Your inciting incident-what, when, how

In surfing around the Net the other day I came across a couple of mentions of "inciting incident." One writer said to make it happen at the opening of your story, the other said to have it occur as soon as possible after the story opens. I think that's mostly right, but not altogether.

What is an "inciting incident?" Robert McKee, in his excellent book, Story, defines it this way:

An event that radically upsets the balance of forces in the protagonist's life.

Another way to look at it is to key in on the word "incite."

An event that incites (provokes) a desire in the protagonist that he must satisfy.

Here's another one:

An event that forces a character to take action in pursuit of a goal.

McKee would argue that a protagonist's desire is to bring her life back into balance. That makes sense to me, but it seems abstract. Specifically, what is the nature of an inciting incident?

It can be negative (and, it seems, usually is).

• The banker's children are kidnapped.
• An innocent woman is accused of a hideous crime.
• A young mother is fired from her job.

The event can be positive, too, but so hugely positive that it unbalances things and has negative results.

• A grocery clerk wins the lottery.
• A secretary is promoted over her boss.
• A battered woman escapes to a shelter.
• A man in a happy relationship is smitten by a beautiful woman.

To provide some even more specific examples, here are inciting events from a couple of my novels:

A federal agent's child is killed by his wife, and then she commits suicide. This happens in front of him, and he's helpless to stop it, even though he shoots his wife (whom he loves) in an attempt to stop her.

The love of a woman's life is murdered during a happy outing into a city park -- and it wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been teasing him.

I think McKee's notion that the inciting event throws a protagonist's life out of balance is a good one. Anything out of balance is bound to create tension, and conflict. The main result of the event, to create a desire in the character, to regain balance, is the fuel that fires the engine of your story.

In McKee's scheme of things, your protagonist must have a powerful desire. He must then attempt to satisfy it. But his attempt is frustrated. He fails to achieve it because of something the antagonist does (preferably), or perhaps something he fails to do, or some other story element.

Your story picks up momentum and tension at this point because the character has to try again and, because of the nature of his failure and his desire, has to take a risk. A risk with negative consequences. Yep, he fails again. The negative consequences raise the stakes. He has to try again, and this time take an even greater risk. With greater consequences. He fails again. And so on.

For example, in an historical novel, let's say the daughter of a king is sent to live with the neighboring king in the age-old tradition of fostering. This upsets the balance of her happy life at home, but the consequences are potentially positive, and she makes no effort to change things. This isn't an inciting incident because, even though the balance of her life is disturbed, there's no jeopardy attached.

Then, on the journey to the neighboring kingdom, her party is attacked. She is taken and sold as a slave to another kingdom. Now that's an inciting incident. Her desire is to return to the freedom and comfort of the life she knew, and there's the risk of being beaten, raped, or killed if she tries to escape. But try she must, because her life as a slave is a horror to her.

You can write the story from there.

When must the inciting event occur? Well, there's no unbalance created unless the reader has some idea of the life the protagonist currently knows. If you can find a way to make it happen within a paragraph or two of the opening of your story, I think that's a smart thing to do. However, it can happen much later -- but only if there are other story elements that propel the reader along the stream of your narrative.

McKee cites the film Rocky as an example of a delayed inciting incident. He figures the inciting event is where Rocky is invited to fight the world champion. But that doesn't happen until a half hour into the film. Until then, the story that keeps the audience involved is the developing love story between Rocky and Adrian.

Wherever the incident occurs, what precedes it must have tension, must be raising story questions that keep the reader involved. It can't just be exposition that lays out the protagonist's life.

In my current WIP, the bridging conflict (a term used by agent Donald Maass to describe the lower-level tension-makers that you use to draw a reader along until you get to the big conflict) that gets us to the inciting event is a disagreement and a wager between a man and a woman who love each other deeply. The disagreement and wager are playful, but the consequences turn out to be horrendous. But still, there's conflict. Here's the narrative (note: subject to change without notice):

Although the occasional muttering madman in Central Park can be irritating, after walking New York City's reeking streets Graeme and I are willing to risk an encounter in exchange for a cleansing breath of nature. We stroll onto the park's trampled lawn and meander past stands of trees bright green with new spring leaves, although images of polished marble and welded metal still flicker through my mind. I say, "I thought the Met's new sculpture exhibit was excellent."

