: Re: Is it uncompelling to continue the story with lower stakes? A big piece of criticism I've seen directed at the last season of Game of Thrones was the fact that they killed the Night

My issue is that you seem to be suggesting that "everyone dies" is worse than "you only get to live if you agree with me", that doesn't necessarily follow, "better to die free than live as a slave" and all that. For this reason world conquering evil is potentially worse than world destroying evil, the stakes aren't automatically higher or lower but they are different.

But that doesn't actually answer your core question just the example you've given. There is a particular thing that people tend to forget about when writing "high stakes" adventure stories, the stakes for the individual protagonist(s) are almost always the same regardless of their goals or the pressures on them due to possible outcomes. That is to say that they can die, whether they fail or succeed in the process they aren't going to care what happens as a result. When more than their own life is on the line the personal stakes are higher even if the world doesn't hang in the balance. In this way the stakes can be shown to be the same for those involved or raised for them while being lowered for the world at large. As long as the characters and their personal motivations are compelling what hangs in the balance is window dressing.

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: What's a moment that's more impactful on a reread called? I've met a few of these but the most recent instance was two characters discussing buying a third character a drink when they all

@XinRu607

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: Tell your audience that the sparrows are cheeping and use italics for the translation. This is a technique that I've seen in a few books for communication that isn't verbal/audible the italics

@XinRu607

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: You could have a look at how this is done in Sarah Pinsker's story "And Then There Were (N-One)" which has (almost) all the characters with the same name. They can be identified by different

@XinRu607

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: Awkward language translation So Iâ€™m currently writing a book that takes place in Finland, though I am American and speak English. My main characterâ€™s name can be used as a play on words,

: Re: Is it uncompelling to continue the story with lower stakes? A big piece of criticism I've seen directed at the last season of Game of Thrones was the fact that they killed the Night

More posts by @XinRu607

: What's a moment that's more impactful on a reread called? I've met a few of these but the most recent instance was two characters discussing buying a third character a drink when they all

: Tell your audience that the sparrows are cheeping and use italics for the translation. This is a technique that I've seen in a few books for communication that isn't verbal/audible the italics

: You could have a look at how this is done in Sarah Pinsker's story "And Then There Were (N-One)" which has (almost) all the characters with the same name. They can be identified by different

: Awkward language translation So Iâ€™m currently writing a book that takes place in Finland, though I am American and speak English. My main characterâ€™s name can be used as a play on words,

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