It’s time to ponder the consequences of your characters’ actions! Chances are that you’re thinking of negative things right now because the word “consequences” leans toward a negative connotation. As in, you’re more likely to hear about someone getting fired as a consequence of what they did than getting promoted. However this narrative element concerns both the positive and negative outcomes of your characters’ actions. Simply put, what does your character stand to gain and lose from something they’ve decided to do? 

 

The Purpose of Consequences

    Much like with conflict, readers are innately drawn to the consequences of a character’s actions because readers are mortals who exist in a world of limited resources and thus the very act of living is an act of figuring out what we’re gaining and losing with the decisions we’re making. Every time we make a decision in favor of something, there is an opportunity cost in that we are simultaneously choosing against spending our time, resources, and energy on something else. So our lives are filled with inescapable tradeoffs. We also tell ourselves a story about our tradeoff choices. Like why we chose to settle down and raise children rather than become an ascetic monk in a remote mountain range. Or why we dedicated our life to saving the wolf spider from extinction rather than becoming a concert pianist. Or more commonly, why we decided to pay a visit to Uncle Connor across town over staying in and ordering takeout. These countless tradeoffs and the stories of why we make them is ultimately what gives our lives meaning. So with fiction we need to understand the consequences of a character’s decision point to make meaning of the story. 

 

    If you have a character who needs to get gas for their car, your audience doesn’t really care because we don’t have a tradeoff to contextualize meaning. But if the character needs to get gas because their grandma is having shortness of breath and needs to be driven to the hospital as soon as possible, but there isn’t enough gas in the car to make the drive, … well, now that we understand what the character stands to gain and lose in the scenario, we definitely care more and are rooting that the gas station is empty and the car can be filled as quickly as possible. 

 

    So the primary purpose of consequences is to help your reader understand what your characters stand to gain and lose by pursuing their goals. Once your readers are engaged by why your characters are doing what they’re doing, the secondary purpose of this narrative element is to smoothly pull the theme of your story into the plot by showcasing what sacrifices your characters are and are not willing to make and under what circumstances. 

 

    With the importance of this narrative root established, let’s look at how you can structure it into your story. 

 

The Difference Between Story-Wide and Scene-Level Consequences

 

    When we’re writing longform fiction it helps to distinguish between story-wide consequences and scene-level consequences. They have different effects on the reader, but both are necessary. Let’s call the story-wide ones “stakes” and the scene-level ones “price”.

 

 

Story-Wide Consequences and the Connection to Theme

 

    Chances are you’re familiar with the concept of stakes in a story. Colloquially speaking, stakes are what a character stands to lose if they don’t achieve the goal they’re pursuing. In high stakes genres the entire world might be at stake if the protagonists fail to divert an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. In lower stakes genres, a protagonist’s dream of a coffee shop might be at stake if she doesn’t navigate the local permit ordinances well. Stakes tend to be the story-wide consequence. We typically consume the story expecting the end to wrap up the question of the stakes. Did the characters divert the asteroid? Did she build a coffee shop? Depending on the story you’re telling and its structure, the reader might get halfway through and realize there are even bigger stakes! Or a twist changes what you thought was at stake from the beginning, but either way the stakes inform your reader as to what to expect and why they should care. 

 

    Depending on your plot, readers can often pick out what the character stands to gain or lose, and sometimes both. If the protagonist is trying to open a coffee shop, she stands to gain a coffee shop and if she fails, then she could lose her life savings. The plot-level stakes are very important for readers to understand because that’s what ultimately keeps them engaged in the story. But you as the writer need to ensure that you’re communicating your theme through the plot-level stakes. Thematically, your characters stand to gain the fulfillment of their emotional goal and they stand to lose the chance to fulfill said goal. And with this fulfillment, or lack thereof, you are presenting your theme to your reader about what this means and what decisions are worth making in life. Yes, this can sound quite abstract, so let’s go back to Kiara as an example.

 

Example:

    Kiara’s plot goal is to become the Bothorro household’s Manor Valet. Plot-wise this employment opportunity is what’s at stake. It’s important that plot stakes are tangible things. However, thematically, a lot more is at stake and these are the not tangible things that make life meaningful. We have established that the theme of the whole story is How do you find somewhere to belong? And we have also established that her emotional goal is to feel valued. While the reader may not be able to articulate this (and it’s quite all right if they can’t), the job position is the plot representation of Kiara’s emotional goal. She believes that if she achieves this position, she will feel valued and will therefore belong. 

