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Kelly ChastainJuly 30, 2026

Stack the Stakes. The Technique Behind Unputdownable Books

We’ve been talking about unputdownable ideas (read:stakes) for weeks now. Threaten the character’s reputation, check. Put them in mortal danger, check. Make them homeless if it all falls apart, check. But what if you stacked them together and really made the shit hit the fan?

Want to learn about the 11 narrative stakes, and get extra recommendations for the books that absolutely nail it? We recently led a workshop on just that subject, and it’s available (along with a template and 40+ book and short story comps) as video on demand right here, right now.

The stakes are what makes a book unputdownable. They take a story from just OK to holy shit, I stayed up until 4am reading. When you stack stakes on top of each other, the struggle starts to feel insurmountable. Impossible. As if there’s no way this character can win. So when they do, it’s delicious. And when they don’t, we’re still satisfied because we understand intimately what it’s cost them.

There are two ways to go about this.

Even when you win, you lose

Let’s head back to my favorite guilty pleasure show, Bridgerton, and my favorite season so far, 4. Now, if you haven’t seen season 4, I’m going to spoil it. But also, if you haven’t seen season 4, what the hell are you doing with your life? Moving on! I know this isn’t a book, it’s a show based on a series of books, but this storytelling principle still applies. And the odds of you having watched the show are infinitely greater, so…. onward.

Benedict Bridgerton, our favorite free spirit, bohemian artist, bisexual, hunky brother has finally fallen in love. For real. Who’d have guessed it? Well, none of us, but here we are and he’s in LOVE love with a maid named Sophie.

Only he can’t be in love with a maid because he’s a nobleman, and society’s rules say no, no, no. Think of the scandal! This union could impact his younger sisters’ marriage prospects, and jeopardize the entire family’s standing, and yet. Did I mention he’s down bad for this girl? And honestly, she’s the freaking best.

Reputation stakes are at play for both characters, and this is where we see Benedict caught between a rock and hard spot. So he does the only thing he thinks he can do in his position. The only thing polite society will allow him to do. He asks her to be his mistress.

“Duuuuude.” – Me.

Obviously, she refuses him. No one wants to be kept a secret, as his friend Will clearly explains to him, but now what? He’s the internet’s favorite Bridgerton brother, and he’s on the edge of getting everything we could ever want for him, but he can’t have it unless….

He marries her anyway, society be damned! And he starts planning to do so. This isn’t the best situation, but they’ll be together. They’ll live at his country estate and he’ll travel back and forth to London to see the fam. Or so he thinks. But of course it can’t be tied up that neatly.

If he chooses love and marries Sophie, they’ll be exiled from the city and society will punish the family if they think they’re still close. The ask is enormous, and what will that mean for their future, and future children? Now the stakes of that decision stretch into later generations. Oy!

Of course, it all worked out in the end and they get their happily ever after, but for 7 episodes, we were sweating bullets trying to figure out how the hell it would. And if it didn’t work out, we would’ve been gutted but we also would’ve understood the impossible nature of their circumstances.

Stacking stakes like this works because even when the character gets what they want, marriage to the love of his life in this case, the cost is still astronomical. The damned if you do, damned if you don’t conundrum. Forcing a character into a seeming no-win situation, makes the reader grip the page. Or in this case, binge the season.

When the first loss is really just the first domino to fall

Back to Bridgerton because we’re on a roll, and we’ll stick with Season 4. Now, the reason our dear Sophie has outright refused Benedict’s offer to be his mistress is because her mother was her father’s mistress. She’s an illegitimate child, herself, and is living the consequences of that every day.

If she says yes, she’ll lose her reputation as a maid, where she’s respected and can at least make her own way. Even though she loves him, she can’t say yes because saying yes means the first domino would fall. She’d lose her reputation, her chance at a livelihood, her financial security, and on and on. And if there are children in the mix?

She knows what it’s like to be that child and to serve the people who live in your own house. AKA the Earl’s new terrible wife and godawful stepmother. There’s no way she’d put a child through that, or struggle to provide for them should the mistress arrangement fall apart. But hot damn, she loves him. And even after a steamy romp, she still has to say no.

