External Stakes

The external stakes of your story are what your character externally desires. For example, let’s say your character is on the typical fantasy hero’s journey to search for and obtain a rare and possibly powerful object. The external stakes in that situation would refer to the hero physically obtaining the object and what they risk if they are able or unable to obtain it. Perhaps the object is a book with a spell that will heal an ailment that is plaguing this world (or perhaps more specifically a character that your protagonist cares for). The external risks for obtaining the object would be that the object is cursed or that the quest to obtain it puts the protagonist in mortal peril. One risk for not obtaining the object would be that the protagonist would be unable to save the people of this world from this ailment. In a contemporary sense, the external stakes could refer to anything from something as simple as getting a promotion at work to a character running away to start their lives over.

The main stakes of the story will be the same as your character’s main goal or desire throughout the book and what they risk by either achieving or not achieving that goal. Additional stakes throughout the novel will be other things that your protagonist comes to risk along their journey to obtain their main goal. This could be anything from a friend of theirs resenting their quest (which risks their friendship with the protagonist) or even the simple stakes of life or death.

Internal Stakes

The internal stakes of your manuscript refer to any internal desires your protagonist has and what is preventing them from achieving those desires. Let’s refer back to the fantasy hero’s quest for a healing book as an example. In that instance, while the external stakes refer to the hero obtaining the book, an example of the internal stakes could be the hero’s desire to right a wrong, a time that they could have saved someone but didn’t. That, through the act of finding the book, the hero believes that they will right that wrong.

If the latter is the case, the question then becomes what are the internal risks of both obtaining and not obtaining the book. Although the external risks involve saving lives, the internal risks are completely different. The internal risk of not finding the book would be that they are unable to heal from this past sense of guilt that they’re holding onto. And one internal risk of finding the book is that, though they’re able to heal people externally, the fulfillment of the quest doesn’t alleviate the protagonist of their guilt.

Plot Points

The main way to show rather than tell your readers about the stakes of your story is to make sure your novel is expertly plotted. The stakes of your novel should be at the core of each of your main plot points. Every plot point should connect to at least one of the stakes of your story and your main plot points should directly link or relate to the main stakes of your story. This means that your reader should be keenly aware of what is at stake throughout your story because, if you’ve done your job right, everything that they’re witnessing unfold throughout your story should connect to those stakes.

The best way to make sure to keep track of this is to include the stakes in your outline. If you’ve already made your outline, go back and review it again. Write down what the main stakes of your story are and what the additional risks are as well. Then go through your plot points chronologically and make sure they directly relate to what is at stake in your story. If you find ones that don’t connect, you’ve either stumbled upon an easy scene to edit out of your novel or you need to go back and rewrite to make sure the stakes are clear and connected.

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The Beginning

Getting started can be one of the toughest parts of writing. You have this huge idea in your head, one that is going to have so many twists and turns and heartbreaks along the way. You’ve built up the anticipation, you can’t wait to get started on it. You sit down to write and…wait… what is the first page about? For that matter, what is the first sentence? Having a strong intro can put a lot of pressure on you and, of course, cause the dreaded writer’s block to rear its ugly head.

Instead of getting hung up on the first sentence or how the beginning sounds, focus instead on where you’re starting the story. It should be a point of action and answer the question ‘why does the story take place now or today?’ Once you know your starting point, simply begin writing with little regard to how it sounds. This will make you hate yourself for a few minutes, but once you get into a groove you’ll knock out the first few chapters and feel a lot better. Then, afterward, you can come back and clean up the intro. You’ll be able to figure out the perfect starting line a lot easier once you have an idea of where you’re going and what the tone will be.

The Middle

For some writers the beginning is the toughest, for others, it’s the middle. You were chugging along for a good while in the beginning, feeling confident and excited about your idea. Then you get to the middle and have a sort of ‘mid-life crisis’ about your whole book. Do you even like what you wrote anymore? Where is it even going? What if you just wasted months or years on something you barely even like? Should you go back and rewrite everything? Should you just trash the whole thing and start an entirely new idea?