(The opening sentence is intended to foreshadow danger ahead.)

Graeme shrugs. "Perhaps. But there's little else of excellence to see from. . ." He gestures at the people who trudge through the park. ". . . their sorry race."

While I am not a lover of our unskilled cousins, I wince inwardly at the unfairness of the life-long bias against the lessi that Graeme has inherited from his father. The contrary side of my nature rears its head. "There is plenty of good in them, and you know it."

(Conflict rises.)

"I do not." He surveys the people around us. There are dozens, for it's a sunny day. "See their colors. Is there kindness or good will anywhere?"

I look, and he's right. The auras around their heads created by lledrith, the living energy that streams from our bodies and brains, writhe with the nasty burgundy of hostility, the bilious color of lies, the ash-violet of depression, and the bruised red of violence. That, of course, only serves to rally my resistance. "Perhaps not here, not now, but there are kind-hearted lessi."

Graeme gets the grin that I love so, the way it paints his face with mischief. Behind that lives a little-boy-lost, wide-eyed wonder at the immensity of life that makes me want to wrap my arms around him. Though he's a decade my senior, our hearts are not a minute apart. After more than a hundred fifty years together, we know that we are One, that rarest of blends that has a chance of lasting for the long centuries.

He makes an exaggerated moue and says, "A wager?"

I pick up the gauntlet. "Yes." I point down a curving walk. "We'll go that way, and we'll find a worthy lessi."

"The stakes?"

I run my hands over my breasts and down my belly.

Oh, that smile of his. He says, "It's a bet."

(Story questions: who will win the bet? How? What will happen as a consequence?)

That innocent wager, which raises the question of who will win, along with the foreshadowing mention of madmen in the park will, I hope, take the reader to the inciting event -- Graeme's murder in the park, which utterly undoes the balance of Ailia's life.

Next: why? Why the inciting incident? Why "desire?" These aren't just "rules," they're necessities.

Have any questions?

For what it's worth.

Ray

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© 2006 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Tom]

Wow.

WOW.

Please forgive me if expressions of thanks and amazement are more appropriate to a private e-mail rather than this "Comments" section. However I've just stumbled upon your site and am so blown away by the fabulous writing and extraordinarily helpful advice that I just couldn't contain myself.

Although I don't aspire to be a professional writer, I enjoy the craft enough as a hobby that I plan on returning here frequently to mine the incredible wealth of information and hopefully benefit from it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So very much.

Tom

[sarah]

does anyone know the inciting incident in the giver
?

[Chuck Pulliam]

The inciting incident is the event that upsets the status quo. Right, then, in the play HAMLET for example, what is the status quo? Is it not a Denmark ruled by King Hamlet, a noble fellow,
"So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly...
Sounds like Denmark is a great place to live...Well, if this is the status quo, then what upsets it is the murder of the King and the beginning of the reign of Claudius. The Murder is the event that causes everything in the play to proceed.
From where I stand, that occurs before the play opens. Is not the inciting incident in OEDIPUS similar in nature? What is the event that causes the play to happen? Is it not the saving of the baby Oedipus who is supposed to die?
There is a theory that states the inciting incident must occur outside of the play (prior to the beginning of the text...an event occurring inside the play is called a complication...Is this not what we were taught? Are not these two examples essentially the same? The change of status quo in Thebes takes years to rear its head, but in Denmark it only takes a month.
Someone please comment on this observation.

[Ray Rhamey]

I'm not current enough with the plays you cite to comment specifically, and I've never heard the guides for a play that you talk about--inciting incident outside the play. But I wonder if this is a matter of focus. The incident is not one that upsets the status quo for the world of the story, but for the very specific life of the protagonist. And in novels and film, at least, this incident happens within the confines of the protagonist's story.

That's my view, anyway. Thanks for the comment.

Ray