Hey, again! This is Emily, bringing you the last post for our Beginnings series!
One element that is essential for every story—regardless of genre or length—is the inciting incident. You’ve probably heard of it before. The inciting incident is most often the plot point or scene that “gets the ball rolling” in your book. It is an important scene, but a difficult one to write and place. Hopefully after this post, you will have a better idea of what an inciting incident is, why it is vital, and how to start one on your own! We will take a look at 6 elements—pacing, plot, genre, world, characters, and theme—and how they relate to the inciting incident.
What is an Inciting Incident?
An inciting incident is the event that sets the story in motion. Almost always, this event will force the main character or characters to “go into motion.” There are two different types of responses, but we’ll cover that later.
Because the plot does not begin until the inciting incident starts it, that event normally happens very early on in the story—but at least within the first quarter of it. Different stories require different pacing, however, so you may need to play around with where you will put your own inciting incident.
1) Pacing
You could delay the inciting incident and build suspense. For example, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the inciting incident—Hagrid telling Harry he is a wizard—does not occur until chapter four. Before this, the readers get a prologue-like first chapter and then two chapters of mystery: “Why do strange things happen to Harry?” and “Who is writing him a letter?”
Similarly, in the American classic To Kill a Mockingbird, the inciting incident—where Jem loses his pants on the fence and later finds them mended and on his porch—does not happen until chapter seven, about fifty pages into the story! Harper Lee takes her time introducing the characters, the setting, and a rising mystery of the Radley house in the preceding chapters.
On the other hand, your inciting incident can come much sooner and speed the main plot along. In Hunger Games, which we discussed in “Seven First-Chapter Essentials” a few weeks ago, includes its inciting incident at the end of the very first chapter, though we don’t get to see Katniss’s response until chapter two.
Another classic, Alice in Wonderland, features its inciting incident—Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole—on page three! Lewis Carroll throws his readers into the story, giving his main character a problem to respond to, almost immediately. When and where your inciting incident occurs depends on you, your story, its pacing, and what works. Often you will need to experiment to find the perfect event, occurring at the perfect time, setting your plot in motion.
2) Plot
If the inciting incident is the event that sets the story in motion, you cannot have a story without it. Furthermore, it should be directly tied to the plot of the book.
For example, in Gillian Flynn’s mystery thriller Gone Girl, the story does not truly begin until Nick Dunne returns home to find his wife, Amy, missing. The plot of the book surrounds Amy’s disappearance, which of course could not happen if Amy had not disappeared in the first place.
Similarly, in Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, the story does not start until main character Starr witnesses the shooting of her friend. The inciting incident is completely necessary to trigger the other events of the plot. If your story can happen without the inciting incident, you need a stronger inciting incident.
3) Genre
You should also make sure the inciting incident fits your genre. The event that provokes the plot and the character to act should have an appropriate tone for the type of story you want to tell. Inciting incidents can carry any emotion, whether happy, sad, exciting, or terrifying.
Of course, the inciting incident in Hunger Games is a chilling event. At the end of the first chapter, Katniss’s little sister, Prim, is reaped. The announcer calls her name and she approaches the stage to be sent to the Capitol, where she will fight in an arena against twenty-three other children to the death. This inciting incident has the readers shocked, even outraged. Prim means the world to Katniss and is such a sweet and gentle girl! She doesn’t deserve to die! This event fits the dystopian genre and sets the scene for the gruesome Hunger Games.
Alternatively, the inciting incident in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is charming and intriguing. When Hazel Lancaster attends her cancer support group meeting, she meets an attractive new boy there, Augustus Waters, who won’t stop staring at her. They talk afterwards, bantering and flirting, before deciding to go watch V for Vendetta together. Since The Fault in Our Stars is a young adult romance novel, the inciting incident where the two main characters meet and flirt fits the book’s genre and tone. It is a wholesome meeting, promising a story of love, drama, and wit while still forcing Hazel out of her comfort zone.
4) World
Just as meeting Augustus forced Hazel out of her comfort zone, any good inciting incident should upset the status quo. The inciting incident is the event that kicks off the plot, which means that it introduces a problem or question that the characters must engage with and that changes everything. In The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel does not want to grow close to anyone because she knows she will die from cancer soon. Augustus, however, is the inciting incident: he intervenes, introducing himself to Hazel, inviting her to watch a movie with him, and inadvertently opposing her wish to stay isolated. Hazel’s ordinary world of loneliness is disrupted.
The inciting incident also upsets the status quo in Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. In the first chapter, Percy’s math teacher, Mrs. Dodds, turns into a monster and attacks him during their class trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Where Percy originally believed his life to be normal, suddenly it isn’t. This event sets the plot into motion and introduces Percy to a world of Greek myths come to life, forcing Percy to brave this strange new world.
