WRITING YOUR SCREENPLAY: INCITING INCIDENTS
Often it’s presented as a dot or a mark on a timeline.
When breaking down a story, there’s typically a point about ten percent of the way through labeled the “inciting incident,” the catalyst, the call to adventure…
This plot point has many names, but its purpose is to throw the protagonist(s) into their objective, which then heaves the story into motion.
Let’s start with a brief anecdote. One time we had a class of 2nd-graders visiting the WGF Library. During their visit, we broke down the story of Finding Nemo. We kept asking the class:
What does Marlon (the protagonist) need? What does he want? What must he achieve or fix?
Out came a myriad of responses. “To rescue his son!” “To get his son back!” “To travel through the ocean to get to Nemo!”
Finally, a no-nonsense, bespectacled kid raised his hand. “Can I say something?”
We’ll always remember what he said:
“FIND NEMO.”
Nemo has a thousand faces. Every protagonist, every character has one — a thing that means the very world to them… a thing that they must pursue or retrieve with every piece of will in their soul. (Hitchcock called it “the MacGuffin.”
The inciting incident, the catalyst, the starting event, then, is the moment that the world gets thrown off-balance. It’s the juncture where the protagonist loses Nemo and is presented with a course of action to get him back.
We sometimes like to call it “the ignition point.” Up until this point in the story, we’ve been sitting in a car, but nobody’s turned on the engine yet. This is where we rev the motor. Now, we travel. Now, we evade. Now, we pursue.
In this post, we’ll look at how some of the great screenwriters crafted their points of ignition. We’ll examine how these points look on the page rather sitting on a timeline…
If you’re looking to improve the point of ignition in your own screenplay, remember, a good inciting incident:
sets the character on a clear journey/pursuit.
makes the protagonist’s need clear beyond a doubt and establishes the stakes of what will happen if they don’t get it.
feels disruptive to the character’s status quo.
As always, if you’re looking for help or reference assistance, our e-mail library@wgfoundation.org is always open. While we can’t send PDFs of scripts, we can always advise about formatting as we do here.
Until next time! Happy writing!
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