Internal vs External Stakes: How to Make Audiences Actually Care

Learn from Emmy-nominated writing partners and producers whose credits include Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, USA's The Purge, and more.

Walk away with a practical framework for diagnosing and fixing stake problems in your script — starting today.

PLEASE NOTE: This exclusive Stage 32 webinar is now available to watch on-demand and no longer live.

Every story lives or dies on one question: does the audience care? Not just about what happens next, but about who it's happening to. Stakes are the engine that drives that emotional investment — and when they're off, even slightly, viewers check out, readers put the book down, and executives pass.

In this exclusive Stage 32 webinar, you'll learn how to identify, build, and balance the stakes in your story — the difference between internal stakes (the personal reason your character is risking everything) and external stakes (the visible danger they're facing). Most writers nail one and neglect the other, which is why a script can have a great concept and solid plot and still feel flat.

Take a heist story — thieves going after the crown jewels. The external stakes seem obvious: arrest, prison, maybe worse. But these are fictional people facing fictional punishment, and most of us can't really picture ourselves in a cell over stolen jewels. External stakes only land when they're tied to something personal — why this character, specifically, is willing to take this risk when easier paths exist. That's the question this webinar is built around.

Your guides are Emmy-nominated writers and producers Nina Fiore and John Herrera — a partnership forged across some of television's most emotionally intense storytelling. You know their work: Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, USA's The Purge, Syfy's Nightflyers, Blood Drive, Alphas, and Eureka. They've sold original pilots to CW and Freeform, adapted a feminist western novel for MGM, and co-wrote Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase for Warner Brothers — with a Netflix series, Bloom, on the way.

You'll walk away with a clear breakdown of internal vs. external stakes, the top mistakes writers make balancing them, and concrete tools to diagnose and fix stakes problems in your current script!

Praise for Nina and John's Stage 32 Teaching:

"It's easy to see why these two are Emmy-nominated!" - Morgan L.

"Nina and John are fantastic. Not only as writers on one of my favorite shows ever, but as educators. I really learned so much from them. Thank you." - Martina M. 

"Wow. I'm blown away by the quality of teaching with this one. Some of the best educators on Stage 32." - Rishi L.