The Dreaded “So What”: How to Build Stakes That Make Readers Care

Low stakes are the #1 reason personal narratives get rejected. As writers, we’re faced with a dreaded question: How do we get a stranger to care about our lives — and why should they? Learn five key tools for building tension and emotional stakes in personal narratives. Using works by writers like Jesmyn Ward, Helen Macdonald, and Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, we’ll crack the code on how nonfiction writers build high stakes and sustain them throughout their narratives. Then we’ll apply these techniques to your own manuscript through hands-on exercises.

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Thanks to generous donors, limited need-based scholarships are available for all our classes: https://charlottelit.org/scholarships/

Katie Bannon is a writer, editor, and coach with a passion for helping others tell their truest stories. Her authors have been published in Big Five presses, independent and hybrid publishers, and in hundreds of literary magazines. Her own work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Rumpus, Narratively, and more. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Emerson College, and her memoir manuscript was named a finalist for the Permafrost Nonfiction Book Prize. She lives in Central Massachusetts with her husband and two very opinionated cats. You can learn more about Katie at: www.katiebannon.com