5) Characters
Of course, with the inciting incident being the event that kick-starts the story, readers will also expect a response from the characters. Make sure your characters are involved. When the inciting incident disrupts the status quo, how will the characters behave?
Most often, the main character will have an active response. Like in Hunger Games, after Prim is reaped, the second chapter begins with Katniss volunteering to take her sister’s place. She takes an active role in the story, stepping up to protect her sister.
Sometimes, the inciting incident is not an event the characters must act to, but an event the characters caused. For example, in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the plot begins when the animals rebel against the farmer, Mr. Jones, and kick him out of the farm to run everything on their own. In this case, the inciting incident is the characters taking action.
However, characters can also have a reactive, rather than an active, response to the inciting incident. Similar to Animal Farm, the inciting incident in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is caused by the main character, Victor Frankenstein, when he builds a creature and brings it to life. However, his response is reactive. When the creature awakens in chapter five, and Victor realizes the horror of his actions, he reacts by running away. The readers are left wondering what happened to the creature, a question not answered until much later in the novel.
6) Theme
The inciting incident, like in Frankenstein, should generate questions relating to the story’s theme. When Victor runs away from his creature, readers ask “What happened to the creature?”, “Is he dangerous?”, “Was he really scary enough for Victor to abandon his hard work?”, and “What if Victor had given him a chance?” These questions relate to some of the book’s strongest themes: society, isolation, innocence, and ambition.
Another example, a five-page short story by Ray Bradbury called “There Will Come Soft Rains” (and my favorite short story—would totally recommend you go read it) poses thematic questions with its inciting incident, as well. In this piece, the main character is a futuristic house that functions on its own after humanity is long gone. But the inciting incident intervenes: a tree crashes through the kitchen window, onto the stove, and starts a fire. Now, a war wages. Fire vs. house. Nature vs. technology. And this is the central theme in “There Will Come Soft Rains.” “Will technology withstand nature, or will nature best technology?” The tree and the fire create an inciting incident—almost eighty percent into the short story—that asks this question.
Multiple Inciting Incidents
Sometimes, a story doesn’t have just one clear inciting incident. Sometimes, the inciting incident can be a series of events that builds up, eventually forcing the character to respond. For example, some readers of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone argue that the inciting incident happened before chapter one when Lord Voldemort’s spell backfired, leaving him bodiless and Harry still alive. Some believe the inciting incident is when Harry received his first letter in chapter three. Still others believe that Hagrid telling Harry he’s a wizard in chapter four is the inciting incident. The true inciting incident may lie with the author’s intention, or it may be that there are three inciting incidents that all work together.
On the other hand, a story may have several inciting incidents that each kick off a different plot thread. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem losing his pants on the fence and later finding them mended on his porch kicks off the Radley house mystery, whereas Scout learning that her father is defending a black man in court kicks off the trial storyline.
Similarly, there are multiple inciting incidents in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, but each reflecting a different theme. Liesel’s brother dies at the beginning of the book which relates to the novel’s themes of family, loss, and death. Later, Liesel’s new papa, Hans Hubermann, discovers a stolen book in her sheets, The Gravedigger’s Handbook. This event leads to Hans teaching Liesel how to read, which in turn gives her a love of books and conveys the novel’s themes of language, literature, and the power of words. Readers could argue for even more inciting incidents, such as Hans Hubermann’s decision to feed a starving Jew on the street, or Max Vandenburg’s arrival to Himmel Street, that each set off a different storyline and pose different thematic questions.
Getting Help on Your Inciting Incident
Inciting incidents, like everything in writing, take time and experimenting. You must make sure your inciting incident properly sets your story in motion, comes at the right time, fits your genre, disrupts the status quo, involves your characters, and poses thematic questions. That’s a lot to keep track of!
But, just like our usual writing advice, we recommend study, practice, and feedback. Study the authors who do inciting incidents well, whether of your favorites, of the most memorable, or of popular books. Practice writing your own inciting incidents, again, and again, and again if that’s what it takes. And search for feedback. Share your writing with friends and hear their thoughts. Especially pay attention to the six factors above and what your beta-readers say about plot, pacing, genre, world, characters, and theme.
Finally, as always, Brianna, Gabrielle, and I here at Honeycomb would be honored to help you in the writing and revising process. We love creative writing and have had plenty of our own study, practice, and feedback, and it’s always helpful to have an extra set of eyes (or three!) on your work. Let us know if you have any questions by reaching out to us on our Contact page, emailing us at honeycombauthor@gmail.com, or messaging us on our Instagram account.
In the meantime, thank you so much for joining us on this journey through Beginnings! We hope we have helped you feel more confident to tackle your first chapters. And don’t forget: study, practice, and feedback. Next week, Gabrielle will share a book review on our blog, and the week after we’ll kick off a brand new blog series. Stay tuned for those!
Till then, bee brilliant!
Emily
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