Stakes - Tumblr Posts

Reblogging this here, because while this might seem cool and like your characters are badass, really, this is a perfect way to kill the stakes and tension in your story.

If you really want to give your character that "badass" moment you can have them using an entire lifetime of willpower and self-control to seem like they're perfectly fine, then as soon as they're out of sight of whoever they're trying to impress/scare off/hide from, boom, catastrophic breakdown occurs and what they downplayed as being nothing comes in like a tsunami of reality.

If you go around constantly maiming your main characters, blowing them up, making them lose limbs, getting their head bashed in and then within a few pages or a filler chapter they're always getting back up and running at 100% like nothing ever happened....

that's the perfect way to make your audience not care about your character or the "stakes" in fights.

If your fight scenes always go like:

Main character encounters Super Tough Scary Enemies who outnumber them ten to one

Main character receives Extremely Dramatic Grievous Injury while fighting the first Super Tough Scary Enemy of out ten for Drama Points

Main character still manages to tear through all ten of the Super Tough Scary Enemy's like they're made of tissue paper because the main character is just *that* good

Main character's Extremely Dramatic Grievous Injury is miraculously healed or Actually Not That Bad and goes back to 100% health with zero scarring, pain, or loss of function immediately after the fight or within a few pages.

That is a great way to kill any tension your readers may experience during fight scenes, because the more you do this, the more you're hammering in that your character is invincible and flawless, and that if they can effortlessly recover from having a limb torn off by just sticking it back on and slathering it with a potion or some repair tech, why should the readers care about any physical danger your character might be in in the future, when you've said again and again *Danger doesn't matter* and *Damage doesn't stick*?

Unless your character in question is literally an immortal demigod who is being confronted instead with the mortality of their friends and loved ones, or dealing with the *mental scars* of such horrific injuries, you can't go around constantly maiming your main character and then healing them back to normal if you want people to stay interested and invested in them.

If you want your characters to be interesting and relatable to your audience, you're going to need to change some things in your fight-scenes.

You cannot just constantly have your protag go toe-to-toe with a New Ultimate Scary Villain every five pages and * have them win every time with no repercussions*, and expect your audience to care by the time the 20th New Ultimate Scary Villain shows up.

Think of it this way, which is more interesting to read:

An unbeatable character who is constantly getting torn to pieces (sometimes literally) in battle but always wins every single fight they're in and always magically heals those injuries and there are no phyiscal or mental repercussions because the injuries only happen for cheap, quick drama and gets shoved under the rug as soon as its inconvenient--

or

A character who genuinely struggles against their foes, including *losing* and being forced to flee fights they cannot win, and thus victories are something readers celebrate, where dramatic injuries sustained impacts the character, their decisions, and their abilities going forward, so that you never know which way a fight is going to go, in the protagonist's favor or the enemy's? That even when a fight is won, it still comes at a cost? Where the main character grows and changes over the course of the story so that when they win against enemies they previously had to flee, it is a celebrated accomplishment?

and to put it in an even shorter way, which as more impact?

Character A, who sacrifices a limb to save their best friend's life, and within a few pages that limb is fully restored and repaired and Character A doesn't even think about its temporary loss as anything but a temporary inconvenience and shrugs when their best friend expresses their gratitude *because it was no big deal?*

or

Character B, who sacrifices a limb to save their best friend's life , and spend the rest of their screen-time slowly healing and adapting to their new way of living with their best friend at their side for support, dealing with the pain but being willing to go back and make the same choice no matter the personal cost because it means their best friend in the world is still with them and alive?

every time people make a character go through severe life-altering physical injuries and then decide that they’re still able-bodied and look and act completely unaffected after the fact i want to throw tomatoes at my screen

Chef John's Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip - Dips and Spreads This decadent, mouthwatering, hot spinach-artichoke dip is the ideal pre-game snack or elegant appetizer.

This is amazingl

I was trying not to get caught in the hallway haha

This is a almost year old painting of mine. It’s a redraw of a screenshot from Stakes opening

Drew some vamps, but I drew them from memory and because of that I Got a few things wrong. I forgot the ears of Empress and I made Fools cap red instead of black. But I like it so I will keep it that way. Also King looked completely wrong, more like a lion so I had to redraw him.