[00:14] Rachel: Hey, writers.
[00:14] Emily: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast.
[00:16] Rachel: That will help you write a book.
[00:17] Emily: You'Re damn proud of.
[00:18] Rachel: I'm Rachel.
[00:19] Emily: And I'm Emily.
[00:20] Rachel: And today we want to talk about writing stories with low stakes. What is that? What does this mean? So this is kind of like an up and coming new genre, low stakes stories. Sometimes they're called cozy stories. It's something I've seen really come up in the last year or two of stories that are easy reads. The whole point is that there's not huge stakes for what's happening in the story and they are comforting to read. I think they're meant to take our minds off of the stress of the world and bring us back to like, this is fun and enjoyable and something that we can just sit down and forget about how bad the world is on the outside and enjoy our nice little book. And that we don't need books that the world is on fire all the time in our stories. So this new genre, in my opinion, really got kicked off with a book called Legends and Lates by Travis Baldry. And literally, the title of this book is Legends and Lates a High Fantasy with Low Stakes or a High Fantasy of Low Stakes. So that's a really common paragon of this new genre, up and coming genre. There are quite a few that are out now, and if you start to Google the term low stakes books or cozy stories, you'll start to see them come up. There's another one that's pretty popular that gets thrown around a lot. It's called that Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming, which I absolutely love this book. However, Kimberly Lemming herself has gone on TikTok or on Instagram and said she didn't write it as low stakes, but it's been labeled that. So I wanted to throw that in there because this is still something that's a little fuzzy. I don't think we have a full understanding of what the low stake genre is. There's not clearly defined boundaries. But people are starting to see this shift towards, can't we just have fun? Like, what is a fun book where it doesn't feel like the world's going to end?
[02:38] Emily: Yeah, it reminds me, we get this question a lot from folks because we talk about Story point, right? If you've been listening for a while, if you know us at all, you know we talk about story Point all the time, which is the message of your story. And we often will get questions from folks of like, do I have to does my story have to set out to change the world and set out to change people's minds and set out to do this heavy lifting and go to these deep places, right? And the answer is no, it doesn't. And I think that your book is always going to make a point. It's always going to have a message because when you have characters who are making decisions and you give those decisions consequences, you're basically saying, as the author, I believe when somebody chooses to do X, then Y is going to happen.
[03:32] Rachel: Right.
[03:32] Emily: And there's an inherent kind of message that you're sharing through that. So it's important to still think about it. But sometimes the message of your story isn't the main point or goal of you writing it. You could set out to write a story just because it's fun and then there's a message in there, but you want to provide comfort, you want to provide an escape. There could be a different fuel to what you're trying to give your reader as an experience that is beyond whatever message you're sharing.
[04:05] Rachel: Yeah. So what you're saying is if you wanted to write a low stake story, you might set out with the goal of, like, I just want this to be fun. I just want this to be an escape. And then it's always helpful to have that driving message behind the story. But it's not like you're making this grand point necessarily. You're like, setting out to make this grand point with this message more. So I want to write a fun book. I want people to enjoy it. I want to have really cool characters that are doing not life or death things. And that's perfectly okay, too. Yeah, and it's more than perfectly okay.
[04:42] Emily: It's just as important.
[04:43] Rachel: Right.
[04:44] Emily: I think we oftentimes really emphasize your stories and your books are important because you have something you want to say to the world. And that's true. I deeply believe that. But I also think stories and art are like a human need.
[04:58] Rachel: Yeah. Right.
[04:59] Emily: And that goes beyond the messages that we take away and the things we learn from that art. It's also the role that it plays in our life. Like, if we think back to, God forbid, the days of right, like so many of us turn to Gilmore Girls, right? And Downton Abbey and The Office and all these pieces of art that know, held us and held the emotional journey that we went through just because they were there to escape into.
[05:32] Rachel: Right.
[05:32] Emily: Just because they were there to comfort us. And that is just as valid as saying something specific.
[05:41] Rachel: Yeah, I think that's spot on and that's kind of the background of these stories is that they are comfortable and fun and the world may be on fire around us, but we can escape to these books and enjoy them. And I love seeing that they're becoming more popular. I love seeing that they're becoming really mainstream, like Legends and Lates is huge now. And it was originally self published and then it was picked up by a publisher and republished. And so it's really cool to see the demand for these really important stories because we need them. Like you just said, we need them. We are going to fall apart if we don't just have some way to comfort ourselves through story. It doesn't have to be because we get the question, too. Like, well, is my story big enough? Is my story important enough? Can it stand up to things like The Hunger Games, which is just so, in the best way, dramatic? And are these stories even worth time writing if they don't have these hugely dramatic narratives that are like good versus evil?
[06:51] Emily: Yeah, and I think it's so funny if you think of low stakes things or low stakes art, rather. We give it so much more lenience when it comes to TV shows. There are so many low stakes TV shows. So many. And there's a reason for that.
