Inciting Incidents

It can be causal—an action taken deliberately by a character in the story, for instance the villain detonates a bomb, the lover brings a bouquet to the beloved, or the schoolmistress shames the pupil in front of her classmates. 

Or it can be coincidental—a natural event. For instance, a tornado touches down, a father is killed by a sudden stroke, or a global pandemic cancels the conference.

Why is the inciting incident important?

Stories are about change. Big action stories have protagonists who face fear, come close to death, and then win and live. Stories with quieter, more internally-driven themes show a character having a change of heart or a shift in worldview. 

Either way, if there’s no change, there’s no story. If the tornado doesn’t touch down in Kansas, Dorothy won’t be forced to deal with getting home from Oz. If George Bailey’s dad doesn’t have that fatal stroke, George will never stay in Bedford Falls and learn that, indeed, it’s a wonderful life. 

If the global pandemic doesn’t cancel your conference, you aren’t forced to learn more about video, and you never become that huge surprise influencer.

Well, it turns out that what’s true at the level of the whole, global story is also true for every scene. Every scene is little a mini-story, with an identifiable beginning, middle, and end. Every scene causes a character to shift and change. 

And that means every scene needs an inciting incident.

Does the inciting incident have to be the very first thing in the scene?

No. In fact, if every scene you write opens on an inciting incident, it will be monotonous or tiring to the reader. You may need a sentence or two–even a paragraph or two–to set up the inciting incident. You may need a transition from the previous scene, especially if time has elapsed  or the setting has changed. 

But “before long” (a unit of measure that’s going to vary with your style, your story type, and where we are within the story), the inciting incident must happen.

Does the inciting incident have to be on the page?

Oddly enough, no, it doesn’t. There are cases where it can be implied, or in subtext. Let’s say you have a character driving towards an unsuspected roadblock on their way home. That character’s decision to get in the car and head home might be seen as the inciting incident that made encountering the roadblock possible.

Generally, though, something has caused the character to move, and you should make it clear to the reader what that something—that inciting incident—is.

Can the inciting incident carry over from the previous chapter?

Sure. A chapter isn’t necessarily a scene. A chapter is really more of a typographical convention than an actual unit of story. It was designed to break up what would be a massive wall of text, to give the reader a place to start and stop. In the heyday of serial novels published in periodicals, the chapter was the weekly installment. The serial chapter often ended on a cliffhanger—at the crisis or climax of a scene—so that readers would eagerly buy next week’s magazine.

So a “chapter” can contain more than one short scene. And it can contain a partial scene and end on a cliffhanger, to keep the reader turning pages. 

But a scene is still a scene, complete with all five essential elements, beginning with the inciting incident, regardless of where you decide to put a chapter break.

Do I really need to create a new inciting incident for every scene? 

Yes. Every scene requires change, and every change must be incited by something that flows from the previous scene. If your character is just coasting along on the momentum of a previous inciting incident, it’s not a new scene, it’s just a scene that needs some cutting.

But remember, an inciting incident at the scene-by-scene level doesn’t have to be a tornado or the death of a parent. The alarm clock going off sets your character in motion from sleep to waking. The traffic light turning red foils your character’s pursuit of the suspect and forces them to take a right turn instead. An incoming email requires immediate action. Running into an old acquaintance on the street sets a new friendship in motion.

Now for some inciting incident practice

Pull a novel from your bookshelf and flip through till you see a clear scene break (usually a new chapter, sometimes a double-space or a symbol like ***). 

Read the scene. Identify the main character. Try to see how that character’s condition has changed from the beginning of the scene to the end. Keep in mind that the change can be in the physical, mental, or emotional realms, or any combination of the three. 

Does the character go from free to imprisoned? From hungry to fed? From calm to angry? From disregarded to recognized? From conscious to unconscious? Well to ill? Broke to funded? Whole to injured?

There are almost infinite possibilities. Trust your gut and take a guess. 

Then ask yourself: “What caused that character to change state?”

The cause can be big and obvious or so subtle that it barely seems to be there. Again, trust your instincts. It’s okay to be “wrong.” In fact, quite often there’s no absolute right answer. Once in a while even in a published, professional novel there will be a flaccid scene without movement–that is, a nonworking scene. Maybe you’ll find one. (And if you do, let us know!)

This is an exercise in developing your nose for inciting incidents in scenes so that you can be sure your own scenes always contain this first of the five essential elements.