Stakes and tension are intertwined and the backbone of conflict. Stakes are what is at threat in a story if action isn't taken to avoid them. Tension is a writer's ability to lead up to and dramatize important moments. Tension, in essence, comes from the presence of stakes, which need to be believable to the reader. And most storytelling modern day Westerners like myself are familiar with is told from the perspective of a defined individual. Knowing that, here are some general categories I came up with:

Types of Stakes>

• Physical Stakes. Usually death or disability. Could also include temporary injuries or memory loss. Basically these are stakes limited to the character's body and physical ability. In a story with magic abilities, losing one's magic would count as well.
• Emotional Stakes. Trauma. Basically anything that won't physically harm a character but hurt her psychologically. This can include going through a traumatic event, the dangers posed to others that she cares about, disappointment, or losing something that she cares deeply about. Whether or not the character 'wins', these tend to happen anyway.
• Social Stakes. Her respect and relationships with other people or support networks, social positions she holds.
• Ethical Stakes. Whether a character will break her avowed moral code to achieve a goal, change her ideals, or do something she will later find unthinkable. These are set by the character. Every character should have a set of ethics, even if she only wants to look like she is following them.

(By no means is this a definitive list of Every Single Stake. There are plenty of more abstract stakes that wouldn't fit into these categories.)

In order for the stakes to feel real, they have to actually happen. Let your characters lose a hand, a moral argument, the respect of their friends for a mistake they made. Bonus points when the loss is undeniably because THEY fucked up on a personal level, and not a giant psyop from the villain (one could extrapolate from your terminal inability to do this that you have a victim complex). If they are supposed to regain their losses down the line, show how they have improved on a personal level and really suffered from this loss to make this moment feel deserved and fought for instead of a band-aid moment.

Assigning Character-Specific Stakes

Fitting stakes to the specific nature of a character creates either specific tension or a fitting, ironic end. We start with what she has, and what she cares about. She probably has a body and enjoys inhabiting it perfectly well. She might have social relationships with her family, her friends. She might have things giving her a sense of security or happiness, or ambitions. But what else?

We should look towards what specifically a character is threatened by, which is often an inverse of what motivates them. As an artist, I genuinely fear not being able to create art due to burnout and a lack of passion. Manipulative people fear situations they have no control over. Hardworking people fear the day they can't work anymore and can no longer provide. For example, take Szian, one of the main characters of Oracle Bone. She is an immortal sorceress who fits her memories into a new body every so often. Not only is the complexity of her past and identity a major theme through the books, she has an ego the size of the combined sunmoon. So, losing her sense of self is a fitting stake, one that eventually comes true. As far as Szian can die, I find ego death far more compelling for that reason than her newest body simply dying. So, the things that motivate or make a character who they are, are perfect things to lose.

Dilemma

A lot of story can be found in dilemma. For example, a story about a woman in a conservative culture leaving her abusive husband could examine her dilemma between:

1. the emotional stakes of staying with an abuser
2. the social stakes of being shunned for leaving her husband
3. the physical stakes of her safety, in both staying or leaving
4. the ethical stakes of women being independent of men

Of course you don't need all four, but including an array of stakes accounting for their different choices would make their choice-making much richer and nuanced. I'm a sucker for pyrrhic victories as well as situations where there is no perfect option.

If you want tension in your story, then clearly communicating your stakes is important. For a character or setting which is being threatened, a reader should understand the threat and feel it present.