[07:12] Rachel: Right?
[07:14] Emily: We get home from work and we don't necessarily want to be deep in the drama of succession or Game of Thrones.
[07:21] Rachel: Right.
[07:22] Emily: Maybe we just want to go escape into the office for a minute or watch Downton Abbey.
[07:33] Rachel: Really?
[07:34] Emily: When I was coming out of Burnout, I watched all of Downton Abbey, and it was amazing. And my husband thought it was hilarious because every time he came in, there was so much drama for something so small, like, oh, my gosh, the food's not ready. Oh, my gosh, the queen is coming. Right? And there were episodes in which the stakes were higher than that, but for the most part, especially in that first season, the stakes the drama over such low stakes was so calming.
[08:04] Rachel: Yes.
[08:05] Emily: Because I didn't feel the anxiety of other shows like Game of Thrones.
[08:11] Rachel: Yeah.
[08:11] Emily: And I got to just sink into enjoying the fun of that. And I think we don't, for some reason, afford that to books in the same way.
[08:26] Rachel: Yeah.
[08:28] Emily: The one that came to mind when we were preparing this episode is like, romance often has low stakes, but romance is also one of the it's, like, judged yes. By patriarchal society for being silly and not for basically right. And it's like the higher the stakes and the higher the drama when it comes to books, the better. And I think that that's bullshit, frankly.
[08:56] Rachel: Yeah. There's so much that I have to say about this right now. The first is that romance is the highest grossing book genre in the entire world. And so it hugely bothers me when it's judged or try to put down a peg as not as you don't need to be as skilled to write romance, or it's somehow not as intellectually stimulating, or it's so interesting to me, the mental gymnastics that people do to belittle romance as a genre. The patriarchy patriarchy, anyway, it makes a shit ton of money. People buy romance, and it is not always high stakes. It is very often, like, what you might consider low stakes. And what we mean by that is, like, the world's not going to end. It's not life and death, but people enjoy. So this is primarily what I read. It's enjoyable. It's escapism some are quick reads, some are not. But no matter what, they make us feel something. And I think that is here my next point that I wanted to talk about when you were talking about Downton Abbey of the drama. Low stakes does not mean necessarily low drama. I still think we can have super compelling stories, like super gripping and bingeable and readable stories that are not like, the world's going to end if my heroine doesn't save magic, or if I will die if I don't solve this serial killer's murder and more people will die and everybody in this town.
[10:38] Emily: There's a reason that I binge read every Bridgerton novel in, and it's because they're compulsively. Like, the drama is compulsively addicting. Like, you just can't stop flipping pages, even though these are rich people who are fine if they don't marry.
[10:55] Rachel: Right, exactly.
[10:57] Emily: Stakes are not high. Yeah, but that doesn't mean there's not drama. That doesn't mean you don't get attached to the characters and what they want right. And get invested in what they're trying to do. Those two things are not separate.
[11:13] Rachel: Yeah. I think that's kind of where this becomes a little gray, a little muddy, a little tough to fully nail down. But low stake stories still very much have characters with strong goals and, like, legends. And Lates is a good example. I also just recently finished reading it, so it's top of mind. It was awesome. So ten out of ten recommend it was super fun. But this story is about an ORC named Viv, so it's high fantasy. Viv was a mercenary, and she has basically been working in violence her whole career. And the very opening of the book is her getting basically the last stash, like the last loot booty of the most recent mission she's been on and then going to a new town to open a coffee shop. I know that's, like, all she wants to do. She is leaving behind her life of violence to find a new life, a new life of peace, to just open a coffee shop and not worry about killing things anymore. And the conflict, so to speak, is like, will the coffee shop succeed or fail? Because the coffee in this world is not a common thing. So it's very much like, how are they going to open a shop? How are they going to get people what's their menu going to be? The goals that they have in each scene are not necessarily super exciting, but it's like, oh, my gosh, I'm discovering what a cinnamon roll is and I'm going to put that on the like, it's so fun, but you care. So like, I cared so much about Viv, number one, because I knew where she had come from, and number two, because I knew what she wanted. She wanted a new life. So as you're wondering what's going to happen to the coffee shop? Are they going to succeed? Are they going to fail. The threat is Viv going to return to her old life or not? And there's a huge meaning behind that for us, for Viv as a character. So that was what made it feel so like, I felt so connected to Viv, was because I understood why she wanted to open the coffee shop and what it meant to her to lose it and what that would be. So even though losing it wasn't going to kill her, she was going to be fine, I mean, she'd just figure out a new path in life. It would have been really sad. It would have been just so terrible.
[13:54] Emily: The death of a dream.
