Author: Robin Riback
This article was inspired by “The Writer’s Block” on Twitter X’s Spaces, where we have rich and meaningful conversations about the writing process. During recent discussions, we learned that a compelling story starts with an important scene and that vignette spawns various consequences, also known as the ripple effect.
Definitions
The inciting incident is the narrative’s first significant event, and this scene is a force that drives the ripple effect defined as — the many consequences triggered by the inciting incident.
A Real-Life Inciting Incident
To better understand the nature of a story’s inciting incident and its ripple effect, let’s first
consider a real-life example: Do you ever think about a past event and wonder where or who you would be today if it hadn’t happened?
Let’s suppose that today, you’re married and live on a farm in Montana. What if twelve years ago you were sick with flu and you couldn’t go to your friend’s housewarming party where you met your spouse.
Would you be single today, or would you be with someone else?
Would you live in Montana where you both moved to raise chickens and breed horses, or would you still live in your home state in a small house?
Would you hold the beliefs you and your spouse share today?
Would you look the same as you do now?
Your friend’s very important housewarming party is an inciting incident and the implications of not attending the event make for an interesting alternate-history ripple effect. In real life, the past can’t change but we writers do have the ability and the power to write and recreate a fictional narrative.
What Is Wrong with Your Story?
When a story is boring and confusing, the problem is often its inciting incident. The events in the first chapters may be disorganized, or maybe that “big scene” doesn’t even exist. If this is the case, then the rest of your narrative will lack direction, purpose, and focus.
Here’s how to diagnose a weak or missing inciting incident:
Re-read the first few pages of your story, then consider these 3 questions:
1. Does nothing of importance happen?
2. Is the scenery cluttered with irrelevant and confusing details?
3. Do the characters speak with no purpose and move around aimlessly?
If you answered YES to any of the questions, your story likely lacks a proper inciting
incident.
To create a powerful, tension-infused inciting incident, you need to understand why you wrote the story in the first place. A story’s purpose is its why, and its why is the theme.
Maybe your theme is one of these six common subjects:
1. Courage
2. Good vs evil
3. Love
4. Redemption
5. Revenge
6. Truth
Knowing your story’s why is to understand it purpose and intent. Gaining clarity about purpose and intent will help you write a powerful inciting incident.
How to Write a Powerful Theme-Based Inciting Incident
Kick-start your story with its theme. Write a pivotal scene that will affect your characters
throughout the story. Let’s suppose you are bothered by deception and so you want to write a novel or short story about truth.
You can begin the story with an inciting scene where someone tells a lie. An introduction to the main characters through vivid narration and strong dialog in a scene that involves a life--
changing deception will hook your reader.
Sample truth-themed inciting incident --
“Desa returned home, grocery bags balanced in her arms. She was horrified to walk into
an empty house. The furniture was gone, and hooks dangled where paintings hung three
hours ago. She screamed. After hearing her distress, Eli, her new neighbor, ran across the
street to knock on the door.”
Through rapid dialog, the reader learns Eli had been gardening out back, so he didn’t see
Desa’s roommate, Jenna, move out, stealing her belongings. He was washing his shovel
in the mud room when he heard screams. Eli comforts Desa’s with his wisdom and kind
words.
This mystery/romance begins with an inciting incident that will fuel a ripple effect.
How to Create the Ripple Effect
Throw a rock in a calm lake, and you will see its ripple effect. Concentric circles fan out across the water, creating a pattern of hoops that expand outward.
A well-written inciting incident is the tossed pebble, and its ripple effect is the cascade of events that you carefully weave throughout the story. A successful ripple effect flows outward just like those watery rings that echo from a thrown stone. When its events are logically placed, the ripple effect drives a story to its ending.
Sample ripple effect
Chapter 1 The inciting incident -->
Chapter 2 Desa and Eli fall in love, but Desa has an odd feeling when Eli insists they find roommate, Jenna, without help from the corrupt local police ~~
(Ch. 3 includes a world-building atmosphere and introduces Desa’s dying mother)
Ch. 4 Desa hasn’t told her mother about Jenna and the missing possessions. She finally reveals that her grandmother’s ring was stolen along with everything else ~~
(Ch. 5-7 character dev. + subplot A)
Ch. 8 Desa and Eli go on a stress-relieving trip to a resort, where she finds her missing passport in Eli’s luggage ~~
(Ch 9-10 world building, character dev. + subplot B)
Ch 11. Desa and Eli get engaged! Eli’s friend introduces herself to Desa. The friend is wearing a ring that appears to be the family heirloom~~
(Ch 12-14 Resolve subplot A. Subplot B intensifies)
Ch. 15. In the basement of their new home, Desa finds a box, and within is a recent snapshot of Eli with former roommate Jenna together at the resort~~
(Ch 16-22. The mystery deepens as readers follow Desa’s quest for truth. Subplot B resolves)
Ch 23. Desa discovers The Truth: Eli and Jenna are con artists~~
The Inciting Incident and its Ripple Effect
The analogy: Throw a stone in a lake. The result is a series of concentric loops:
The reality: Hook your reader with an inciting incident, then create its ripple effect of well-placed consequences and outcomes -->
Delight your reader until-->
The End.
Guest Blogger
We hope you enjoyed learning about writing inciting incidents.
Article written by Robin Riback September 2024
Robin Riback is a writer who lives in New York City. For info about her upcoming novel, a sci-fi thriller about the secret to our universe, email her at info@robinriback.com -- Type INTERESTED in the subject line and put your name in the email if you wish.
You can find Robin Riback in these other locations.
Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/robin.riback
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