In the last post, Why Risk is Essential to Storytellers we talked about how much people hate to lose. So we work hard to avoid doing things that can hurt us in any way – physically, emotionally or spiritually. We would rather do things are certain to succeed than risk failure. Think about asking someone for a date. It’s a whole lot easier if you’re sure they’ll say yes.
Understanding the the nature of risk and our intense desire to avoid loss is critical to writing stories that have substance and the gravitas necessary to hold your reader/audience’s attention. With this in mind you push your hero to take bigger and bigger risks. If the risks your hero takes are equal in weight, or the stakes drop, your story will drag. When you escalate risk momentum builds and you propel your narrative forward with aggression and purpose.
The following is excerpted from my book 27 Essential Principles of Story. It shows how the principle Escalate Risk works.
A man goes to his cabin in the woods for the weekend. It’s a long drive through the snowy mountains. He gets there and he’s famished. He unpacks groceries and considers two options for dinner. He can make a sandwich or beef stew. The sandwich will take two minutes. The stew will take much longer, but he’s really in the mood for stew. Is forty-five minutes of prep and an hour of cooking time worth the reward of having stew? If he slaps together bread and cheese, that says one thing about his character. If he meticulously follows a recipe for stew, that says something else.
The next day there’s a blizzard, and high winds knock out the power. There’s no internet and his phone runs out of charge. After he polishes off the stew and the sandwich fixings, there’s not much left to eat. The general store is seven miles away. He looks out the window and sees ten-foot snow drifts. A jolt of nerves. The cabin is freezing. Should he trek to his neighbors’ house a mile away? What if they’re not home? And they’re not that friendly. He’ll look like an idiot.
Two days pass and the power’s still out, the roads impassable. He’s out of food and hungry. With snow still falling hard, the wind whips his face as he treks to his neighbor. He now risks physical injury and the shame of feeling like a beggar. He gets to his neighbors’ house, but no one answers. He walks around, clears a window with his hand, and looks in. Should he break in? They must be away. They’d understand. He’ll pay for any damage.
He kicks the door. Again. More violently. And again. Wood splinters. The door flies open and he recoils in horror when he sees the owner, a bearded Goliath, pointing a shotgun at him. “I-t-it-it-it’s not what you think,” he stammers. Goliath fires. The blast rattles the world. But, incredibly, the bullet ricochets and strikes the Goliath in the forehead, killing him instantly. What should our hero do? Look at how the risks escalate. He starts by risking time (sandwich or stew), then bodily harm (trekking through the blizzard) plus the embarrassment of “begging” for food, then possible consequences from breaking into a home, and now, with a dead body lying on the floor, caused by his illegal entry, he risks life in prison or even execution.
See how we escalate risk to keep the story engaging? If your story drags – especially in the middle – make a list of all the risks your hero takes and make sure the stakes of each risk get higher and higher. And note this is not some parlor trick to satisfy a principle. As always, the purpose is to reveal character. What a person is willing – or not willing to risk – defines who they are. And this reveals your vision of life.
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