Screenwriting : The Importance of Stakes in Screenwriting by Maurice Vaughan

Good post!

Having something at stake for characters in each scene is great advice, Iannis Aliferis.

Absolutely!

Great post. It’s also good to remember emotional stakes for your characters as well as world stakes.

This is great info. Thanks for posting!

Thanks for the extra advice, Ewan Dunbar!

You're welcome, Christine Capone.

I think we need a better definition of stakes than putting people in a hole.

For me stakes are something of left unresolved will be worse than the issue can ever be. There must also be a sense of urgency.

Don’t put a character in a hole, put their child. Better still, have the child stuck by a rock in the bottom so they cannot get up or climb. Now have the hole begin to fill with water. Escalate the stakes. Make sure it can never be left unresolved. If it can remain unresolved it is an issue not a stake.

I couldn’t agree with this more. Stakes are everything - overall and in each scene. Using the script we developed about Einstein as one example - the overall stakes of nuclear weapons are always present, the stakes of 2 world wars pace the series, the stakes of the Nazi’s wanting to kill Einstein (and all Jews) is immense and in each scene there are stakes for his character, relationships, standing, loved ones, et al. It’s always about the stakes, big and small, to drive scenes and the overall story.

The other thing I thought of this morning when seeing this again. The stake should attached to the most base need the person has. As with Sam’s example, death is an attack on the most base humans need - life.

The what is at stake? Is perhaps the most important consideration.

Thanks for posting this, Maurice.

Thanks for sharing Maurice ! Indeed, without stakes there's no story

You're welcome, Matthew and Stephanie. I was outlining a script this morning and the advice in this article really helps.

@Maurice thanks for the cool read, I’d add audience has to care about who faces the stakes regardless of what stakes are (need not be epoch, life changing or biblical.) Character is key, if we don’t care about them who gives a damn if they get the girl, shoot the bad guy or get the last toilet roll in a queue in shopping mall during covid?

Interesting thought. Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome, Debbie. You're right! The stakes in one of my scripts are high, but I got a note that the reader didn't care about the protagonist. I went back and rewrote the script so readers would care.

There was a Stage 32 post where members were talking about action scenes. A movie can have the biggest, best action scenes, but if I don't care about the characters, I won't care about the action, and I'll get bored.

You're welcome, Jill.

Thanks @Maurice - It reminds me of some advice I saw about antagonists having a justifiable motive for their goal. Even the Joker in Dark Knight has a justification: "Chaos is fair". I think this builds the tension because now it's not just good guy versus bad, it's a question of which justifiable viewpoint will win out?

Great insights Maurice, I wonder what could be higher stakes than the power over life and death. The next script I write will deal with this subject. How can humans makes sense of this mortal life if we don't believe in an afterlife. And if you do believe in an afterlife,, what form does it take? What is is like to be in spirit form, what would a typical day routine be, all unanswered questions worthy of the right screenplay

You're welcome, Craig Court. I agree. Give antagonists justifiable motives for their goals. A villain being bad just to be bad isn't enough. But not all antagonists are villains.

Those are tough questions, Keith. Your script sounds unique and exciting. I definitely suggest figuring out those details before starting the script so you don't run into issues or plot holes while writing.

Awesome Maurice will do

Maurice Vaughan. Good post. I agree but would like to add another big reason would be overwriting. It is considered amaturish and it makes the reader work to hard. They will often read the first few pages and quite.

There's nothing like a good steak. I'm particularly fond of ribeyes. One of my characters recently had a scene in a steakhouse.

You're right, Dan G. Overwriting is a huge issue in scripts. Underwriting/not being clear is a huge issue too.

Haha Phillip! A crime boss, surrounded by henchmen, chows down on a juicy steak in a luxurious steakhouse. He runs out of steak sauce and asks a waitress to bring him some more, but she tells him, "I'm sorry, sir, but that was the last bottle." He yells, "What do you mean the last bottle!? This is a steakhouse!" The waitress trembles. The crime boss waves her in close and whispers, "Find me steak sauce or else" (the stakes).

Steaks! Keen's porterhouse for 2

MV: Very nice job. In 2017, I read a thread in this forum where a poster said you couldn't write a screenplay where a fire hydrant was the main character. So I wrote a fantasy/action comedy called Harry the Hydrant. Soon afterward, I sent it to a Stage 32 executive client and he sent back this feedback:

Feedback (4-6 sentences on story & pitch): It's hard to tell exactly how serious this pitch is, as the idea is too ridiculous, and the delivery doesn’t really assuage fears that its all a big joke, but its a funny concept at its core. Its quickly delivered, and while the absurd nature of the pitch means I’d like to see a little more before i were truly to commit to it, it's such an absurd idea that it as a “well just look and see” vibe to it.

Pass or Request? Request

So the guy requested the script for my first pitch for a script I wrote as a goof.

Thanks, Phillip. A fire hydrant can definitely be a main character. I would watch "Harry the Hydrant." It could be live-action or animation (maybe an animation movie with a spin-off show). What happened with "Harry the Hydrant" anyway?

MV: I agree Harry the Hydrant could be live or animated. I have a lot of screenplays, and I just haven't spent much time pushing this one.