Writing Forum

An inciting incident is vital for any story regardless of genre or audience. Remember, an inciting incident doesn't have to be action packed, but it does need to be something happening now. If you start your story with an event 5000 years before your protagonist appears that may cause the events of the story, but it isn't going to bring the reader in. Or at least you will lose the reader once they realise who the main character actually is.

I love a piece of advice Brandon Sanderson gives in all areas of writing. Err on the side of awesome. In other words if you have a choice of where to start your story pick the most exciting place. For example you could start your story with the protagonist listening to a piece of music. You want to open with that because later in the story that piece of music is really important and you want to get the foreshadowing in early. Or you could pick to start with the character crashing his car into a tree. You wanted this to happen in chapter 2 once we have grown to love the character.

But, remember you have to get your reader to chapter 2. Start with the crash. Put the music into the scene after the crash. Perhaps (if your style allows it) after the crash move out of perspective and contrast the music with the burning flames and sirens with your protagonist unconscious.


I should add that the inciting incident doesn't have to happen in the opening sentence. The opening sentence has a load more responsibilities, and sometimes to get an effective opening the first line can't be the inciting incident. There is the rule never open a book with weather. The best exception to this is 1984, which has this opening line:


Why does that sentence work? Because it is weird. It is shocking to the reader. The author states that the clocks are doing something they shouldn't do. And that works because the start of the sentence is ordinary. The juxtaposition in the sentence makes it work.

But notice that the clocks striking 13 isn't the inciting incident. The second sentence is. Still, the inciting incident is there at the start. Even if you don't like the book (I haven't actually read it, but know the opening...) there is no denying it is a powerful opening. A striking first sentence followed by introducing the protagonist struggling against the wind. Sometimes the incident takes a sentence, sometimes several chapters.

The inciting incident doesn't need to be directly related to the main story. It needs to engage the reader, introduce the character and world and lead on to the events that are the main story.


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Thanks,
Matt

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