Forget the old ‘rules:’ make inciting incidents happen sooner. The same conclusion I reached over a year ago came from three writing coaches I follow in the last two weeks. So what are they and why should we make inciting incidents happen sooner?
Inciting and Incidental
Let’s begin with a definition of the inciting incident:
The event near the start of the story that takes the protagonist out of their comfort zone, disrupts the ordinary world and destroys their equilibrium so they have to restore balance.
Furthermore:
The inciting incident represents a decision, action, or event that introduces the story’s main problem/conflict, thus triggering the rising action of the story.
In practical terms, the inciting incident kicks off the story in terms of the protagonist’s journey towards the story goal.
According to Abbie Eammons, the inciting incident:
- Must be relevant to the protagonist.
- Can’t be generic.
- Can’t be so broad that it applies to any character.
Let’s say there’s an asteroid about to wipe out the earth. That affects everybody. It’s too generic. The impact of the asteroid isn’t the story, it’s the impact on the protagonist. Why do we care? What’s their story goal?
Now let’s say the protagonist has to get across country to be with family before the end. Or complete the Impenetrable Asteroid Defense Shield and save everyone. Those are two goals relevant to the protagonist. Now we have a story.
The Place of Incitement
Until recently, almost every standard story structure, reference book and course placed the inciting incident at 10-15% into the manuscript. The rest advocated three chapters or 10k words in.
Setup the ordinary world, they say, and don’t delay too long.
In these days of short attention spans, these rules are gone. Now the advice is to put the inciting incident on page one, or before the MS even starts! Why? Because nobody has time to care about the ‘ordinary world’ of the protagonist. We come full circle; the ancient Greeks knew how to begin a story In Medias Res.
No Waiting
Use the traditional structure and you’ll find the inciting incident comes too late to kick off the story proper.
According to Daniel David Wallace:
Today’s reader wants your story to begin on page one, sentence one. There is no time to wait for an inciting incident!
In his analysis of successful contemporary novels, the main character already has some kind of inciting incident when the novel begins – before page one. So many protagonists are in motion on page one; already out of their comfort zone, engaged in a risky enterprise, or plainly in trouble.
You can find events that look like inciting incidents somewhere in the early chapters, but more often now, these are ‘accelerators’ for a plot that’s already moving.
Contemporary pacing sees the character in a state of discomfort or unrest on page one. The plot unfolds in detail over the following chapters. The protagonist pursues their original goals despite fresh challenges. The tension rises because the original goal is harder to achieve than they expected. All the while, something bigger and more significant gallops over the horizon toward them.
Not So New After All
What if I told you this ‘inciting incident rule’ is a modern device? That authors of classic novels brushed past it?
Pride and Prejudice (yes, collect a sticker), opens with the news of the new tenants at Netherfield. They already moved in. We have the reaction to the inciting incident on page one. Boom!
Great Expectations opens with Pip’s encounter with the escaped convict, Magwitch. This is a ‘sleeper’ incident. Dickens makes us think the later meeting with Miss Havisham is the inciting incident, when in fact, it already happened. Genius.
A more contemporary example is the first Jack Reacher novel. It opens with Reacher under arrest in a small town. We’re two inciting incidents into the story and this is the reaction.
What About Us?
When I looked at the writing advice, I also concluded a 10-15% inciting incident is way too late. So what have I written for my series?
The Ghost and the Vipers opens on a flash forward to the climax. Chapter two has Jo anticipating the fight with the Reavers, as seen in her Second Sight. Who is the Grey Rider she searches for? Why is she on the run from the Emperor? She’s already in motion.
In The Seer and the Vipers, I have another flash forward to a fight with the antagonist; Jo’s attempt to escape the hunt destined to fail. The side effects indicate Jo’s Sight is broken; how will that affect her choices and decisions?
In City of Vipers, Jo and her found-family arrive at the capitol in pursuit of a deadly mission, her mind made up and the objective set. The obstacles are all laid out.
Using Derek Murphy’s story structure, there are plot points that look like conventional inciting incidents. I use them more like accelerators. In the first book, Jo meets her Grey Rider and loses a mentor sooner than 10% into the story. Those both have inciting impact, but she’s already pursuing her goals before page one.
The idea of the ‘bolt from the blue’ that disrupts the ‘Ordinary World’ (copyright everyone since Joseph Campbell) some way into the manuscript is a luxury earlier writers would laugh at. They understood a short attention span as much as we do. That’s why many of them creates literary classics in which the inciting incident already happened.
Conclusion? Make inciting incidents happen sooner.