EMOTIONAL STAKES: How to Make Readers Care About Your Story
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2024
- RELATED VIDEOS:
→How to Convey Emotion in Your Writing: • How to Convey Emotion ...
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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - what are emotional stakes?
1:51 - types of emotional stakes
how to create emotional stakes:
5:03 - relevant backstory
6:53 - side characters
7:41 - moral crossroads
9:03 - giving tragedy narrative meaning
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Shaelin, You're one of like 3 youtubers who I get notifications for, and I am never disappointed. Thank you for creating content that allows us to steep our minds in the craft of story.
Same. She's literally the best. 🥰
this. :) we all say this over and over and we are never let down. most channels just make cut and paste content. not her
Agreed. They present topics and ideas and perspectives I've never thought of despite writing since I was 5! It's a bit frustrating to realize I know almost nothing though
Agreed 💚
@@Zeynep-tu2px Honestly, "Film Courage" (for screenwriting tips) and "Thunderf00t" (for debunking).
Of the 3, Shaelin is the one who inspires me to write the most.
Not surprised that Shaelin would be a fan of TLoU. The story is somewhat thematically similar to her beautiful short story, "I Will Never Tell You This." Still one of my all-time favorite short stories. Highly recommend it! Shaelin, if you ever write an apocalyptic story, I know it'd be amazing.
Ahh thank you the relationship in TLoU also reminded me of IWNTYT!!
@@ShaelinWrites Of course! Love your work and tips!
@@ShaelinWritesI'm totally lost on this what is iwntyt
edit: NEVERMIND. im a goof...clearly i have more shaelin bishop reading to do
Thank you for laying this out so clearly; this helps a lot. I have always had a hard time creating emotional stakes beyond just killing off characters. This has given me so many great ideas, so thank you!! ❤
omg creating emotional stakes by just killing off characters MOOD (this is why i was considered the serial killer of my writing program hahaha)
The Last of Us uses an archetype as old as LotR and its fellowship - we only care about the hero's journey because of how those around him are emotionally invested in his shortcomings, even if the fate of the world is the ultimate consequence.
To add to your point on the final ep of TLOU... not only did Sarah die at a human's hands, she died at the hands of an authority figure acting on what they thought was the greater good in containing/making a vaccine for the infection
Hi Shaelin,
I want to thank you for all the wonderful content and the amount of topics you cover. Out of all the authors with similar platforms on YT, I feel like you give a higher level of advice for fellow writers who want to improve and up their skills. I have used many of your tips to improve my own writing and I am very happy with the results.
I also appreciate the vulnerability it takes to discuss things like having doubts about your writing, and how to continue to love what you do😊.
so happy my videos have helped!!
The best external and emotional stakes I’ve ever seen in media is in The 100, especially seasons 2 and 3. I learned SO much about narrative structure and character from it - I always wondered how it managed to be so intense and emotional, and since watching your video I now understand the techniques they were implementing. I highly recommend watching it!
Interesting, I will check it out.
Yes, the writing in The 100 tv show early seasons was captivating. It held my interest through the horrible acting 🥴
Now that you mention it, I see that! For example, Clarke as a character often had to wrestle emotional goals and external goals literally all the time, and morals always tied into it. In the earlier seasons, she definitely usually picked external goals, and dealt with the catastrophic emotional consequences that would come from within her and from others.
This is what I needed. I was wondering what I needed to make my story better and this is it
I am writing an emotional novel with a character named Gabor so thank you for sharing your thoughts on emotional stakes throughout the video.
Thank you Shaelin! But all the setups you categorize assume the emotional goal is clear. What if a story explores emotions themselves? My character is in a perilously high-stakes situation, internally and externally. But the inciting incident has thrown her very idea of happiness and emotional loss into question.
Wow! That sounds like a really fresh thing in a world where everyone's recycling the same stories.
In this case, wouldn’t some of the most important stakes be emotional stakes? Forgive me if I misunderstand, but I think that in this case the main stakes of the story would more likely than not have to do with emotions. The main character may not understand exactly what the stakes are, but for you as the writer you would know what they want deep down and what it is that they stand to lose, right?
(Actually whoops, I just reread the comment and you said you have both internal and external stakes. So internal stakes aren’t necessarily the most important, but the rest of my comment still stands, I believe)
@@nevisnebis1207 Good question. The surface layer of the story has a clear market-appealing ending. But the deep layer I've left to the reader to decide. So no. Even I can't easily answer the moral dilemma. And I'm getting a PhD in it. So I know nobody else has an easy answer for it either, though it's a question that everybody grapples with.
