How can you keep your audience hooked when they know the end of the story?
Chas, Stu and Mel take a deep dive into stakes, using then lens of biopics to help us think about them. If an audience already knows the “plot” outcome of a story, then how do you create stakes to make a story tense for the audience?
To explore this, we deep dive into HIDDEN FIGURES (about the NASA Friendship 7 mission), DOWNFALL (the final days of Berlin in WW2), and BRIGHT STAR (the life and death of romantic poet John Keats). We unpack the ideas around internal, external and philosophical /moral stakes and propose some new terminology that may help us write stakes more effectively.
As always: SPOILERS ABOUND.
Audio quotations used for educational purposes only. Timestamps indicated below. Chapter markers included in the mp3.
Thanks to Chris Walker for editing this episode.
CHAPTERS
– 00:00:00 – Intro
– 00:04:41 – What even are stakes?
– 00:24:26 – Hidden Figures
– 01:00:46 – Downfall
– 01:33:38 – Bright Star
– 02:10:33 – Key Learnings
– 02:18:57 – Thanks Patreons!
This episode brought to you by (drum roll):
ScriptUp: https://www.scriptupstudio.com – use promo code DZ10 to get 10% off; and
ArcStudio: https://www.arcstudiopro.com – go to www.draft-zero.com/arcstudio for $30 off a subscription!
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