I saw someone complaining about it recently, but the bodega breakfast sandwich in BIRDS OF PREY is actually a terrific screenwriting lesson in how to imbue stakes in a object.
It's easy to fall into a trap when you create something of value to motivate your character to chase after it that you need to make it something the audience will agree has value.
Is it a briefcase full of money? How much money does it need to be to resonate? $10,000? $1,000,000? 800 gajillion dollars?
The answer is it doesn't matter. You don't need the audience to want it. Just just need them to understand the character wants it.
The answer is it doesn't matter. You don't need the audience to want it. Just just need them to understand the character wants it.
Two scenarios -- a stock broker chasing after a briefcase with $5mil in it.
or
A guy whose power just got shut off and received an eviction notice chasing after a briefcase with $1000 in it.
or
A guy whose power just got shut off and received an eviction notice chasing after a briefcase with $1000 in it.
You're more invested in the second scenario even though the reward is lower stakes because you understand why the character is chasing after the briefcase other than the fact that everyone likes money.
Which is more or less the premise of the McGuffin as coined by Hitchcock. You don't need to know what the thing is that everyone wants, just that they want it.
Which brings us back to that juicy, mouth watering delicious breakfast sandwich. The way BIRDS OF PREY sets it up, constantly makes Harley defend it as she's being chased, and ultimately loses the sandwich is played with all the importance of it being a priceless diamond.
And the fact that it's a $5 sandwich doesn't diminish it's importance in the slightest because the film takes the time to show how important it is to Harley, and by virtue it becomes important to us.
Now the sandwich is a bit of a false McGuffin. The real one ends up being the diamond that Cassandra Cain swallows -- and even then it's both a valuable rock but inscribed with invaluable criminal enterprise info, so ultimately it becomes a perfect nonsense item to chase.
But the breakfast sandwich becomes a great object lesson in lowering your stakes. It's practically a joke at this point how many superhero films end with a blue light tearing open a hole in the sky. Every movie is end of the world stakes. It starts to get dull.
And then seeing a film have the bravery to lower the stakes down to the level of a breakfast sandwich -- it feels fresh and exciting, makes you sit up and take notice. There's great power in doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing.
In PAYBACK, there's a repeated joke of Porter wanting the $70k he's owed as his end for a job, but the bad guys constantly thinking he wants the entire $130k that was stolen. It becomes about the principle of getting paid and is more interesting.
The bad guys keep offering him more money and he could probably make more money in a couple days just doing another job, but it's not about that -- it's about collecting what he's owed and was denied. Less money becomes more valuable because we understand why he wants it.
So the TL:DR; the thing your character is chasing after doesn't need to have real world value, we just need to understand that the character values it.
