100 Things You Should Know About Writing (Part 1)

5) The Inciting Incident

I'm pretty sure all of us have read at least one blurb that says at some point: "Everything changes when..." 

I'm also pretty sure that when most of us read "Everything changes" in a blurb, somewhere inside, we're rolling our eyes. 

Why? 

Because if nothing changed, there wouldn't be much of a plot. We'd basically have to read through hundreds of pages of a character going through the same sort of day... every day. For thousands of words. 

Yeah. Not the most exciting idea ever. 

Basically, an inciting incident is an event that changes the course of a character's life. The purpose of the inciting incident is to set the course for the rest of the story. (Or, as you'll see later, at least for some of the story.) 

Just as a reminder, every plot point of a story relates to three words: 

Goal

Conflict

Stakes

You might not necessarily think of your stories along those terms. If you're a character driven writer, you're very likely not thinking along these lines. The plot driven writers might get what I'm saying more easily. 

But since I'm actually character driven, I've had to teach myself these things. Which is good, because it makes explaining them easier. (And character driven writers, you don't have to worry. I'm going to get into character stuff REAL soon.) 

But I digress.

To recap: Conflict are factors preventing the main character from achieving the goal. Stakes are what happens if the main character fails to achieve the goal. 

Now, the inciting incident causes the main character to set the goal in the first place. 

Examples of this can be endless. From a girl meeting a guy and deciding to make him fall in love with her  (or vice versa) to the end of the world starting and survival becoming the key priority. Anything that gets the ball rolling in the story is the inciting incident.

When should this incident happen? 

As soon as possible. A lot of people advocate that stories should start right in the middle of the action, and that the inciting incident should happen by the end of chapter one. 

I don't quite agree with that, though. (Although starting in medias res makes a lot of sense for short stories. More on this later.) See I think it's important that the reader connect with a character before things change. Obviously, we won't know everything about the character, but we need to know enough about who he/she is as a rule so that we can have a feel for how the inciting incident changes things. (More on this in Section 7. Incidentally, this will be where the character driven writers start sitting up.) 

Basically then, I'm of the school of thought that most long stories should begin right before things change and the action starts. From what I've seen in my research on this subject, this should be within the first third of a novel. There are some ways to fudge this, but a lot of agents stop reading if they don't get to the inciting incident by page 50. (Another rule of thumb to keep in mind, if you're going the traditional publishing route.)

So how do you fudge things if the inciting incident can't happen until later?  

It's actually quite simple, really. You have two inciting incidences. A small one and the big one. (I'm calling them minor and major from now on because I'm really lazy about typing things I have to repeat.) 

The minor inciting incident has one job and one job only: to cause events leading up to the major inciting incident. 

An example I can think of is in Twilight. The minor inciting incident was Bella arriving at her new school and meeting new people. The major inciting incident was Bella meeting Edward. Although one could actually say there's another major inciting incident almost at the end where she meets James, who decides he wants to kill her and drink her blood. 

Both those major incidents change things for Bella. The first, because she goes from not really bothering to get to know people to wanting to find out more about Edward. And then when they're together, the second major incident changes things again, because Bella goes from being just a girl dating a vampire to a girl who's in danger because other vampires are out to get her. And when you think about it, most of the action in the last part of Twilight was about keeping Bella safe. So the goal had changed. 

So there you have it, the quick and dirty on what inciting incidents are and how to make them work. I hope you found it helpful! 

Thanks again for reading! And a special thank you to everyone who commented, read and voted so far! You're all awesome. 

Please do keep the comments coming. I'll answer any questions you have, and if your questions inspire any of my sections, I'll dedicate them to you. 

Coming up: 

More on Goals

The Real Truth Behind Tension

Beginnings

What Type of Writer are You? (Dedicated to JoyCronje)