Stakes of Success

You don't want your characters to be successful. I know it sounds mean, but hear me out. Success is cool, but struggles make for better stories. You’ve heard the saying, bad decisions make for good stories. It’s true. This next set of Pixar rules for storytelling is about causing trouble.

There are various rules that Pixar outlines in their list that talk about success or failure for a character. As I’ve studied them, they all fall into one of two categories: conflict by character or conflict by situation. In this article, I’ll focus on conflict by situation. There will be more on characters in a future article.

Why failure?

You want your characters to have problems and failures for a few reasons. One, it makes the story engaging. Two, it gives your audience a reason to root for the characters. Three, if there were no problems, there likely would be no story at all.

Rules for success in a Pixar Story are as follows, “You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.” I know it’s a mouthful, so let's break it down and see why you don’t want your characters to be successful.

You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

The character does not have to succeed to be a likable, relatable character. The opposite is actually true. Failure is relatable. Every member of your audience has failed at something at some time in their life. Use that as leverage to get them to like and cheer on your characters.

You know that kid in school that got all A’s, was president of every club ever, was big into sports, and loved by all? Remember how much you hated them? Do you really want your character to be that kid? Conflict levels the playing field between your character and your audience. It makes your character obtainable.

Success is also easy to write about. It’s fun to do as a writer. But the thing you have to think about is what kind of story would you want to read? Write the story you want to read. Write the story that you would relate to. Fictionalize your failures and release them into the wilds of the internet for others to read.

Ever read a story about nothing? Yeah, me neither. Conflict is essential to move along a plot. The check point of a Hero's Journey comes only after passing through a conflict. It makes the “checkpoint” seem valuable, not just to the character, but to the audience. It’s the reason they put their butt in a chair at a movie theater.

Failure is a difficult subject to write about. You are attached to the character and you want them to succeed. Causing problems to them in a way seems personal, real. But adding failure to your nothing sandwich is what makes it a something sandwich worth consuming.

How to Make Trouble

What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

This is where the plot comes into play. Setting up the dominos to fall when your character fails and sends them cascading down in a glorious defeat. What happens when the character fails? If there are no consequences, then the failure is for nothing.

Fulfilling an ancient prophecy or just passing a big test in school, it doesn’t matter. As long as the hero has something to reach for, a goal, a dream, or an expectation placed upon them. That is usually enough to set the stage for the stakes of the story.

But what would happen if there’s more than one consequence if failure befalls the hero? How much do they have to lose? The bigger the stack of dominos, the higher the stakes.

What's Next?

When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

I relied heavily on prompt generators in my early years of writing for FanFiction.Net, and at the time it was immensely helpful to get my lil bit o’ brain matter pumping. Now when I use prompt generators, it seems almost like cheating. To combat that, I write lists of what would NOT happen next in my story. Maybe it could happen, or maybe not, but just having a list of ideas to insert into a story when it seems to drag was helpful enough. Just a little bit of ridiculousness to get the ink flowing on the paper again.

Once you have your handy dandy list of ideas, scrap the first half of it. It’s like when folks play Family Feud. They, usually, say the most obvious answers first because anyone with half a brain could come up with that answer on the spot. You don’t want to be obvious in your story. To get to the good part, you have to dig around a bit, and maybe even add more to your list of ideas.

The next time you’re up against writer’s block, bring up your list and maybe add to it, or use one of the ideas to get going again.

Putting it all together

Now that you have the “what” that happens to the character, how does your character respond or react? The situation is only the first half of the story. Some storytellers would say that character is way more important than plot. I think they’re about equal. Can’t have a story but no character, or characters with no story. You just need both. So, stay tuned for the article I’m writing on Characters. Happy writing!