Simple, quick tips for improving both your writing quality and your Wattpad experience. Open, friendly, and conversational, this book will give you that little info boost you need to tackle common problems and often-overlooked issues.
Wherever you a...
Often, limiting the time that the main player has to complete the task / overcome the obstacle can heighten the stakes of the situation. The player now has to finish a task within the time limit or the cause of the conflict wins / they fail at their goal. So in our story, Grace is already in senior year, and she knows she has to work very hard if she wants to go to Harvard.
2. Limit the space:
In a story with antagonists, the stakes don't feel real until we meet the villain. Having a situation where the antagonist and the protagonist don't meet seems very low-stakes. Force meetings, unless the antagonist hasn't been revealed. Limit the space of them both so that they're forced to meet. In stories without antagonists, try to make the stakes real by having the main player see some physical embodiments or symbols of their goal/obstacle. For instance, Grace talks to the counsellor at her high-school and this makes her obstacles seem much more real. She wonders how she is ever going to succeed.
3. Reduce the options:
Make sure the main player has very few options to achieve their goal. This will ensure that the stakes of the story heighten and that there is more conflict because these paths are all bound to be difficult and they must choose which path to undertake. This also makes the story feel real in the readers' eyes. With Grace, this means she has to work very hard and earn as many extra credits as she can.
For the whole story, feel free to add all of these options to the story. If it's one scene, please try not to use more than one of these techniques, because you risk making the stakes too high and at times, seem impossible. [You DO NOT want to make the stakes seem impossible, because then you risk losing realism and the story being equated to a legend. That's fine if it's your intention, though.]
Practice
Now, for an exercise, heighten the stakes of this story:
Lisa, a senator's daughter, has to hide the alien in her attic, Monroe, lest her parents find him and kill him.
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Here's my version of heightened stakes:
The aliens arrive to destroy earth next week, and Lisa has to find a way to make peace, without revealing Monroe. But what can a 12-year-old do?
Let me know if you have any questions. I'd also suggest checking out Tip #7 in this book for more on conflict, because Laine and Aria are more of the experts on this topic than me.
Happy writing!
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Want to submit your own Tip? Comment in this book and email your entry to avadelauthors@gmail.com. We'll review it, and if we think it's well-written and helpful to the Wattpad community, we'll post it! Your entry may be something you have written previously, even if it is published elsewhere. (=
Have a Request? Comment on the first chapter with the topic you'd like to see. Your suggestion might just turn into an article!
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