 

    So if I were writing a tragedy I would make sure that Kiara fails to achieve her emotional goal. If I wanted my message to be really bleak, I would have her pay a high price, but succeed at her plot goal and then realize that her emotional goal is entirely unmet. She is the Manor Valet, but she is still deeply unappreciated, treated crappily, and ultimately doesn’t feel like she belongs there. It was all for nothing. The (unhappy) end. 

 

    If I were writing a non-tragic story without a change arc, then I would have Kiara pay a high price, but achieve her plot goal and with that achieve her emotional goal. She becomes the Manor Valet and realizes it’s indeed everything she thought it would be and she has a place where she finally belongs and where she feels valued. The (happy) end. 

 

    If I were writing a non-tragic story, but with a change arc—which is how we’ve been developing this example—Kiara would either achieve or almost achieve her plot goal, but realize that it’s not worth the price she would have to pay to achieve it. So at the climax she chooses to abandon the plot goal and instead pursues the goal she realizes will fulfill her emotional goal. She finally understands what will meet her emotional goal and give her a place to belong. The (also happy if a little mixed) end. 

 

    The key in all three examples is to ensure the plot stakes are tethered to the thematic stakes via all the previous story elements you’ve developed (characters, circumstances, conflicts). 

 

Choosing Effective Story-Wide Stakes

 

    Weak stakes can bring down an even otherwise well executed story. But the good news is that weak stakes are easy to spot: they’re a tradeoff where the potential gain and the potential loss are not evenly balanced. 

 

    Let’s say I wrote Kiara’s story and we’re at the climactic moment where she’s choosing whether or not to do that final thing that it takes to get the Manor Valet job she’s been after this whole time. On the one hand she stands to gain social status, a sense of belonging, her dream fulfilled. All she has to do to secure this is to promise she’ll always wear the Manor Valet uniform while on duty. So the trade off is everything she’s ever wanted in exchange for a sacrifice of personal fashion choices during work hours. Wait, what? On the flipside, if she were told she can have the job, but all she has to do is go back to the village and kill everyone there, this too would be a deeply unsatisfying story-wide stake. In the first case, of course we’d take our dream job even if it came with a uniform requirement. In the second case, of course we wouldn’t take that job if it meant committing mass murder. You might think this is because of personal autonomy or morality, but that’s not it. 

 

    If these sound like grossly anticlimactic final character choices to you, it’s because the gain versus loss sides of the choice are not equally weighted. We as readers are turned off because this is not a difficult tradeoff choice to make. We already know how to make easy choices in life. We read stories to vicariously experience difficult choices being made. And this is why the story-wide stakes must be equally balanced. The price must be worth the reward, the reward must be worthy of the price. 

 

    And don’t confuse balanced stakes for high stakes. You can write a cozy story about a self-sufficient entrepreneur opening a coffee shop just to realize that the price that dream demands is giving up her insistence on doing everything alone and realizing she has to accept help from others to fulfill her dream. Well, you probably shouldn’t write exactly that story because Travis Baldree already wrote it in Legends and Lattes. 

 

    The bottom line is that story-wide stakes have to have balanced gains and losses. This isn’t always the case for scene-level consequences. 

 

Scene-Level Consequences and the Connection to Theme

 

    One of the primary (but not only) reasons for writing a full scene in fiction is to dramatize a character choice. When you read through most books, you will notice that climactic scenes do present the character with compelling, equally weighted stakes and the character has to pay a price to get the thing they want. However, outside those climactic scenes, there is a range of tradeoff decision scenes, from no price paid to get what they want to near-climactic levels of cost. So when should you write which?

 

    The reality is that scenes with a tradeoff decision (character has to give up something to get something they want) engage readers more than scenes where characters pay no price. They generally read as higher tension, even in lower stakes genres. So know this is a lever of tension and engagement and use it as needed. 

 

Example:

    For an example of where a character has to pay a scene-level price to get what they want, let’s go back to Kiara. In the Conflict Section we established that she chooses to ask Lavan for help traveling through the forest, but he says no. She, however, still wants his help, so this would be a great scene to have her pay a price to ultimately get that scene-level goal. If I were writing this, I’d establish that the package she has to deliver to the Bothorro’s is a rare fire-giant artifact, a collector’s item. Kiara is permitted to know this because she had to check that it was indeed the promised artifact when she received it. However, as part of her instructions for delivery Kiara is told in no uncertain terms that she is to keep the contents of the package a secret. Well, when Lavan, who we established is half fire-giant declines her request for help, Kiara tries to wheedle at first to no avail, she begs then appealing to his sense of friendship, but while he’s sympathetic he’s set in his ways, so she finally caves and tells him what the artifact is, knowing that he was raised an orphan, the only half fire-giant anywhere around, would be interested in knowing more about its origins and maybe about the community that created it. And Kiara tells him that she could find answers for him, but to do that, she has to go to the Bothorro’s and ask them. Grudgingly he now agrees to escort her. So you see how the price she paid was the secrecy she’s promised her potential future employer. We as readers would then know that this could get her into trouble and are wondering how and if she’ll be able to get out of it. Will she lie to the Bothorros about not having told anyone about the artifact? Will she be honest and thereby be penalized by them? Why do they want to keep it secret in the first place? 

