EMOTIONAL STAKES: How to Make Readers Care About Your Story
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Jalen discusses the critical concept of emotional stakes in storytelling, emphasizing their impact on reader investment. Emotional stakes are the internal, psychological costs a character faces, which can be more compelling than tangible losses. Jalen outlines three main ways to manifest emotional stakes: reason, risk, and sacrifice, using examples like 'The Last of Us' to illustrate their power. The video also covers techniques to raise emotional stakes, such as relevant backstories and moral crossroads, highlighting the importance of specificity and genuine connection to the narrative.
Takeaways
- π Emotional Stakes are crucial in storytelling as they give a story its impactful emotional punch.
- π§ Emotional Stakes are not just about what a character stands to lose tangibly, but also the emotional pain or consequences they might suffer.
- π Using emotional stakes in combination with external stakes makes a story more impactful and can help readers feel more invested.
- π€ The most interesting emotional stakes often occur when external and internal stakes contradict each other, creating a need for sacrifice.
- π Three main ways emotional stakes can manifest: Reason (external goal tied to emotional goal), Risk (gambling with potential emotional fallout), and Sacrifice (contradictory goals leading to emotional cost).
- π Examples like climbing Mount Everest to honor a deceased father illustrate how emotional stakes can be tied to external goals.
- π The book 'Big Swiss' by Jen Beacon exemplifies risk-type emotional stakes where the protagonist gambles with emotional fallout.
- π In stories like 'The Last of Us', emotional stakes are prioritized over external stakes, showing their importance in driving narrative and character development.
- π Relevant backstories that connect to present emotional stakes can heighten the impact and potency of those stakes.
- π€ Side characters can also contribute to emotional stakes, creating moral crossroads and complicating the protagonist's emotional journey.
- βοΈ Moral crossroads, where characters must make difficult choices, can significantly raise the emotional stakes and create compelling narrative moments.
Q & A
What is the main focus of Jalen's writing video?
-The main focus of Jalen's writing video is discussing the concept of emotional stakes in storytelling and how they contribute to the impact of a narrative.
Why are emotional stakes considered important in storytelling?
-Emotional stakes are important because they give a story its impactful emotional punch and help readers feel invested in the characters and their outcomes.
What is the difference between external stakes and emotional stakes?
-External stakes refer to what a character stands to lose tangibly if they fail, while emotional stakes refer to the emotional pain or consequences a character will suffer.
How does Jalen suggest using emotional stakes in combination with external stakes?
-Jalen suggests using emotional stakes in combination with external stakes to make a story more impactful by creating a compelling narrative that resonates with readers on an emotional level.
What are the three main ways emotional stakes can manifest according to Jalen?
-The three main ways emotional stakes can manifest are 'reason', 'risk', and 'sacrifice', each representing different relationships between a character's external and emotional goals.
Can you provide an example of 'reason' as an emotional stake?
-An example of 'reason' is Angelica's goal to climb Mount Everest to honor her father, where the external goal is tied to an emotional goal, and failure would result in emotional pain.
How does the book 'Big Swiss' by Jen Beacon exemplify 'risk' as an emotional stake?
-In 'Big Swiss', the protagonist Greta risks emotional fallout by pursuing a relationship with a client, which could lead to shame and loss if discovered.
What is the example of 'sacrifice' that Jalen provides?
-The example of 'sacrifice' is Lisa's dilemma of helping her family after a house fire or being with her secret girlfriend, where achieving one goal comes at the cost of the other.
How can backstory be used to create emotional stakes?
-Backstory can create emotional stakes by providing a character's past experiences that are relevant to their present external goals, making the emotional consequences of their actions feel more significant.
What role do side characters play in raising emotional stakes?
-Side characters can raise emotional stakes by having their own emotional stakes that interact with the protagonist's, creating a more complex and morally compelling narrative.
Why are moral crossroads important in creating emotional stakes?
-Moral crossroads are important because they test characters in situations that force them to make difficult choices, leading to impactful emotional moments that resonate with readers.
What is the final note Jalen makes about creating emotional stakes?
-Jalen's final note is that simply presenting tragedy is not enough to create emotional stakes; there must be a genuine and specific reason why the tragedy is important to the character's narrative.