The strongest instinct you’ll have here is to put down the project and either start something new or take a break from writing for a bit- don’t. Doing this will only make the idea of coming back to this book scarier and scarier the longer you’re away from it. We do recommend taking a break, but only momentarily to do a short-form writing exercise. This will help you feel more relaxed, looser, and therefore kinder on your work. It may also help to make a fresh outline for how the rest of the book will go. This way you’re taking a break from actually writing the book while also getting organized so the task of finishing doesn’t feel as daunting.

Before the Climax

Another common spot for authors to face writer’s block is right before the climax. This is another common spot for an existential crisis as it is when a lot of pieces need to be coming together. If they aren’t coming together as well as you’d hoped, you’ll likely be in a cold sweaty panic. There are a lot of threads that need to tie together so if certain things aren’t making sense, you’re likely getting frustrated and dejected at all the scenes you’ll have to go back and rewrite in order to make one thing or another make sense.

First of all, take a deep breath in… now out… there you go. Now, we firstly recommend going and taking a walk just to help calm yourself down a bit. Go to your favorite park or somewhere that relaxes you and makes you feel inspired. Secondly, try to clear your head of thoughts about rewriting because guess what? That’s not your job yet. You and your editor will find problem areas and work through them in the editing stage of your writing, that’s what editing is for. Leave those problems to future you, right now concentrate on writing an epic climax and resolution for your manuscript.

The Ending

The ending of your manuscript can lead to writer’s block for different reasons. This is because it’s hard to put a period at the end of your entire book that has an almost equal amount of pressure to your opening. What do you want your protagonist to be doing in the last line? Should you leave some things open-ended or make the ending more sweet and satisfying? You likely know a lot about what happens in your characters’ lives even after the story ends, should you give them an epilogue? This version of writer’s block can be strange because you know you only have a few paragraphs left to write but you can’t seem to pick up your pen and write them. Perhaps part of you doesn’t want to. Our recommendation if you get stuck here is to write a little excerpt, just for yourself, about what happens with your characters after the ending. After that, when you go back to your real ending, it won’t feel as much like you’re saying goodbye.

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1) Draw on personal experience

The subject matter that you choose for your self-help book should be one that you personally have experience with. So let’s say you’re choosing the topic ‘How to Overcome Depression’- it could be that you have a master’s degree in psychology or it could be that you personally have had–and eventually overcame–a struggle with depression. But don’t shy away from all of the personal, intimate, and uncomfortable details that come along with your experience. The whole point of a self-help book is, fairly obviously, to help. You have to approach the book knowing that the way you overcame a challenge may help others to overcome that same obstacle in their lives. The sacrifice you’re making by putting yourself fully on display could end up drastically changing a lot of lives for the better. So, in the initial stages, you need to overcome any reservations you still have within yourself.

2) Use research to back up your theories

If you’ve been inspired to write this book because of your own personal experiences, that’s a wonderful thing. But you shouldn’t be relying solely on your personal experience, either. If you want the book to really help people, you’ll need to do a ton of research on your subject material as well so you can back up your claims and figure out the best way to advise your audience. For example, perhaps you are writing a book about overcoming an abusive relationship. Give examples of your life experience, but also do some research about abusive relationships. Read other self-help books to learn more about your own motives in your experience. Find statistics on abusive relationships and the psychology behind why people stay with abusive partners. It may even be helpful to reach out to a psychology expert or two to get their insight on certain factors and their advice on overcoming them. You don’t want to write this book as an account of abuse, but rather as someone who overcame that, and, looking back, now has the wisdom to advise others.

3) Balance past knowledge with present understanding

One of the more important aspects of writing a self-help book that draws on your personal experience is finding a way to balance your past and present selves. You want to present your past experiences in a detailed way, rather than merely factual. You want people to feel the struggle and the emotion that accompanied the experiences you’ve overcome. To accomplish this, you’ll want to employ some fiction writing techniques, writing detailed scenes from your past self’s perspective.

