Make the Stakes Life-and-Death
(Tune in to Writing Wednesdays on the next few Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the continuation of the series “Using Your Real Life in Fiction” — and for more of The Knowledge‘s backstory.)
Our Most Dreaded Outcome in crafting fiction based on our real lives is that the story will be too internal, too ordinary, too boring.
Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mancuso in “Joy”
Life is internal.
Life is ordinary.
Life is boring.
And don’t forget our first axiom of the Lit Biz:
How can we make our real-life story dramatic, involving, and exciting? I’ll answer by quoting my old mentor Ernie Pintoff:
I don’t mean we have to kill off a character (though that always works,)
I mean raise the stakes.
Did you see the movie Joy, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Bradley Cooper, written and directed by David O. Russell? The entire first half hour is about nothing but establishing the stakes for the protagonist, the real-life Joy Mancuso, as life and death. Not literally, but emotionally.
Act One introduces us to Joy as the only responsible adult in her crazy, dysfunctional extended family—all of whom are living under the same roof. We meet Joy’s bedridden mom (Virginia Madsen) , who watches soap operas all day and refuses to leave her room. Her estranged father (Robert De Niro) suddenly appears on the doorstep; he moves in to the basement, where Joy’s ex-husband is already living. Joy’s sister hates her. Joy’s boss fires her from her job. The plumbing explodes in the floor of her mom’s bedroom.
The responsibility for fixing all this comes down on Joy. She’s the designated adult. Everyone else in the family dumps their baggage on her.
Plus we see in flashbacks that the young Joy—Joy as a girl—was spontaneously and joyously creative. But that Joy has vanished under the weight of family dysfunction.
The stakes for Joy, we see, are not just life and death … they’re worse. If she can’t change the course of her life, she is doomed at the soul level. What makes the story even more powerful is the contrast between the soul-stakes for Joy and the creative flash that saves her. She invents the “Miracle Mop” and pitches it on the Home Shopping Network. What could be sillier? But the success or failure of that mop is life and death for Joy Mancuso.
I took a different tack in structuring The Knowledge.
Starting with a real-life interior narrative not too different from Joy’s, i.e. a theme of unrealized and self-sabotaged creativity … I added a second parallel story, a murder mystery that embodied this storytelling principle:
Make the internal external.
Or, put another way,
Make the invisible visible.
The aim of both techniques (that used in Joy and that employed in The Knowledge) is the same—to raise the stakes for the protagonist to life and death.
One of the ways that aspiring writers fail, when they’re using their own lives as the basis for their fiction, is they’re reluctant (often for honorable reasons) to mess too much with their truth.
They over-respect this truth.
They’re afraid if they heighten it too much, they’re being dishonest. They’re “going Hollywood.”
They’re hesitant to give their characters scenes and dialogue that the real people on whom those characters are based (including themselves) would never do or say in real life.
In The Knowledge, I had my sweet, reserved ex-wife whip out a .45 automatic and start blazing away at a carload of assassins.
I had myself beaten up, fired, rejected, cheated on, fired again, beaten up again.
I had characters die who didn’t die in real life.
Remember our other prime axiom:
Don’t be afraid to make sh*t up.
I don’t know Joy Mancuso’s real-life family. I can’t say for sure that they were (or are) as nutty and dysfunctional as the movie painted them. Maybe David O. Russell, as writer and filmmaker, was blessed with real-life characters and situations that were already over-the-top wacky.
But I doubt it.
I think David O. Russell pumped up the volume.
I think he made the internal external.
He heightened reality.
He made the stakes for Joy life-and-death.
It’s always a great exercise, when you and I read over our own stuff, to ask ourselves throughout the process:
What are the stakes for our hero?
Remember, the higher the stakes, the more emotion will be generated in the reader.
The higher the stakes, the more the reader will be sucked in.
The more she will care.
The more she will be involved in the fates of the characters.
The more she will root for the hero.
And the faster she will turn the pages.
If the stakes of your story are not life-and-death, change them.
Make them life-and-death, at least emotionally.
Don’t be afraid to make sh*t up.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
So we need to find that sweet spot between “nobody wants to read your sh*t” and “don’t be afraid to make sh*t up.” Thanks so much for this series!
I was thinking, Steve, some writers don’t have the horrible pasts, the cheating, betraying, etc., to draw from.
Then I was reminded of Gillian Flynn.
By all rights, she’s had a charmed life, good parents, a nice husband, a lucrative career in television writing, and she’s intelligent and beautiful.
So what did she do? In Gone Girl she created two perfect parents.
And then she showed how growing up with perfect parents was such a burden it could turn you into a sociopath and a cold blooded killer.
Interesting points to bring up, Michael! The mysteries of the human mind and heart have given birth to monsters as well as supposed angels, most of us breathing the same air as the two combined. Isn’t that part of what makes writing so intriguing and exciting? Best wishes.
Great post, Steve! You’re right on target, hitting the golden cross hairs. Of course, it seems to me, that when a writer feels in the groove with all this as he writes a book and it gets better with every draft he thinks and feels: “Everyone will want to read my shit.”
Great post, Steve! You’re right on target, hitting the golden cross hairs. Of course, it seems to me, that when a writer feels in the groove with all this as he writes a book and it gets better with every draft he thinks and feels: “Everyone will want to read my shit.” I am working at a Webdesigners LLC in Florida. this company is best for web designing in US.
It is very interesting for me how raising the stakes in a narrative can evoke intense emotions, create suspense, and keep readers or viewers on the edge of their seats.
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Writing Wednesday’s focus on making the stakes life-and-death is a compelling approach to storytelling. It adds intensity and urgency to the narrative, keeping readers engaged and invested in the outcome. By raising the stakes, writers can create tension and drama that propel the story forward. I suggest checking out articles posted on Linkedin Pulse for more writing tips and techniques to enhance your storytelling skills.