Adventures In Story Structure, Part One – The Inciting Incident

By Stephanie Raffelock

Welcome to StoryCraft: Writers Write About Writing (formerly the SCN blog Telling HerStories), all about the craft of writing by published authors and teachers. This premier post is the first in a series on “Adventures in Story Structure” by SCN author Stephanie Raffelock. (Members, submit your posts here. You must be logged in to access the form.)

Other sections in Her Stories include:

• True Words from Real Women (formerly One Woman’s Day) section featuring stories about ordinary and extraordinary days in the lives of Story Circle members.

• Reviews & Interviews pointing you to your next great read or favorite author.

• And our informative monthly Flash newsletter.

We’re delighted to be here and look forward to your comments and submissions. Let’s write!

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“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

All art is form. If you’re a dancer, you learn the language of movements, steps, and patterns. Similarly with music. True musicians need an understanding of music theory, the language of their art. Artistry relies on form to bring creativity to fruition. For writers, the structure and arc of story is our language, and this has been true since the Argonauts.

More often than not writers rush to get their thoughts onto the page without a warm up. Dancers warm up at the ballet barre. Musicians warm up with scales. But sometimes writers are so eager that we dive head first onto the page without knowing how deep or shallow the pool really is. Note to self: Rushing is the enemy of art.

When I was finally brave enough to own that I wanted to be a writer, I heard about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Excitedly, I sat down every day for a month and wrote down the story I had in my head. When I got to the end, I’d logged more than fifty thousand words in less than a month. The most important thing I learned was that I had the ability to sit down every day and write for two to three hours. Good to know. The second thing I learned was, wordcount does not a story make, no matter how good your prose may be.

The end result of NaNoWriMo was I had a rambling narrative in search of a story, something pointed out to me by a well-seasoned writer, Larry Brooks, who told me the truth and created a real live inciting incident in my own life. An inciting incident sets the hero/heroine on an adventure or a quest that they don’t think they’re ready for, or don’t want.

I’m not sure where I heard or read this: “A trivial story well told is better than a profound story poorly told.” A lot of my writing life and work is about finding better ways to tell a story, making it more compelling.

A sense of structure acts as a north star when I’m adrift in the vast sea of constructing a novel. Some of the books that have helped me get a handle on this are: Shawn Coyne’s, Story Grid; Larry Brooks’, Story Engineering; Robert McKee’s, Story; Paula Munier’s, Plot Perfect; and Steven Pressfield’s Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t. Lesser known, but highly teachable are: C.S. Larkin’s, The Twelve Pillars of Novel Construction and K.M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel, both of which are workbooks.

All stories begin with an inciting incident. The inciting incident needs to happen within the first chapter. The incident alerts the reader that a violation of expectation has happened, and that in turn, makes the reader want to keep reading – a kind of what’s going to happen next mindset. Prior to the inciting incident, the writer should have already written about place, social surroundings, and what the protagonist’s life was like before being called to a journey they don’t feel ready to take. Steven Pressfield says it best: “the inciting incident is where the protagonist acquires his or her intention.”

Here are a few inciting incidents from films that give you a visual of what the inciting incident/hook looks like:

Casa Blanca, Bogey: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

Rockey, Apollo Creed: “The Italian Stallion? I’m gonna give this chump a shot at the title.”

To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch: “Scout, I’ll be defending Tom Robinson.”

The inciting incident must show a problem, or a challenge that needs to be solved. From Bogy’s dialogue, we surmise that the woman who has come into his life could change him forever. How will that happen? From Apollo Creed we realize that he’s going to give an unknown fighter the chance he needs to be star. We want to know, how will he do that? And from Atticus Finch, we see that the lawyer is about to embark on a journey of defending a black man in the 1950’s south. How will that affect his daughter?

The hero/heroine’s resistance to the journey, and their eventual acceptance of it, will ultimately setup conflict and tension that makes for a transformative force. Even with transformation waiting at the end of the rainbow, nobody likes change. No one wants to navigate the great wilderness of the unknown, but as we all know, all human story is about change and change is what grows us.

To summarize,

1. The inciting incident is where the story begins. It must happen within the first chapter.

2. The incident presents a dilemma that hooks us.

3. The incident sets up the tension and challenges of change – the great unknowns that keep the reader turning the page.

4. The incident makes the protagonist want something.

5. And the inciting incident informs the protagonist’s intention.

A suggested exercise – this week when you’re watching a movie or television show, see if you can identify the inciting incident.

What inciting incidents from your own life or from movies you’ve seen, or books you’ve read stand out to you? Please share your thoughts in the comments and let’s have a conversation!

Coming up in this series: The First Plot Point, The Midpoint, The All Is Lost Moment, The Dénouement (tying up all the loose ends), and The Transformation.

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Stephanie Raffelock is the author of Creatrix Rising, Unlocking the Power of Midlife Women. She also penned the award winning book, A Delightful Little Book on Aging and is the editor of the anthology, Art In The Time of Unbearable Crisis. A graduate of Naropa University’s program in Writing and Poetics, Stephanie has worked as a freelancer for The Aspen Times and The Rogue Valley Messenger. She has written and blogged for numerous publications and currently writes a weekly Substack, Creative Eldering. https://substack.com/@creativeeldering

Stephanie enjoys an active life in Austin, Texas with her husband, Dean and their Labrador retriever, Mickey.

Website: http://www.BylineStephanie.com

Instagram: http://www.byline.stephanie