I do not mean upping the stakes within the story. And I'm not sure I'd say that every great story has to have stakes that are particularly high. IMO that's something that really depends on what your story is, what you're trying to do.
I'm talking about upping the stakes in terms of how seriously you take the story. A story I really care about and have poured a lot of hard work into--the risk is bigger, if I fail to do what I'm trying to do, I'll feel it. The low-stakes stories I've done--eh. They work or they don't work. They're just games, just fooling around a bit.
You know the kind of thing, maybe--I don't see it much in my current critting partners, but I used to, back in the day when I was beginning to write seriously--you offer criticism of a story, something the author could fix with a bit of research or thought, and the response is something like "lighten up, it's just a story why are you taking it so seriously?" And that's when I say to myself, "They didn't take their work seriously." That was low stakes for them. When they answer like that, chances are all their work is low stakes, or they'd have said something different. "Oh, what I was trying to do was..." or "You know, you're right, but I just can't bring myself to care about this one." Or something.
(And yes, btw, sometimes there's a...slightly different context for that "it's just a story" response, and...yeah. Can of worms. But there's no such thing as "just a story.")
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Date: 2009-12-10 02:37 am (UTC)I'm talking about upping the stakes in terms of how seriously you take the story. A story I really care about and have poured a lot of hard work into--the risk is bigger, if I fail to do what I'm trying to do, I'll feel it. The low-stakes stories I've done--eh. They work or they don't work. They're just games, just fooling around a bit.
You know the kind of thing, maybe--I don't see it much in my current critting partners, but I used to, back in the day when I was beginning to write seriously--you offer criticism of a story, something the author could fix with a bit of research or thought, and the response is something like "lighten up, it's just a story why are you taking it so seriously?" And that's when I say to myself, "They didn't take their work seriously." That was low stakes for them. When they answer like that, chances are all their work is low stakes, or they'd have said something different. "Oh, what I was trying to do was..." or "You know, you're right, but I just can't bring myself to care about this one." Or something.
(And yes, btw, sometimes there's a...slightly different context for that "it's just a story" response, and...yeah. Can of worms. But there's no such thing as "just a story.")