Outlines
π Understanding Emotional Stakes in Storytelling
In this paragraph, Jalen introduces the concept of emotional stakes in storytelling, emphasizing its importance alongside tangible stakes. Emotional stakes refer to the emotional pain or consequences a character may suffer, which can make a story more impactful. Jalen explains that while external stakes are about what a character stands to lose if they fail, emotional stakes are about the internal, emotional turmoil that can arise from the pursuit of goals. The paragraph discusses how combining emotional stakes with external stakes can make a story more compelling and how the lack of emotional stakes can lead to reader disinterest. Jalen also introduces three ways emotional stakes can manifest in a story: reason, risk, and sacrifice, providing examples for each.
π Enhancing Emotional Stakes Through Backstory and Characters
This paragraph delves into strategies for creating emotional stakes in storytelling. Jalen suggests using relevant backstories that connect to the present emotional stakes, citing 'The Last of Us' as an example where the protagonist's past directly influences his emotional investment in the story. The paragraph also discusses the role of side characters in raising emotional stakes, as their emotional fallout can be bargained with by the protagonist, adding moral complexity. The importance of moral crossroads is highlighted, where characters are tested in ways that significantly impact the emotional resonance of the story. The paragraph concludes with a caution against relying solely on tragedy to create emotional stakes, emphasizing the need for a genuine and specific reason for the emotional events to be impactful.
π Maximizing Emotional Impact in Writing
In the final paragraph, Jalen wraps up the discussion on emotional stakes by reiterating the importance of creating a reason for the emotional events in a story. The paragraph stresses that merely presenting tragedy is not sufficient to evoke emotional stakes; there must be a clear and specific connection to the character's journey and the narrative. Jalen advises against overdoing emotional stakes for the sake of intensity, as it can lead to melodrama. The paragraph ends with a note of gratitude to the viewers and a promise of more related content in future videos, including links to previous videos on conveying emotions and character relationships.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Emotional Stakes
π‘External Stakes
π‘Reason
π‘Risk
π‘Sacrifice
π‘Backstory
π‘Side Characters
π‘Moral Crossroads
π‘Melodrama
π‘Investment
Highlights
Emotional Stakes are crucial for giving a story an impactful emotional punch.
Emotional Stakes involve the emotional pain or consequences a character might suffer, not just tangible losses.
Using emotional stakes in conjunction with external stakes enhances a story's impact.
Lack of emotional stakes can lead to reader disinterest, even with a well-structured plot.
Emotional stakes can be more complex than external stakes, sometimes contradicting them to create compelling sacrifice.
Emotional stakes are the 'bargain' a protagonist makes with potential emotional hurt while pursuing their goals.
Three main ways emotional stakes manifest: reason, risk, and sacrifice.
Reason ties an external goal to an emotional one, risking emotional fallout if the external goal fails.
Risk involves gambling with potential emotional fallout in pursuit of an external or emotional goal.
Sacrifice occurs when external and emotional goals contradict, requiring one to be sacrificed for the other.
Examples of emotional stakes include climbing Mount Everest to honor a deceased father and scattering his ashes.
Emotional stakes can be heightened through relevant backstories that connect past emotions to present stakes.
Side characters can also contribute to emotional stakes, creating moral crossroads for the protagonist.
Moral crossroads, where characters must make difficult choices, can significantly raise emotional stakes.
Simply presenting tragedy is not enough to create emotional stakes; there must be a specific reason for its relevance.
Creating emotional stakes should avoid melodrama and focus on genuine, character-specific reasons for emotional investment.
The Last of Us is highlighted as an example of effectively using emotional stakes to create narrative precedence over external stakes.