Only now she knows exactly what she’s losing by doing so. Stacking stakes like dominos works when one character would benefit enormously if everything worked out, and they desperately want it to. Or when they’ve gotten a hint that it might, or a taste of what it could be like if it did. Those are painful stakes to navigate for our character and tension inducing for the reader.

I’m happy Sophie got the fairytale ending, but if she had to forsake Benedict forever, I would’ve totally understood why. Then the ending is satisfying in a heartbreaking way.

So. Look at the costs associated with winning and see how you can stack the stakes in your story to make it agonizingly delicious for your readers.

Bri CastelliniJuly 23, 2026

Use Stakes of Livelihood in Romance and Your Readers Will Feel Another Level of Tension

Capitalism corrupts absolutely, but it makes for a hell of a narrative stake for your protagonists to duke it out with. Despite its prevalence in our daily lives, though, it’s not always the simplest thing to plot, so let’s talk about the ways in which you can ensure your readers feel the heat without having to give them an economics lecture.

Want to learn about the 10 other narrative stakes, and get extra recommendations for the books that absolutely nail it? We’re leading our first workshop – What’s At Stake: How Unputdownable Novels Keep You Hooked– July 30th! RSVP now.

When livelihood works

Destitution consequences

The natural place to start with livelihood is establishing a situation wherein which the character’s quality of life is at stake. In practical terms, how will the events of the story threaten this character’s ability to eat and have a safe place to sleep? Losing this job or failing to secure this marriage should directly result in a worse way of life than their status quo at the start of the story, and cannot be easily remedied.

A good example: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood*

The status quo for our heroine, recent STEM grad Elsie, is pretty bleak. That she’s adjuncting full-time is bad enough (IYKYK), but she’s also had to supplement her income by offering herself as a fake girlfriend. Things get even worse when the (hot) brother of her current client is also on the hiring committee for her dream job (but also, the only job in her field in the area that can offer actual benefits and stability), and he thinks she’s lying to his brother about her identity. And she can’t immediately reveal the fact that she’s his brother’s fake girlfriend because of the reasons she was hired to be his fake girlfriend in the first place!

Though it doesn’t matter to her at first that the (hot, I cannot stress this enough) older brother of her fake dating client hates her, it matters a LOT when that hatred (and then the subsequent un-hating) might mean the difference between health insurance and burning out from another year in adjunct hell. Navigating this relationship might mean the difference between her affording her insulin (let’s add another log to the fire: she’s also diabetic!) or not.

Consequences outside the self

Like we talked about with reputation stakes, the easiest way to up the stakes of a situation is to add a dependent or five into the mix. When it’s not just the livelihood of your protagonist being risked by their actions, but the livelihood of others. Bonus points if the others are unable to fend for themselves, because of age, ability, or societal circumstance.

A good example: Duchess by Design by Maya Rodale*

Adeline Black, a broke aspiring dressmaker in Gilded Age NYC, accidentally knocks the broke English Duke of Kingston off his course. Kingston has arrived in NYC to woo an American heiress to save his crumbling dukedom and his mother and sister, who because they’re women in an elevated social class can’t really make money for themselves.

What really works about this book is that in order to save his family, not to mention his tenants, from destitution (because running a dukedom is expensive, even if they’re thrifty!), he can’t pursue the girl of his dreams. Does he choose love… or livelihood? HIs journey in pursuing one and falling into another is our compelling narrative engine.

Dream job consequences

Livelihood doesn’t have to have utter financial destitution as a consequence to have meaning, though, because while capitalism corrupts absolutely, work we care about still matters. It still means something to have a job at stake when the character truly cares about their job, or they’ve wanted it forever, or they’re incredibly talented, and this might be their only shot.

When livelihood doesn’t work

When the security itself isn’t comprehensive, or there isn’t enough hinging on their income or their ability to provide security, livelihood stakes fall flat on their face. Basically: when there seems like an obvious (and favorable) alternative to their current plight. Another job, a whirlwind inheritance not mired in debt, or a free room to crash in. It has to be more than their pride that hurts to fail; we’re looking for empty stomachs, loss of shelter, loss of opportunity and future as far as consequences go.

