The Inciting Incident...or 'when something happens'

NOTE: NEW audio format as well

Photo by Pedro Honn on Unsplash

This phrase—the “Inciting Incident”—pops up in working writers’ articles and in ideas of “process.” It’s a phrase that fiction writers have adopted from screenwriters.

We used to call it ‘when something happens…’ back when there was not quite so much jargon circulating.

Let’s clear up some misunderstanding about it, what it is and how it functions.

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Definition—What

Start with “When something happens,” and move on to the idea of the not-reversible in a story.