Transcripts
hey guys it's Jalen and I'm here today
with another writing video so in today's
video we're going to be talking about
emotional Stakes I think emotional
Stakes is one of the most important
writing Concepts that is not talked
about we talk about Stakes but I don't
think we talk specifically enough about
emotional Stakes because in so many
cases I think emotional Stakes are what
truly give the story that impactful
emotional punch we've probably all heard
about Stakes which is what a character
has to lose within a story there's a I
think more important subset of stakes
which is the emotional Stakes this isn't
just what the character stands to lose
tangibly if they fail but what they
stand to lose emotionally the emotional
pain or consequence they will suffer so
using emotional stakes in combination
with external Stakes makes a story so
much more impactful if you've ever read
something and thought I just didn't care
or I didn't have any reason to care
about the protagonist or what was the
point of that it may be because there
weren't any emotional Stakes a story can
have an amazingly structure plot with
really clear external objectives but
without emotional Stakes it's hard for a
reader to feel invested a simple I think
about it in a lot of cases external
Stakes are what I want from the
character's perspective and the
emotional Stakes are why I want it but I
think it can be can be a lot more
complicated and nuanced than that and in
a lot of Stories the most interesting
emotional Stakes happen when the
external and the internal Stakes are
actually contradicting it depends
sometimes they're in unison and the
emotional Stakes are like a support that
gives you external sex meaning but in
other cases they might be contradictory
which creates this need for sacrifice
which is so emotionally compelling
personally I like to think of emotional
Stakes as the bargain so the emotional
Stakes are the hurt that the protagonist
is bargaining with as they pursue their
goal and desire I think there are a few
ways this could manifest but I've laid
out three possible ways that I think are
the main ones the first one I like to
call is reason this basically breaks
down to I need external goal because it
is tied to emotional goal so if I fail I
will suffer emotional Stakes the second
I like to call risk so this breaks down
to I want external goal but in order to
achieve this goal I risk suffering
emotional Stakes so I am gambling with
this potential emotional Fallout or it
could also be reversed I want emotional
goal but risk losing external Stakes so
I am gambling with possible tangible
Fallout in pursuing this emotional goal
and then the final setup I call
sacrifice so this kind of breaks down to
I want both an external goal and an
emotional goal but they contradict if I
achieve the external goal this will come
at the cost of emotional Stakes but if I
achieve emotional goal this will come at
the cost of external Stakes so let's
look at some examples I have one example
for each type here for the first one for
reason this is kind of the example that
I've written out Angelica's goal is to
climb Mount Everest because her dad was
a mountaineer and this was his life
school but he died a year ago his dying
request was that she go there to scatter
his ashes they had a tumultuous
relationship and she feels like she
failed him by never living up to his
expectations and this is the one way she
can redeem herself therefore her reason
for her external goal climbing Mount
Everest is to honor her father and if
she fails she will feel that she was
unable to accomplish the one thing her
father ever wanted from her and since he
is dead this is the only way to
retroactively repair the relationship
for risk this I couldn't really come up
with one but I recently read the book
big Swiss by Jen Beacon and I think it
is the perfect example of a risk type of
emotional Stakes so in this book the
protagonist Greta is a transcriber for a
sex therapist and she lives in just kind
of a state of depressed apathy but she
ends up becoming obsessed with one of
the clients who is a married woman and
she begins pursuing a relationship with
her when they have a chance encounter
and the protagonist recognizes her voice
obviously if it's discovered her true
identity and it's discovered that she
has literally been listening to This
Woman's therapy sessions the woman she's
having an affair with there will be a
huge amount of Shame from everyone
around her because of the multiple
levels of immorality within this
relationship but because the affair
makes her feel something it makes her
want something which she hasn't really
felt for such a long time she takes that
risk even though as the reader we know
eventually it's going to fall apart and
she's going to suffer huge emotional
follow-ups so the final example is for
sacrifice Lisa's goal is to help her
family who recently lost everything in a
house fire her parents were injured in
the fire and have huge medical debt and
her siblings are very young therefore
none of them are able to work however
Lisa has a secret girlfriend who lives
on the other side of the world but her
family doesn't know about and wouldn't
approve of
we hate homophobia before the fire Lisa
was planning on leaving everything to go
marry her girlfriend so they could live
happily ever after either she lives with
the guilt of failing her family and has
to live knowing that they will likely
never recover from this fire or is
unable to be with the love of her life
so she must sacrifice one outcome as you
can see that one can really tear in the
heartstrings because the sacrifice is
Gonna Hurt No Matter What so how do you
raise the emotional Stakes how do you
create emotional Stakes so the first way
is with relevant backstory backstory
that has emotions that are relevant to
the present external Stakes can create
really strong emotional Stakes because
the characters past hoons that are
reflected in the present and this makes
the present emotional Stakes feel higher
and more potent I think an amazing
example of this that I'm going to use
because it's very currently relevant in
pop culture is the last of us I'm
guessing a lot of you guys have seen