Other commenters have already smartly noted this, but it sounds like you have a really strong set up for emotional stakes there already! If the character's sense of happiness/loss is totally disrupted it sounds like a situation primed for really interesting and high emotional stakes with a lot to dig into there.
@@ShaelinWrites Thank you for your generous words. The challenge is crafting the character arc. In any other story, the good and bad are clear. Even in moral gray zones, the gray is because you're in the middle of the two poles, but the moral poles themselves are clear. You don't confuse the ultimate good with the ultimate evil.
But what if I give you reason to suddenly doubt that what you're raised to see as the highest evil in the world isn’t evil? Not only that, what if it may actually be the highest good? Now what is the character even hoping to do, when there is no right thing to do anymore? What's the emotional introspection of such a character like? I've found no similar story to learn from.
I have been on this journey recently on learning everything about how to tell a story. I have reviewed most of the channels and what they have to say. Most of them are just jargon with one or two good things to say. Every single time I come here, I end up taking more than most of them combined. You present the information so beautifully. Primarily, because you have this sense of teaching and understanding of how to teach to anyone I guess. Kudos
Thanks to this video, i made a major change to my story and i think its really improved it. Thank you so much shaelin!!
You are going to make one hell of a writing professor (if you're not already teaching). I learn so much from you.
This is so helpful. I like to put my characters in emotional stakes and also where the readers can show them sympathy or empathy or they can relate because they felt the same way or know someone who has in their life.
You're single handedly teaching me alot and for free can't thank you enough ❤ love you.
As a new and first time writer. This was a very helpful video!:)
Love this video! I also love how many books are behind you! 😍
Your final PSA was small but effective. Having people doing things for a reason can be a weird blind spot, even for the best of us who love threading intricate character beats into each other. But nothing is done by accident, unless you've created a universe where its gods just use human lives as a toilet.
4:32 Me too, Lisa. Me too
Lisa is so real honestly
i think that last point about tragedy alone isn't enough is super true! I realized that in The Kite Runner, Amir's best friend being r*ped would not affect every life choice from that point on if he didn't have Baba as his father. Baba who cared about justice and wouldn't approve of Amir's reaction to the tragedy, Baba who appreciated that best friend more than him, Baba who actually thought of that other boy as his own son. If this particular character didn't influence Amir so much and create specific emotional stakes, the tragedy would have an entirely different effect on Amir's life.
What a killer shirt.
great video ❤
The opposite to The Last of Us ending happens at the end of the Spiderman game.
Peter has to chose wether to save his aunt by giving her the cure to some sickness OR give it to the doctors so that they can reverse engieneer a cure for the rest of the world
But aunt is so sick she wont survive until the cure is made. So he has to choose
And because he is spiderman he chooses to save the city and lets his aunt die
TLOU was a very good example. Thanks for making me think about plot differently.
Something to note is that within the game, the Fireflies are not a completely good group, they are treated as radicals who are hellbent on returning the state of the world to its pre-zombie state. There are articles and whisperings of how Fireflies are chaotic terrorists who have no concern for human life within the game. I think it's even in a news article where they set off bombs and killed innocent civilians. And multiple times in the game events of Firefly terrorism are discussed by Marlene and others; and they're framed as "resistance fighters" which is disingenous.
Point being, in the end, Joel was always going to be more likely to pick Ellie, because the cure wasn't going to be 100%, it may not have worked. Even Marlene admits that what they're doing is rushed and that Ellie isn't being given the right to consent. Which is a clear reflection of the Fireflies priorities of returning the world to an ideal state over human life. Thematically it just makes sense.
[Insert emotional damage meme]
Thanks
Another great video, Shae-Shae _(
DONT GET ME STARTED ON JOEL AND ELLIE THAT LAST SCENE OMGGG ITS NOT LOOKING GOOD ITS NOT LOOKING GOOD I HAD TO PAUSE THAT EP SMMMMM TIMES
All this talk about steaks is making me hungry
emotional damage -> emotional stakes
I like my steaks raw and bleeding. I can smell the fear of the steak's last moments when it's really emotional.
If it was separated from its offspring steaks which swore vengeance against me, then the emotional steaks are even bigger.
In the end though the young calf found me sated and was like "nah I don't want to kill you", and then I ate him. He was a very emotional steak. I could taste the confusion and existential horror and moral breakdown or delusional values.
As a vegan, all steaks are emotional for me.
@@NickSklias I'm most emotional about meat when my cat catches something and I'm happy for her because she seems like she's really proud.
@@coffeebreakhero3743 awhhh ❤🥺 I'm feeling the emotions 🥲
4:36 THIS HERE YALL IS US, WE STAND UP FOR THIS THIS IS OUR TEN COMMANDMENTS AND THE CONSTITUTION
First!