Lecture Series two: Inciting incident
The second in my lecture series on the techniques and processes of writing fiction.
Image by Ruben Boekeloo on Pexels
There are three main ways fiction is ordered: it can be linear, it can be non-linear (what Madison Smart Bell calls “modular”), or it can be a mixture of the two.
Here we’ll focus on linear stories, which have a beginning, a middle, and an end; they generally move forward in time; and they often begin with an inciting incident. What I want to focus on here is that beginning, which includes what’s called the ground situation, and the inciting incident.
You can find a variety of definitions of the inciting incident, but all tend to share some key aspects. The inciting incident is something that happens early in the story that disrupts the main character’s ordinary world, pulling them out of their comfort zone and compelling them to take action. It causes an interruption to the status quo, and that interruption is compelling enough that the character must do something in response.
In John Updike’s story “A&P,” something about the “three girls in nothing but bathing suits” upsets the narrator’s ordinary world and compels him to respond.
The inciting incident can also come into play with novels. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick begins with these two sentences: “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”
It’s this decision – and the situation he finds himself in when “sailing about a little” that sets the whole book in motion.
Tracy Chevalier’s novel Girl with a Pearl Earring (a fictional account of the model for one of Vermeer’s most famous paintings) begins with the arrival of the painter at the home of the young woman, who abruptly learns that her parents have arranged for her to work for him. Ann Pagett’s novel State of Wonder begins “The news of Anders Eckman’s death came by way of Aerogram. . .” – and the novel proceeds for the next several hundred pages with the main character on a quest to learn the details of that death.
Not only does the inciting incident disrupt the status quo, it gives the story or novel a reason for being. Without the death of Anders Eckman, without the young woman being hired to work for Vermeer, without Ishmael deciding to go to sea, without those three girls in nothing but bathing suits – there would be no story.
Or as John Barth mentions in his article, “Incremental Perturbation,” if Romeo and Juliet never noticed each other, Shakespeare would have had no play to write.
Generally, there seem to be two kinds of inciting incidents: those that involve an active choice made by the protagonist (often called “casual”), and things that happen randomly or accidentally (“coincidental”).
They tend to happen early in the text, and they cause an interruption in the main character’s normal life.
They are (or grow to be) out of the character’s control (even though Ishmael chooses to sign on for a voyage, he essentially hands his life over to Captain Ahab, over whom he has no control).
And they create a sense of urgency, with high stakes that have the potential to be life-changing.
There’s one other component that goes hand in hand with the inciting incident, and that’s what Barth calls the “ground situation.”
Simply put, there is something in the main character’s “normal” life that is causing tension or makes the protagonist feel that something important is lacking. In “A&P,” the narrator feels that he is “better” than the people he works with, and he’s “stuck” in this job, while Ishmael feels that he is drifting without purpose in his life.
Whatever it is that makes the ordinary world feel less than ideal helps make the protagonist more susceptible to the power of the inciting incident. After all, if Romeo and Juliet were both happily married, they might share more than a casual glance at each other, but they’d never end up whispering sweet nothings from a balcony.
Whether you’re writing short stories or a novel, take a look at the early pages and see what gets the story moving forward. Again, as Barth mentions, characters exist in their ordinary or normal world, and then, “one day,” something happens that cracks open the door and may result in changing everything. That’s the inciting incident.