Inciting incident

Every story begins the same way. Once upon a time, in such and such a place, something happened. That something is the inciting incident, and it’s the moment a story actually starts.

But it has to do two jobs at once, and most people only remember the first.

It’s the moment the story leans in and says, this is what you want now.

Screenwriting lore loves the big bang, the car crash, the phone call in the night, but plenty of great stories start with barely a ripple. Fawlty Towers doesn’t begin with a catastrophe; it begins with a guest Basil doesn’t like. An inciting incident can be the first crack that lets the daylight in. At its simplest, it’s just the first important choice your protagonist makes.

Which points to what really gets a story moving. The incident poses a question, the what: what’s the problem? But nothing happens until the protagonist answers with a how: this is what I’m going to do about it.

Most weak content states a problem and stops there, waiting for the audience to care. They won’t, until somebody chooses to act.

The desire the incident awakens doesn’t always have to fire immediately. Sometimes the spark is lit early and the real commitment comes later. Thelma and Louise are already on the run before a single patronising phone call from Thelma’s husband makes Thelma truly commit to the journey. If you’re telling a story across several pieces of content, you can plant the disturbance in one and trigger the decision in the next.