Crafting the Inciting Incident

One of the biggest hurdles for most writers is crafting a powerful inciting incident. But what is it, and how can you ensure that yours is as compelling as possible?

First, let’s keep in mind the golden rule of writing: 

Thou shall not bore your audience. 

As writers, we ask the audience to give us their time and attention - the two most precious resources they have. 

In exchange, we promise to entertain them, and - if we’re really good at our craft - to leave them changed in some profound way. We do this by creating at least one well-written and fully fleshed character that they can empathize with. 

When we achieve this, the character’s story reflects the viewer’s own life back to them, and hopefully, challenges their beliefs, giving them much-needed perspective. 

Part of this involves establishing an inciting event compelling enough to spark the viewer’s curiosity and earn their investment. But how do we do this?

By first asking ourselves: 

“What is the conflict?”

The faster we can answer this, the sooner we’ll understand how to write the inciting incident, because the inciting incident is the event in the story that sparks the conflict and creates the character’s problem.

How - or if - they solve it, is what the rest of the story is about. 

The sooner in the story we establish the inciting incident, the better we sustain the viewer’s attention, increasing the chances that we’ll get their “buy in” - their commitment to stay until the end.  

But how soon should the inciting incident be introduced? 

Let’s say you’re writing a story about two childhood friends, Bob and Bill. Bill owes Bob $5K, but he lost his side gig and hasn’t been able to pay Bob back. Bob’s been understanding, but he could really use the money. This would cause tension in any relationship, but unlike family who are stuck with you forever, a friendship could easily end over this. Bob knows it, and he’s afraid to press Bill and risk losing the closest thing he’s ever had to a brother.

So the play or film opens up with a regular day in the life of Bob and Bill to establish their ordinary world - their reality before the inciting incident happens. It doesn’t take much to create this world in the audience’s mind because we all have good friends, so our imagination lets us fill in the blanks about what’s going on pretty quickly. 

That answers the viewer’s first question: Who is this about? Their second question is:

Why should I keep watching? 

Answering this question within minutes is vital to keeping your audience engaged, and you do it by introducing the inciting incident. Failing this, the viewer gets bored and checks out. 

Back to our characters; in the very next scene, Bill invites Bob over to show off his brand new 80” TV. Bill excitedly tells Bob that he won $5K in a scratch off ticket and can now finally create that app he’s been working on. Bob just found out his wife is pregnant that morning. He’s floored. What about the money he’s owed? 

Now Bob has a real conflict: getting paid and taking care of his new family vs losing his life-long friend. What will he do? How will he do it? Will he succeed?

The higher the stakes are for the character, the greater the emotional response to their problem, because if the character cares, the viewer will too. This is how you create an inciting incident that keeps the viewer around.

Case Study: Manchester by the Sea (2016)

In this film, we’re introduced to the protagonist, Lee Chandler; a brooding, loner handy man who’s often rude and sometimes violent. It’s not until almost 14 minutes into the film that his brother dies and disrupts Lee’s ordinary world. Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t the inciting incident. Why? 

Because it doesn’t immediately create conflict. 

That doesn’t happen until 49 minutes into the film, when Lee learns at the lawyer’s office that his brother made him the sole guardian of his troubled teenaged nephew, Patrick. This would require Lee to move back to Manchester and upend his life in Boston, such as it is. 

But it’s not until 55 minutes in that Lee’s conflict is finally introduced. Years ago, after a drunken night in with his friends, Lee accidentally set his house on fire and his three children died in the blaze. Returning to Manchester would bring him face to face with a horrific event that he’s run from for years. Will he take responsibility for his nephew, or will he leave him to fend for himself after he just lost his only functional parent? 

While the film won two Oscars, it’s a lot to ask viewers to wait nearly an hour into a film before knowing why they’re there. Perhaps it was the marketing, its star power, or the fact that it first debuted at Sundance in January and wasn’t released until December, giving it ample time to garner word of mouth notoriety; but the fact remains that very few audiences will wait that long for a film to give them a reason to keep watching.

In contrast, multi-Oscar-winning films like Parasite in 2019, which won four Academy Awards; and Whiplash in 2014, which won three, offer audiences early inciting incidents that instantly create conflict, driving the plot and keeping the viewer’s attention. 

If you want to increase your odds of success, I highly recommend the latter. 

However, it’s important to note that the inciting incident must be directly related to the story’s ending. 

As Chekhov famously wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." 

What did he mean? 

That as writers, we shouldn’t include anything in the script that doesn’t directly relate to the conflict or push the plot forward to its conclusion.

This is why it’s a lot easier to write the inciting incident once you know where you want the story to wind up.

So, we’ll cover writing backwards from the end next.

I hope this has been helpful in crafting your story. If you live in the NYC area and would like to hear your work-in-progress cold-read by local actors in front of a live audience, go to thewritersroomnyc.com and join us.

‘Til then, happy writing. 

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