because wasn't it HBO's like most viewed
show ever Joel's external stakes in
getting LA to the fireflies is that
she's immune and this is a chance to
save Humanity the funny thing is that as
the viewer we almost don't really care
about that what we care about much more
is the emotional Stakes which is his
need to protect and take care of Ellie
because he was unable to save his own
daughter and as their relationship
becomes stronger as he stops resisting
past wounds and kind of lets himself
heal through this relationship the
emotional Stakes only rise because this
relationship means more to him and also
to Ellie and also therefore to us if
Joel didn't have a backstory where his
daughter had died these emotional Stakes
would not nearly be as strong we can see
through the story that this is his
chance for both healing and Redemption
from the death of his daughter Sarah who
he wasn't able to protect and so the
potential emotional Fallout here is huge
this relationship between Joel and Ellie
is the emotional center of the story
it's why we're invested in the story
right it's a great example of how
emotional Stakes take huge narrative
precedence over external Stakes even in
a story where it's literally a zombie
apocalypse so the external Stakes are
very very high the choice to have Jewel
have lost a daughter in the past to be
honest is an extremely obvious writing
Choice it's because it's such a good one
right like you just couldn't tell the
story without that even though it's a
fairly obvious backstory Choice like
it's obvious because it's so good it's a
very clear example of emotional stakes
and how we attach more to the the
emotional Stakes than the external
Stakes
external things are huge so the second
way that you can raise the emotional
Stakes is through the side characters
Side characters also have emotional
Stakes their potential emotional Fallout
is being bargained with both by their
own choices and actions but also by the
protagonists so you can really up the
emotional Stakes not by just considering
the emotional follow the protagonist
will go through but also how they're
bargaining how they're bargaining with
other people's emotions as well this can
put the character at a very compelling
moral Crossroad I think this setup from
Big Swiss is a great example of this the
main character Greta is bargaining with
her emotional mistakes an emotional
Fallout but she's also bargaining with
the emotional follow of the woman that
she's having an affair with this woman
doesn't know the extent to which Greta
is bargaining with her emotional Stakes
but she is and it creates much more
textured morality which leads to the
final point
moral Crossroads testing your character
by putting them in situations that truly
test them can make some of the most
impactful moments in the story will a
character do the right thing at the cost
of their own emotional Fallout going
back to the last of us because I think
it's the re I think emotional Stakes are
the reason why this became the most
watched show in HBO's history is because
of the way this show and I mean
obviously the game before it I haven't
played the game so sorry not a gamer but
I think that it's a story that just
knows how to use emotional Stakes
properly and I think that's why it
struck a chord so in the last episode of
The Last of Us Joel has to choose
between the external goal of a cure for
the literal zombie apocalypse and his
emotional goal of protecting Ellie he's
put in a situation where he can't have
both he has to pick save Humanity or
save Ellie we understand as the viewer
why he picks save Ellie because that was
the emotional goal also going back to
the fact that his daughter didn't die
because of a zombie infection she was
killed by a person had she been infected
and died that way maybe he would have
had more emotional Stakes related to The
Cure but that's not what the cause of
the loss was it was a human being who
killed her it really ties into the
emotional stakes in a way where he
doesn't save Humanity but he saves her
and we understand why that choice was
made because of the emotional Stakes
that were established I just want to say
as a final note simply presenting the
reader with tragedy is not enough to
create emotional Stakes we've all read
or seen countless stories that feature
loss or tragedy and most of us have
experienced some kind of loss of tragedy
within our own lives so merely
presenting sad things isn't enough to
create emotional stakes and if you go
too heavy-handed with it it can start to
become very molodramatic the goal isn't
always to have the most extreme
emotional Stakes all the time there has
to be a genuine and specific reason why
the tragedy being used to bolster the
emotional Stakes is important to this
character in this narrative Beyond just
the fact that it exists there has to be
a reason why the choices made regarding
the emotional Stakes are specific and
important to this character just putting
them there isn't enough it has to be
tied in in like a genuine specific way
if your goal is just create the most
intense emotional Stakes possible by
packing as much tragedy as possible that
can lead to a lot of melodrama think
about stories you've read that maybe had
really intense emotional events and
people died and stuff but you just
didn't really care it's probably because
there was no specific reason why that
emotional event was creating emotional
Stakes for this character just the
presence of tragedy isn't enough there
has to be reason is my final PSA but I
think that the things before that I
talked about can be used to create
reasons so that you actually are getting
the most impact possible out of your
emotional states so that is all for this
video thank you guys so much for
watching I just hope that this quick
video and quick chat on emotional Stakes
can help you make your writing more
emotionally impactful I'll leave links
to some other related videos that I've
done in the past one on conveying
emotions through your writing and one on
like character relationships because I
think those can all tie into this idea
thank you guys so much for watching and
I'll see you in another video bye
[Music]
thank you
[Music]
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