Sep 29, 2026 · 1 hr 16 min · 8 segments
Could these references *be* any more millennial? Bri and Mer chat about how to add stakes–low and high–to your manuscript, how to make zany set-ups feel important, and how knowing your characters…
Meredith HambrockHost
Brianna LabuskesHostSo if your character wants something, so whether it's to like solve a mystery, to become Maria in a small town production of The Sound of Music, what is at stake for them is like, why do they want this thing? Like, what does it mean for them to succeed or fail? You know, like, does that kind of make sense? It's like, you know, what is that like the route that is like driving them towards this? Um, and so stakes can be, you know, like if, you know, if they want to solve the mystery, it's like, why do they want to solve the mystery? So, um, oftentimes like they bring kind of like urgency, like a detective is like, oh, like I want to find this missing person.
And as the story develops, the stakes might grow or change or evolve to become more and more important to the character, why they want to find this missing person.
I think maybe last week, I can't remember if we left this in or not, but there's that famous film Taken with Liam Neeson, which is the ultimate thriller concept, which is just that he is...
So immediately right off the back, the stakes are super high and that his daughter gets kidnapped and he has to go save her.
And we know that the stakes are really personal because she's a family member and we're immediately connecting to like that love of... you know, the father-daughter relationship or something.
Like they could just be very, like I was thinking about the movie Legally Blonde because my partner hasn't seen it and I want to make him watch it.
And then I explained to him, he's like, but why does she want to go to Harvard? I'm like, because she wants to get her boyfriend back initially.
So like, it's like Elle Woods thinking that she's in love with her boyfriend at the beginning of that film.
She needs to prove to him that she's serious enough to be, you know, Mrs. Warner Huntington III, I think his name is.
But right away, it's sort of like, why is your character going to like go on this quest? Yeah.
So if your character wants something, so whether it's to like solve a mystery, to become Maria in a small town production of The Sound of Music, what is at stake for them is like, why do they want this thing? Like, what does it mean for them to succeed or fail? You know, like, does that kind of make sense? It's like, you know, what is that like the route that is like driving them towards this? Um, and so stakes can be, you know, like if, you know, if they want to solve the mystery, it's like, why do they want to solve the mystery? So, um, oftentimes like they bring kind of like urgency, like a detective is like, oh, like I want to find this missing person.
And as the story develops, the stakes might grow or change or evolve to become more and more important to the character, why they want to find this missing person.
I think maybe last week, I can't remember if we left this in or not, but there's that famous film Taken with Liam Neeson, which is the ultimate thriller concept, which is just that he is...
So immediately right off the back, the stakes are super high and that his daughter gets kidnapped and he has to go save her.
And we know that the stakes are really personal because she's a family member and we're immediately connecting to like that love of... you know, the father-daughter relationship or something.
Like they could just be very, like I was thinking about the movie Legally Blonde because my partner hasn't seen it and I want to make him watch it.
And then I explained to him, he's like, but why does she want to go to Harvard? I'm like, because she wants to get her boyfriend back initially.
So like, it's like Elle Woods thinking that she's in love with her boyfriend at the beginning of that film.
She needs to prove to him that she's serious enough to be, you know, Mrs. Warner Huntington III, I think his name is.
But right away, it's sort of like, why is your character going to like go on this quest? Yeah.
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