: Re: How Can You Include Public Stakes in a Character Novel? In Donald Maass's book Writing the Breakout Novel, he talks about stakes. He goes over how a breakout novel needs two kinds: personal

@Megan928

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You can create public stakes by having your main character(s) be the focus of topics that have public stakes in the outside world.

For instance, I've written the better part of a novel in which the main characters fight in the American Revolution, while conducting their private courtship during the war. Since the hero is marching with a "rescuing" force, he might not see the heroine again if General Greene's army is destroyed, and never makes it back to the heroine's home in South Carolina. So the progress of the war impacts the progress of the romance.

Another work, a screenplay, was about how hard it is for a woman to make it to the top of her profession, until she finds two men to take her under their wing, one of whom dates her, and the other of whom is the first man's BFF.

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