That Writing Term You Don't Know Yet

You might already have a good story, and even a great way to tell it, but I realized that some of you might not know that people already have certain commonly agreed terms on what to call what you are doing, and since I know how much you hate to g00gle, I'll g00gle them for you :)

First and foremost, the second most important because no terms dare to claim to be more important--

The Inciting Incident

Before I tell you why it is the most important for online fiction, and no, it's not because our editors only require the first 5000 words of your story to make an offer, let me tell you what g00gle thinks it is:

“What Is an Inciting Incident in Writing? The inciting incident of a story is the event that sets the main character or characters on the journey that will occupy them throughout the narrative. Typically, this incident will upset the balance within the main character's world.”

From the website: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/writing-101-what-is-an-inciting-incident-learn-how-to-use-inciting-incident-in-writing-with-tips-and-examples

(PS, this is a site you might want to stop by)

Before we get into the definition, let's first establish the most basic, hidden line here, in case you missed it: the inciting incident is the opening of your story. It's what starts the story, what launched it, and what makes the whole story happen. It's the core reason why and how and when and where and whoever happened happened, and most importantly, it's what your readers see first when they are brought into the story.

In short, the inciting incident is the starting point, in every sense of the work. Especially with online fiction, they are the free part that you get to present to the readers without pressure given to them and for them to judge whether they want to dig in. So I hope it's clear now how important this part is.

Now, let's look at the definition. Several crucial infos are in this simple definition: 

1 It sets the characters on the journey

2 the journey will occupy them throughout the narrative

3 this incident upset the balance within the character's world.

Let me spell them out for you in case these are still not clear enough.

When an event sets the characters on the journey of the book, it means that whatever happened next (hopefully the core conflict of your story, the theme of the story, and the main body of your story) happened because of this event.

The inciting incident is a trigger.

So don't start your story with an ordinary morning when your main character was eight and heard the wisest line they ever got from their grandpa that influenced their whole life, and then jump to "ten years later" because that line didn't set the story. It was one of the things that made your character into who they are ten years later.

Start your story where the story started. I know this is a useless line if you look into it, but I actually have to say that a lot of times when my writers just can't seem to be able to drop any little details of the past of their character because every day of the character's life seemed so important and inseparable from where they are at the beginning of the book.

Now that you know what an inciting incident is, the third rule helps a lot on how to choose the best inciting incident for your story:

Let me repeat it again:

3 this incident upset the balance within the character's world.

This inciting incident tipped the character's world, a little or a lot, and their world changed. So don't start your book with chapter one depicting an "ordinary day" of your character's life, and end it with "this is how my life has been so far, and I wish I can change it". I understand that you want to set their emotion of longing for a change before you present the change, but this voids your chapter one, and gives your story a slow pace.

I'm not saying that it would never ever work in a million years, but why use the readers' patience when you can lure them in with more effective content?

Let's end with an example:

We have a contest on, so let's use one of the themes. Here is the contest if you don't know about it yet (https://www.goodnovel.com/contests/remorse-revenge-redemption) and participate!

I'm asked a lot about the third theme (rejection), so let's look at this one.

FL and ML are required to be married for some time and have to get a divorce within 5 chapters, only for the ML to regret and realize how precious FL has been and tries to get her back.

Simple, right?

Now you have several options for your inciting incident in such a story:

1 Their wedding day.

2 A day from two years ago when FL realized their marriage was dead.

3 The day they got divorced.

I'm sure you will try to avoid option 2 after you read what I wrote above, but how many of you went for the wedding day? (Don't try to trick me, I have got outlines from writers using exactly that idea!)

I'm sure the wedding day is a HUGE event, and is actually highly related to what's gonna happen next: a divorce. But here is why it's not a good option: the wedding day changed their life when it happened, but then five years happened after that before your story happened, which makes the wedding day not a trigger of what happened, but just one point of their past.

Think about how dramatic you can make your first chapter be if you choose option 3:

Your FL preparing a nice anniversary dinner for her beloved husband because he was everything she ever wanted since she was a little girl, but because she tried to please him too hard she lost her self in the process, and he couldn't see the interesting soul she has because he could only see himself in her eyes, so right before she could get him to the fancy dinner table, he pulled out the signed divorce paper and gives them to her with a tired look.

The end of the chapter? Your FL hesitated for a long time before she gathered all her courage and mumbled: "I heard that she is back." ML looked shocked before he frowned and stormed out.

The funny thing is, even option two can be better than option one. But that would involve a higher level of design (like, she realized the marriage is dead, and has been having an affair this whole time), and it's story for another day.

Let me know if this helps, and let me know if you have something in your mind that you want to know in comments.

Like always

XOXO

TBC...