However, don’t make the mistake of writing a memoir instead of a self-help book. What differentiates these primarily is that the main focus of the self-help book is displaying practical steps to help people overcome the struggles you went through, versus reading a detailed account of your experiences. Make sure that any flashbacks you detail from your experiences also have the presence of your much wiser present-day self. Pepper in observations that you’ve had about these moments since they’ve past or realizations on why these moments, in particular, have stayed with you. Have an aside in the narrative saying things like, “I’ve often wondered why I didn’t stop then” or “This moment has always stuck with me because…” These asides are good transitions to be able to give the reader the advice that they’re supposed to be getting from witnessing your experience.

4) Decide how you want to present your information

As previously stated, the main differentiator between self-help and a memoir is that the structure should prioritize the direct advice over the telling of a story. So, rather than go in chronological order detailing the events of your life, we recommend structuring your self-help book in sections based on specific things you learned from your experience. For example, let’s use the ‘overcoming abuse’ book example. One of your chapters could be ‘why people stay with their abusers.’ The beginning could detail psychological insights on the matter, perhaps even some quotes from a few of the experts you’ve interviewed. This leads into your own experience, presenting the reader with one or two specific flashbacks to your life that illustrates the points you’ve learned from your research (peppering in advice for avoiding your mistakes).

5) Create an Outline

When you’re writing something with so many different elements intertwining, it can be extremely difficult to stay organized. We highly recommend creating an outline for your book before you even begin writing. If you were inspired to write this through your own personal experience, that’s the best place to start. Make a list of all of the specific moments/memories from your life that you feel should be included in your book. Only pull memories that you feel had a valuable and clear lesson that a reader could learn from.

Next, group memories together that have a similar lesson or relating factor. Once you start to notice patterns in the lessons that the memories show, create chapter titles and write the specific memories that will be relayed in each section. Then, dive into your research about each of the topics that the chapters outline. After you finish your research and have all of the necessary tools and sources to write your book, create an order for the chapters that you feel will convey the information in the most effective way. For example, if you’re writing a book called ‘Lessons You Learn After Divorce’- it may be helpful to put the chapters (lessons) in the order that you learned them.

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1) Pick a subject

The first step to writing a How-To book is honing in on a subject. When it comes to this genre, the more specific you are with your subject the better. There are a lot of How-To books out there so you need to make yours stand out. For example, there are a lot of different books to teach you how to play guitar, but Mastering Jazz Guitar in Three Easy Steps is both specific and simplified version. If you have a broad idea, try to take it one step further by narrowing it down. This may even lead to several book ideas.

2) What makes you an expert?

When you’re choosing a subject, make sure its one that you have some experience with or some expertise within. If you’ve spent your life as a woodworker, for example, then writing g a how-to book about woodworking makes sense. People want to get advice on a subject from someone they feel is an expert. No one wants to read a how-to book on building rockets by someone that’s never built one.

3) Who is your audience?

This step should be relatively easy to figure out. When choosing your subject, think about who you envision as your audience. Because, while you do want to be specific with your subject matter, you don’t want to be so specific that there is virtually no audience for your book. For example, a book about how to play basketball will have a market, but a book about vegans who play basketball likely won’t.

4) Outline

Next–and this is crucial–make sure you outline your book before you start writing. Outlining is merely a suggestion in most cases, but when it comes to How-To books, it’s essential. This book should be a step-by-step process regarding the subject matter where the reader gradually gets better at the task as they go. This means your book needs to be ordered perfectly so that it’s not taking large leaps in the level of difficulty, leaving frustrated readers in its wake.

5) Research

Even if this is a subject that you know a lot about (and it should be at this point) make sure you do additional research. This involves factual accuracies as well as field testing. The last thing you want is for another book to be doing exactly what you’re doing, but better. Make sure you’re telling your readers the best methods. In addition, once you’ve finished your first round of writing, grab a friend or two and see if they can learn the required subject matter from your book. If not, they may be able to point out areas that need reworked.

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