Your book needs compelling stakes

How tension and stakes work together to keep readers invested

I DNF’ed a book recently.¹² It had a killer premise—I was so excited to read it—but within several chapters, I realized it had absolutely zero stakes. If the hero failed in their efforts, life was just going to… carry on as it always had. Sure, the hero might have been sad for a few days, but after that? Everything in the first 100p implied that the hero …