The inciting incident is the most important plot point of your story. This is what starts the chain reaction of events that make your story what it is. It is central to your plot, storyline and characters. If you are writing a standard 120 pages movie script, then this scene will appear between page 5 and page 15. If you happen to be writing a standard 85,000 word novel, then this scene will occur around the 4,000 or 5,000 word count. (Please note that there is no official set length for a novel. Your novel is finished when you end the story. 85,000 words are based off average word counts suggested by major publishers.)
The inciting incident occurs in part due to circumstances and in part due to your protagonist's behavior. In great movies, the event that spirals your character into the plot is not fortuitous. It is a very particular event that could only happen to your character and none others. Some times however, you may see a movie where the inciting incident is random or so general that it could happen to anyone. This is more common in slasher-type horror films. Although it works for some films like Rubber (A horror film about a truck tire that uses it's telepathy to make peoples' heads explode) I can't recommend this tactic. Audiences, for the most part, tend to feel much more satisfied when things aren't entirely left to chance-just a little is perfect!
In the movie and book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the inciting incident begins in the scene where the 12-year-old girl Primrose Everdeen is drawn for the Reaping. This is where it's acceptable to use a fatuitous approach. Her name was randomly drawn from a bowl full of names. (Of course this was the author's plan all along). The second part of the inciting incident is not fatuitous (meaning it's not left to chance or coincidence). Katniss Everdeen, Primrose's teenage older sister, volunteers to take her place. While Primrose's name was left to chance, Katniss's volunteering was a deliberate response determined by her character and behavior. The resulting offense triggers chaos in the Capitol as well as 3-Book, 4-Movie deal and a wad of cash in Suzanne Collins's bank account.
Another example of an Inciting Incident is in the book and movie Final Destination. In these series the inciting incident is always the premonition. For those of you unfamiliar, The Final Destination is a series of movies, novels and comic books based off of seemingly random people who have premonitions of fatal accidents. A group of people survives because of the protagonist's premonition while others are left to die. As the movie continues, the characters are killed off one-by-one in brutal, horrific and sometimes ironic and humorous (campy) ways. In the first few minutes, the audiences are introduced to a seemingly random group of people, then witness how they all meet their fate only to be revealed that it was just a vision and there's still time to survive. The moment when Kimberly saw the pile-up in Final Destination 2, or the moment when Sherry saw the cruise ship explode in Final Destination: Looks Could Kill, the protagonists and every character in the novels is thrown into the "meat" of the story.
While it's not necessarily a good idea to leave it entirely on chance, and better to leave it partly on chance and mostly on the character's reaction, there are some genres, which do not let anything fall on chance. One genre for example, is the mystery genre.
Mysteries, as do killers, leave nothing to chance. Everything is plotted and set up long before the book/movie usually begins. Whether the murder occurs at the very beginning like in The Body in the Library or at the end like in Gosford Park, nothing is left to chance in mysteries.
The next movie you watch, or the next book you read, try and spot the inciting incident. Every movie and book has one. Can you identify it? How does the writer portray the character's reaction? Does everyone react the same way? Please share your answers below. Tell us why you did or didn't like what you saw/read.
Shraddha Kapoor by naeemranjhaofficial
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7672070
The inciting incident occurs in part due to circumstances and in part due to your protagonist's behavior. In great movies, the event that spirals your character into the plot is not fortuitous. It is a very particular event that could only happen to your character and none others. Some times however, you may see a movie where the inciting incident is random or so general that it could happen to anyone. This is more common in slasher-type horror films. Although it works for some films like Rubber (A horror film about a truck tire that uses it's telepathy to make peoples' heads explode) I can't recommend this tactic. Audiences, for the most part, tend to feel much more satisfied when things aren't entirely left to chance-just a little is perfect!
In the movie and book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the inciting incident begins in the scene where the 12-year-old girl Primrose Everdeen is drawn for the Reaping. This is where it's acceptable to use a fatuitous approach. Her name was randomly drawn from a bowl full of names. (Of course this was the author's plan all along). The second part of the inciting incident is not fatuitous (meaning it's not left to chance or coincidence). Katniss Everdeen, Primrose's teenage older sister, volunteers to take her place. While Primrose's name was left to chance, Katniss's volunteering was a deliberate response determined by her character and behavior. The resulting offense triggers chaos in the Capitol as well as 3-Book, 4-Movie deal and a wad of cash in Suzanne Collins's bank account.
Another example of an Inciting Incident is in the book and movie Final Destination. In these series the inciting incident is always the premonition. For those of you unfamiliar, The Final Destination is a series of movies, novels and comic books based off of seemingly random people who have premonitions of fatal accidents. A group of people survives because of the protagonist's premonition while others are left to die. As the movie continues, the characters are killed off one-by-one in brutal, horrific and sometimes ironic and humorous (campy) ways. In the first few minutes, the audiences are introduced to a seemingly random group of people, then witness how they all meet their fate only to be revealed that it was just a vision and there's still time to survive. The moment when Kimberly saw the pile-up in Final Destination 2, or the moment when Sherry saw the cruise ship explode in Final Destination: Looks Could Kill, the protagonists and every character in the novels is thrown into the "meat" of the story.
While it's not necessarily a good idea to leave it entirely on chance, and better to leave it partly on chance and mostly on the character's reaction, there are some genres, which do not let anything fall on chance. One genre for example, is the mystery genre.
Mysteries, as do killers, leave nothing to chance. Everything is plotted and set up long before the book/movie usually begins. Whether the murder occurs at the very beginning like in The Body in the Library or at the end like in Gosford Park, nothing is left to chance in mysteries.
The next movie you watch, or the next book you read, try and spot the inciting incident. Every movie and book has one. Can you identify it? How does the writer portray the character's reaction? Does everyone react the same way? Please share your answers below. Tell us why you did or didn't like what you saw/read.
Shraddha Kapoor by naeemranjhaofficial
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7672070