If Elsie doesn’t get the job she’s going for, she’ll either have to stay in Burnout Central (aka Adjunct Hell) to the possible detriment of her health, or move away from her community (which she can’t really afford). (Love, Theoretically)

If Kingston doesn’t marry a rich heiress instead of Adeline, his ancestral home he can’t sell because of nonsensical British peerage will literally fall to ruin, his mother and sister will be out on the street, and he might end up in debtor’s jail. (Duchess by Design)

At the start of their books, none of these characters have a viable alternative to their current course of action. The stakes work because no matter how doomed their adventures seem, they must pursue them anyways, because what other choice to they have?

Resolving livelihood

The most successful and satisfying conclusion to a romance with livelihood stakes is often the secret third thing. As in: the characters begin with a false binary- unhappiness but stable, or unstable but happy (for now). The story is about opening up their eyes to the secret third option, where they can find stability (though it may be more difficult than their original plan) and lasting happiness. I won’t spoil Duchess by Design, but that’s a great example of this resolution.

Otherwise, it’s a straightforward successful venture. The satisfaction is attained with a plan coming together- it’s the journey that makes the destination worthwhile.

A word of warning: don’t pull the financial equivalent of the accidental pregnancy trope, because you don’t have a better idea to resolve everything than to provide a convenient deus ex machina inheritance or rule change, with brand new information delivered in the eleventh hour that didn’t exist prior to that. Watching characters struggle and fail to find new ways out, only to bring Prosperity Batman into things in the denouement, will not leave your readers sated.

Learn more about The Rogue MFA and our community here. When you’re ready to rock, join our Writing Community Hour over on The Rogue MFA YouTube channel (which meets every other Thursday evening at 4pm PST/ 7pm EST), where we’ll be building routine and community with YOU. Subscribe to get notified.

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Kelly ChastainJuly 16, 2026

Why Life & Death Stakes Work in Historical Fiction

The highest stakes of all aren’t always the right ones for your story, but when they work, they WORK.

If anyone is going to pull a tarot card to see if she should travel solo around the world with nothing but a laptop, a passport, and a backpack full of underwear, it’s your girl. Will we die? Probably not. The stakes of life and death have to very real and present in order to freak me out. In life, and especially in fiction.

In historical fiction, we see these stakes crop up all the time. And I blame the glut of WWII Hist Fic for this because most of those stories are about spies, escaping a camp, an occupying regime, or a small town overrun by the enemy who is equal parts a handsome soldier and a muhfu*kin killer in a crow’s nest training his Mauser at me.

Escape is a big theme in Hist Fic and not just WWII. ~~Characters~~ Women are trying to escape orphanages, a slave patrol, the patriarchy. If your narrative involves escape in any way, life and death stakes are almost a given, but they aren’t required. Let’s break down when these stakes work and when they don’t.

Before we dive in, if you’re wondering what the difference is between stakes and plot, you’re not alone. It’s a common question and once you understand the difference, you’ll take your story to a whole new level.

When the Stakes of Life and Death Work

In order for the stakes of life and death to work, the reader has to not only be invested in the character, but also their situation and story. They have to feel some kind of solidarity with this character, which is a good thing to create regardless, but here it’s essential. The reader must think that if this character does die in the end, that it would be heroic or valiant, or worth erecting a statue in their likeness in the town square. More than anything, this character’s death should mean something. Either way, they’ll be devastated or outraged if it happens.

A great example: A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles*

You didn’t really think we were going to get through a post like this without talking about this book did you? I use it as an example of how get through your novel’s saggy middle, and again when we’re using maps to make our book come alive. It’s a banger.

In AGIM, our protagonist is facing life or death. Take one step out of the Metropol Hotel, Count Rostov, and it’s curtains for you. Now, in order for us to become invested in these stakes, we must already be very invested in Count Rostov, his situation, and how we’d feel if he was to meet the firing squad. We’re introduced to him at his trial, which at first glance might put us at odds with him, but no. We see very clearly that Rostov is right to mock this sham Bolshevik tribunal, where he’s been charged with being an unrepentant aristocrat. A social parasite of the new order! The. Nerve. And it’s all because of a subversive poem that’s been attributed to him.

This whole farce puts us instantly at odds with the antagonists. We see how ridiculous their display of power is, and how desperately the regime is trying to make this offense important. But no matter how absurd we might find this whole charade, we also know that Rostov is up against a government that absolutely has the power to follow through. His world and situation, no matter how eye-roll inducing, supports these stakes.

