One of the things that is going to dictate the excitement of a story is how much the hero stands to lose if they are not successful. Now remember, those stakes have to be appropriate for your audience. The stakes in the Hunger Games, or Jaws are life and death; in stories like Fish in a Tree or I Want to go Home, less so. But even when we choose a range that is appropriate, we still have some room to move.

In the first Harry Potter, the Dursley’s could have been much less mean, and Harry still could have gone off to wizarding school as if it were an adventure, rather than an escape as well. And that might have been okay. But our emotional reaction—our hope—that Harry goes is that much more ramped-up because the stakes of not going are so much higher. His life is hell up until that point.

For our story, I picked a straightforward situation based on a simple idea from the very beginning—girl goes to store to buy milk, girl gets milk, girl goes home.

But I want to show you what happens when we change the stakes for her mission right from the beginning. Here’s what we have:

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“Lemon!” her mother called. “Come down here. I need some help.”

Lemon raced down the stairs and into the kitchen where she found her mother covered in flour and bits of eggshell. Lemon stood and stared.

“Lemon,” her mother continued, “I just ran out of milk and I need to finish this recipe for the bake sale. Take some money out of my purse over there and run down to the store and get some for me, will you?”

Gulp.

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Now, here’s what we could do:

“Lemon! Down here. Now.”

Lemon raced down the stairs and into the kitchen where she found her mother covered in flour and bits of eggshell.

“What is wrong with you?!” her mother hollered. “You finished the milk this morning and now I can’t finish this bloody recipe! How could you do this to me?”

Lemon blinked, fighting back tears. The thing is, she hadn’t had any milk that morning. It had been her brother. But she couldn’t say that.

“Answer me!”

“I… I didn’t know it was empty…”

“DIDN’T KNOW?! If you had half the brain that your brother does, you would have the good and basic sense to NOT FINISH THE MILK WHEN I NEED IT. Why can’t you be more like Alan?”

“Sorry, mom,” Lemon muttered.

“You will be. Here. Take this money and get down to the store and fix what you’ve done. And I want the exact change back, do you hear me?”

“Yes, mum.” Lemon took the 10-dollar bill and went to the front hall. She pulled on her boots and coat and walked out the front door.

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Whoa. Okay, so think about the moment that we wrote about last week, where Lemon realizes that the money has fallen into the sewer. The stakes of that event are now so much higher. Lemon really needs to figure this out.

The point is, even if you’re happy with the story you have so far, try playing around with whatever your hero has to lose if they don’t succeed. You can get really wacky with it, too, if you want. And when you do, watch how much more exciting things get.

Happy writing, young writer.