Seagulls, a Suitcase of Pepperoni, and an 18-Year Ban from a Hotel
I have followed the Letters of Note Substack for a while, and this is by far the best letter I have read. It’s maybe a five-minute read. I highly recommend you find the time for it. Great stuff.
A Lesson in Tension
The same way water skipper bugs use the surface tension of water to glide across rivers and ponds, a good story needs tension or the whole thing sinks. Tension comes from stakes.
There is a scene in The Alpinist that I can picture vividly. The documentary is about a free solo climber who ascends some of the craziest mountains in the world. In the scene, he is high up on a frozen rock face—no ropes, just two climbing axes. There’s no music. The scene is quiet outside of rock scraping and ice chipping. His movements are slow and methodical. You can’t look away as he searches for his next hold, and then your heart stops as he commits his whole body weight to a sliver of metal on frozen water.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!
That is stakes. (those are stakes? thems is stakes?)
Obviously, that represents some of the highest stakes possible: life or death in literally every minuscule movement. But stakes can be high or low and still keep people interested.
Will Rod make enough money doing stunts to pay for his stepdad’s surgery so he can fight him?
Will Leslie Knope save the possum she thought was Fairway Frank from the clutches of the mayor who wants to stuff it and mount it on the wall in his bathroom?
Will anyone go to Pam’s art show? And if they do, will they appreciate her art?
Will the annoying guy get the rose or will the Bachelorette see through his facade and choose the guy you think is right?
Will Pauly D get his gym, tan, and laundry done in time to hit the club?
Another way to think about stakes is an “or” statement.
Win OR go home
Study for the test OR likely fail
Ask the girl out OR watch TV alone on Friday night
If you want to write a good story, make sure you include appropriate stakes. If you want to live a good story, push through your fears and embrace the stakes.
Sentence(s) of the Week
I read kinda a bummer book recently, but at least the author had some entertaining commentary.
“The vascular-system poster did, however, include a small ‘female pelvis’ off to one side, and me and my female pelvis were grateful for small mercies.”
“Designing passive tracking apps as if women have pockets big enough to hold their phones is a perennial problem with an easy solution: include proper pockets in women’s clothing (she types, furiously, having just had her phone fall out of her pocket and smash on the floor for the hundredth time).”
― Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Thanks for reading,
Braden
I laughed so hard I cried when I read “A String of Unfortunate Events!” Thanks for sharing that goodness!