, what if I messed up and didn’t say the right things?
• As I walked into the tech conference, I thought about the startup founder I was about to meet. What if this person turned out to be the next big name in tech, like Steve Jobs?
• As I stepped onto the bus, my heart raced with a mix of hope and fear. I couldn’t shake the thought: what if the man I was about to meet was really my biological father?

Elephants, backpacks, breadcrumbs, hourglasses, crystal balls, and humor are all useful tools, but the best way to ensure your story has stakes is to choose a story that has them embedded in it.

Your story itself must be interesting. These stake building techniques are to enhance sections of the story that need to be told but aren’t compelling on their own.

If you aren’t sure whether you need to raise the level of your stakes, ask yourself the following questions:

• Would the audience want to hear my next sentence?
• Would anyone care if I stopped speaking right now?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, then you need to raise the stakes.

Humor doesn’t add or raise a story’s stakes, but it is a good way to keep your audience engaged throughout the story.

However, don’t overdo it with humor. Your goal is not to tell a funny story; you’re not a comedian. Rather, your goal is to leave a lasting impression, and it is far easier to do that by making the audience feel something emotionally as opposed to just making them laugh.

Humor will be covered more in chapter 16, but for now, know this: humor is optional, but stakes are not negotiable.

Read the next chapter here.

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