evergreen
The three essential components of a story - stakes, suspense and surprise
Assume nobody cares what you have to say. Stakes, suspense and surprise are what keep them there.
Always assume that our audience doesn’t care about what we have to say. We need to draw them in with our stories.
With social media, food and friends beside them, that is who we are competing
Every story must have stakes, suspense and surprise, that is what keeps people hooked to your story
Here are some strategies
- Raise the stakes with an elephant
- Raise the stakes with a backpack
- Raise the stakes and suspense with a hourglass
- Raise the stakes with a crystal ball
- Suspense is strategically hiding information
- Don't ruin the surprise with overviews or summaries
The three are fairly intwined, you can’t have suspense without stakes nor without surprise. The idea is that a good story should have all three.
Links to
- Raise the stakes with an elephantbudding
- Raise the stakes with a backpackseedling
- Raise the stakes and suspense with a hourglassseedling
- Raise the stakes with a crystal ballseedling
- Suspense is strategically hiding informationseedling
- Don't ruin the surprise with overviews or summariesseedling
- Stories SellLibrary