Rostov’s stakes are levied in 1922, decades before WWII, but when we think of life and death stakes in these terms, it’s easy to see why they’re used so often in WWII historical fiction. Most of the characters are facing a regime that will absolutely cut them down. They’re in the middle of a war, where that’s the standard operating procedure, and so it makes these stakes low hanging fruit. They’re devastating consequences that don’t ask the reader to make a huge leap in order to believe them.

A great example: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer*

Set in both Paris and Budapest, we follow a Jewish-Hungarian architecture student as he falls in love in Paris, and returns to Hungary to help his family in the middle of WWII. The story pulls on the threads of life and death as we watch the horrors of the war unfold, and the devastating impact of the holocaust and the camps, play out in the second half of the book. When every paragraph has the power to erase characters from the narrative altogether, we sit up and take note.

Here it works because not only do we like our main character and his family, the reader also has internal motivation to cheer him on. Moral outrage over the whole war, the genocide, and the destruction of an entire people, is a strong engine that propels us through. If this character survives, the reader also gets to experience good prevailing over evil, and a small part of them feels that redemptive middle finger as they stick it to the N*zis. Plus we also see what this character stands to lose. Love. And ugh, we can’t bear to witness that one.

*This is an affiliate link with Bookshop.org, which means we may receive compensation if you click on it to make a purchase. This comes at no additional cost to you, and no financial support to Jeff Bezos which is the REAL win here.

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When Life or Death doesn’t work

When the story would be far more interesting if the character was banished or exiled, or hauled into court and charged for the crimes they’ve been named in over a million times in a tranche of files that have been kept from the proletariat for an ever changing number of reasons, and the character was then found guilty of treason, and their entire cabinet was removed and a new government was installed. Just spitballing here.

We also must believe that the antagonist has the capability and conviction to see their death threat through, and their reasons for doing so are believable. We don’t have to understand those reasons or even agree with them, but we have to believe that the villain does and that they’ll absolutely pull the trigger. The world must support this threat and do it credibly.

If the character dies, and it doesn’t fundamentally alter the direction of the story or the lives of the other characters, these aren’t the correct stakes. These are the highest stakes of all, and if they’re going to be in play then nothing can ever be the same if they’re met.

If Rostov lives, it’s because he’s trapped in a hotel for the rest of his life OR he’ll have to chance death on the streets of Moscow in an attempt to defect. (A Gentleman in Moscow)

If Andras dies in the camps, he’ll leave his wife and family behind. His personal dreams, and those of his brothers, are so delicate and human it would shatter his family. Not to mention the reader’s heart. (The Invisible Bridge)

At the start of their books, neither of these characters have a viable alternative to their current course of action. The stakes work because no matter how doomed their lives seem, they must carry on.

Resolving Life and Death

Let them live for crying out loud! While that would be the easiest and most straightforward answer through this, adding a second element always sweetens the outcome when the character lives. The sweetest of all is justice, revenge, or a lil comeuppance to our antagonists. That can take the form of a trial in a court room epilogue, or by heaving the villain off a bridge by their lapels. But it can also be that our protagonist not only survives, but thrives in the aftermath. They find love where they should’ve never found it. Success, freedom, or peace.

Life or death is the kind of punishment that’s doled out by a character who wants to erase or fundamentally harm another character. They want them to suffer mental and physical anguish, and enjoy breaking someone spiritually. So when that character survives and also flourishes a little? Well, that’s a big thumb in the eye to the bad guys and leaves the reader satisfied that order has been restored. After all we’ve been through with this character we want to see them come out the other side and land on top for once.

A word of warning: Your characters can receive help along the way, but they’ve got to be the one to give themselves life over death. If someone swoops in at the last minute to save them from it all, it’s disappointing for the reader. They’ll be left thinking, why did we just go through all of that for it to be resolved by a character I don’t know, or some force that was latent and lingering in the background? It’s the emotional connection that readers have with the characters that makes the resolution satisfying or not. So if at all possible, let your protagonist pull themselves out of the situation they’ve found themselves in, or be the one that made their own survival possible.