 

    I hope it’s clear that the scene as I sketched it out is much more compelling than it would be if Kiara asked Lavan, he said no, she wheedled, he said no, and she begged and he finally said yes. In real life it’s sometimes possible to get our friends to change their minds with persistence, but in fiction, make sure your characters pay a price for that change of mind. 

 

Choosing an Effective Scene-Level Price

 

    If you’ve been reading the story root developments in order, you might already notice how the above scene connects to the theme of this example story. In general, for a scene-level price just refer to the thematic choice frameworks of the character who is trying to accomplish the scene-level goal. In Kiara’s case the statement is: It is better to choose integrity over success even if it means losing social status. We also have determined that she’ll be a positive chance arc character, so at the beginning of the story she’ll be sacrificing integrity in order to gain success. And as you can see above, that’s exactly what she did in the above scene. She broke the promise she’d made to the Bothorro’s to not divulge to anyone else what’s inside the package. It’s not the worst sacrifice of integrity but when next time she wants something and tells an outright lie to get it, the reader will begin noticing a pattern and you will be communicating your theme without hitting them over the head with it. 

 

    In general when you’re figuring out what price to make a character pay, look at their thematic choice framework and make sure that the price matches something the character cares about. I considered having Kiara promise Lavan to share half her earnings with him, but that wouldn’t have been a good price for her because based on the character development I did on her, she doesn’t value money in and of itself. So if she were to give up money, she wouldn’t be giving up something dear to her. The price has to be something your character values or it has to endanger something your character values. In Kiara’s case, her divulging what’s in the package is at least potentially (for now) endangering the thing she does care about—getting the job of Manor Valet. 

 

Narrative is a Cause and Effect Sequence

 

    The final crucial aspect of the narrative element of consequences is that once the story is in motion, everything that happens in it should be in part or in whole be the result of character choice. Keep in mind that just like in real life, most of the time characters can’t predict absolutely everything that will result from their decisions. But whether characters knew their actions would create a certain outcome or not, the most compelling narratives are a series of cause and effect created by the agency of the characters. When writing, there are two solid structural places for character decisions:

 

• In-scene as a reaction to conflict where characters decide what price they’re willing to pay to get what they want in the scene

• In response to the outcome of a scene where characters decide what to do next

 

    The first one I covered above with the Kiara example where she tells Lavan what’s in the package. As for the second one, I’d like to use an example from the Hunger Games. 

 

    Katniss allies with Rue, a District 11 tribute, to try to survive the games better together. When they are attacked by other tributes Katniss tries to save Rue (in-scene decision in reaction to conflict), but fails and Rue is fatally wounded. This is the outcome of the scene. Katniss’s failure to accomplish her scene-level goal (keeping them both alive) has exacted a very high price. There is no more active conflict going on once the threat is dealt with. All that’s left is a dying Rue and a devastated Katniss. So given this outcome, Katniss makes a choice as to what to do next. She holds Rue and sings her a song while she’s dying to help her feel not alone. Once Rue passes away, Katniss functionally gives her a funeral. These choices are of course completely coherent with Katniss as a character and with the theme that is being explored in the story. But it is also a decision that creates a consequence that readers only encounter later.

 

    That later is as follows: Katniss, in her continued quest to survive this nightmare, is attacked and overpowered by another tribute. But instead of getting killed, Thresh shows up, kills Katniss’s attacker and spares Katniss. This would be a complete and utter deus ex machina if it weren’t the direct consequence of Katniss’s previous action. Namely, Thresh is the second District 11 tribute and he spares Katniss to even out the debt he feels he owes her in showing love and compassion for Rue, his fellow District 11 tribute. So even though Katniss had no way of knowing that her decision would lead to this act of kindness and literally save her life, when the consequence finally shows up, it’s deeply satisfying to the reader. If Katniss had survived by a stroke of luck or if Thresh had decided to spare her because she looked pretty, that would have been atrociously unsatisfying. The key is to have the cause and effect chain in your narrative—choice and consequence. Even if some of the consequences show up quite a bit after the choice is made. 

 

    Once you’ve developed the consequences and imbued your story with meaning, it’s time to move on to plotting.