[13:55] Rachel: I know. That's exactly it. It was the death of her dream, and none of us want that. I felt very connected to Viv. It was also very well written and very well done with how they expand the coffee shop and what happens. And there, of course, are low moments. So there were plenty of low moments. It's also a little bit of a romance. So we had that going for it. But I cared, and I think that still is like, the goal of low stakes, is that you care. And the way you care is by showing us what matters to your characters. So we had all of that wrapped up in Legends and Lates, and it was still really enjoyable, very easy to read. And I felt warm and fuzzy. Yeah.
[14:46] Emily: And I feel like we said earlier, there are some genres where this is the people expect this, right? In some romance, there is high stakes romance, don't get it wrong. But in romance, this is the kind of thing that you can expect to look for and find. But in certain genres, especially fantasy, science fiction, mysteries, it's not expected. When people go into it, it's like, oh, it's fantasy. It must be the end of the world.
[15:23] Rachel: Right?
[15:24] Emily: That's where it came from.
[15:26] Rachel: Tolkien and the Hero's Journey.
[15:30] Emily: The hero's journey quest.
[15:31] Rachel: Yeah.
[15:31] Emily: Like, everything has to be life or death if it's fantasy or Sci-Fi, and that's not I just love to see that people proving that that's, A, not true, and B, people will totally read it. Right. Like, Legends and Latice has done so well. So if you're feeling like you want to write a fantasy story and you just don't really want to make it life or death, it doesn't have to be, right? That's the permission we kind of want to give you.
[16:01] Rachel: Yeah. And I think these stories are also so if I were to tell you here's how you can start developing a low stakes story, I would say, really think about what the characters want and why. And I almost think this is even more important than in a regular not regular, but in, like, a high stakes story. Because in high stakes stories, you have the backdrop of, like, the world is ending. Of course we care, but in this. It's like the world's not ending. So we've really got to care. We've really got to care about this character and what matters to them. So I'd spend some time diving into that. I'd, like, really try to understand whatever it is that they are trying to get. Like, their goals. That needs to be really clear. And there's not a lot of external pushback. There's not a huge villain or an antagonist in Legends and Lates, there was a light antagonist who definitely caused some of the major problems that happened. But the thing about Legends and Lates was about the challenge of developing this coffee shop, not necessarily fighting against someone. So it was more of like a problem solving where Viv and her crew had to develop new menu items and figure out how to get ice and things that were challenges that could grow the coffee shop. So I would ask yourself, if my character wants this really strong goal, don't necessarily go straight to who's the villain? I would think instead, what are the challenges that they encounter along the way, and how do those challenges throw roadblocks into their path and how are they going to get around them? Because you're not going to be fighting to the death, so you can't just go and kill the villain to get over it. They have to solve problems, essentially. And then we need to also feel as that character feels. So I would consider putting all that meaning on the page so that's like our show don't tell skill. I'm trying to remember if we've done a huge show don't tell episode.
[18:17] Emily: I was trying to remember that this morning, and I don't know. We'll find out and we'll make some if we haven't.
[18:23] Rachel: Yeah, I know we touch on it a lot, but I don't know that we have an exact show don't tell episode. We do, though, have tons of this on our blog.
[18:34] Emily: Yes, we do.
[18:35] Rachel: So you can go to our [email protected] blog. And there's lots of meaning and show don't tell blog posts that we have. What am I missing? I think that's really what I think that's it.
[18:52] Emily: I think this episode is really just, hey, if you want to write something just for fun, z's and you don't really want to make a point to the world, you don't have to, no matter your genre.
[19:05] Rachel: That was the other part is for fun. So make it fun. How can you add fun into this? So what was so fun about Legends and Lates was that so this takes place in a high fantasy world. So they don't have biscotti for their coffee shop. So their little baker guy made it up and then they didn't call it biscotti. They called it after the character's name. But I'm reading it. I'm like, oh my God, that's biscotti. That's so, like, we there was tons of fun little Easter eggs dropped in there about our coffee culture and how that might play into a coffee shop in a fantasy world and how they might discover iced coffee. Like, where are they going to get ice if they don't have power? So they have to import it from the gnomes that live down the street.
[20:02] Emily: I need to read this. It's so cute.
[20:04] Rachel: It was so good. So how can you inject some fun into it? And the time I got drunk and saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming was I really liked it because it was low stakes. It's also spicy romance, so just know that before you buy it. But also ten out of ten recommend. But it was so fun. There were so many hijinks that kind of happened. The main character had such a funny voice. It was just injected with light hearted humor. And of course, there's always the shades of dark, the shades of struggle, of course. So we want to make it dynamic still. And don't forget to inject fun is my point.
[20:49] Emily: Yeah. And fun can look in different ways, right? If you're like, I'm not funny. It doesn't have to be funny. It can be cute, right? It can be cozy, it can be whatever you want it to be.
[20:59] Rachel: Yeah, cool. We love this. So if this is something you're interested in, I say go for it.
[21:06] Emily: Go for it. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on.
[21:13] Rachel: Our email list site now to get our free email course, the Magic of Care Drugs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night. Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Thank you. Bye.
