In discussing the inciting incident last Friday, I mentioned it’s not really the same thing as the first plot point (although it can be), but I didn’t actually go into what the first plot point is. That is today’s topic.
If you recall, my fellows, the inciting incident will usually occur somewhere between page 30 and 50 in a 90,000-word novel. (If it occurs sooner, it is called a hook, BTW. I neglected to go into that.) The inciting incident is the first sign of trouble, the first call to adventure (for the Joseph Campbell fans among us), but the hero will usually try to deal with the inciting incident quickly and get it out of his hair so he can go back to life as usual.
Life as usual. That’s important. When faced with a disturbance in “emotional equilibrium” (kudos to John Jack for that lovely phrase), people will usually try to restore that equilibrium, that state of comfort. They usually do NOT gladly go charging into danger, especially when hearth and home remain behind them and their inner demons lay ahead.
That’s where the first plot point comes in. This is the event that will drag the hero most unwillingly through the ONE-WAY door from Act I to Act II. After this event, there is no going back. There is no ignoring the dangers ahead, no quick-fix. The glimpse of trouble that was the inciting incident is now a large looming danger that transforms the hero’s understanding of the situation and requires him to change tactics drastically. If the hero refuses to respond to the call now, all will most certainly be lost. This is the point at which he realizes that.
I mentioned on Friday that the first plot point usually occurs at about the 20-25% mark in the story. Why so late? Because we have to establish the stakes we are going to endanger before we threaten them. It’s one thing to find out that there is a sea monster eating ships in the Atlantic. It’s another thing to find that out after learning that the hero’s baby sister is a scientist on a research vessel in the area where the sea monster was last seen. Introduce the stakes after the first plot point, and they will usually seem like a hasty afterthought, pasted in during revisions because the beta readers said they didn’t particularly care about the story or characters. These stakes can evolve and escalate during Act II, but we need to go into the act with readers already worried about what’s already at stake.
I’ll pause a moment to note that the set-up to the inciting incident and the first plot point might ‘just’ be establishing character and stakes, but that does not mean these scenes should be a boring diary of daily life bereft of tension and conflict. Mundane life always has its challenges. Especially in paranormal fiction, it’s mundane life rolling on in the background that lends an additional layer of urgency to the problems at hand. It’s not just the world at stake. It’s the people and things in the world that the hero cannot live without. Everyday problems should definitely complicate our supernatural ones, and vice versa.
Now back to our regularly scheduled topic. I should also mention that the first plot point is the introduction of the antagonist. The inciting incident might have involved a problem caused by the antagonist or his minions, but from a distance or in a less than full frontal assault context. The inciting incident does not seem like a direct threat at the time, because the hero’s understanding of the larger conflict and the antagonist force is incomplete. By the time he gets to the first plot point, he gets smacked in the face by the realization that the problem is not what he thought it was and there’s someone very powerful, with opposing goals, standing between him and the resolution to the crisis.
The first plot point has been called the most important even in the story. There’s no denying that without it, there is no story, at least not one that can sustain suspension of disbelief. Without this event, the hero will remain happily in Act I, like any of us would. Danger will always be something that is happening in the next town over, never endangering the Shire or the last human city of Zion.
The first plot point is when we bring the main conflict home.
More thoughts on the first plot point, my fellows?
*clap clap clap* Love these posts! I think your description was spot-on. It's The Point of No Return.
ReplyDeleteWell, what if the character is already in danger, they live in danger, and danger is their norm? :)
ReplyDeleteFor instance, my main character in the Chasing Series, Carmine, has been living in danger since eight. He's twelve now. The opening of the book is a fight between him and a sandworm. He fights with a guy on the train. He sword fights with an angel...
It's never peaceful with him until /after/ those things, and only long enough for him to look at a map.
It was something I was questioning on Friday, and am still confused on today. If the book doesn't start slow, how can it follow that formula?
Yep, well put. The end of act I should be the point when the hero has been catapulted into trouble they can't get out of, and don't yet know how to respond to. Hehe, I love that part.
ReplyDeleteHi, Steph! *bows* :)
ReplyDeleteHi, Sierra. Okay, his life is always dangerous. The question for you then is why start the story at the point you do? What makes the current situation different from his usual danger? I suspect you have at least some of this structure in there, but you've never thought about it as structure or in this language. It would help if you stopped thinking of it as a formula. It's not that simple.
Heya, LG! Another great way to put it!
"the hero will remain happily in Act I"
ReplyDeletelol This made me think of Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden or a baby in the womb. Why go out there? It's hard.
Nice post.
Margo - Well, originally it started in a train station, but no one liked that idea and said it was too boring and needed action. So I threw in him obtaining one of the items he's been looking for and they liked it.
ReplyDeleteIt's not different from his usual danger. It is his usual danger. It's his life.
I don't really write with structure past a "I know what I want here and here", I write with what feels right. If I start to get that :\ feeling, I stop and usually start over from where I started going :|
That's the only sorta structure I have. XD
Hm. Now I think I was right the first time on what the inciting event was, and then the other thing that might've been it is the first plot point.
ReplyDelete*confused*
This is why I don't formalize my story structures. *sighs* So please excuse me if I'm quiet for however long you continue this series.
Hi, Donna. Yeah, that's exactly it. Me, want to run around in the rain and the mud and the blood and the freezing cold fighting some ancient evil that wants to devour my soul, when I could be perfectly safe at home having a hot meal before getting into my comfortable bed with my loving spouse? The trick, of course, is to make it utterly clear to the hero that if he stays, that ancient evil is going to kill his wife, burn down his house, and eat his dinner.
ReplyDeleteHi, Sierra. So, again, why start the story when you did? How would the story be different if you had started it a year earlier or five years later in the hero's life?
Hi, Carradee. Yeah, is cool, mon. :) Although it never hurts to try to learn something we find confusing. Can always decide later that it's not what we're looking for, after we understand it. I highly recommend storyfix.com if you want a crash course. A lot of this comes from Larry Brooks (of storyfix.com) and James Scott Bell, which reminds me I still need to check out the website for the latter and see what he's got up.
I should also mention to those who don't usually use any kind of intentional story structure, it might be hard trying to understand these structural landmarks by trying to find them in something you have already written. They might not be there, might be in a different order, might be in different places. It might be easier trying to look at them from a purely theoretical standpoint to start, without trying to retroactively apply it to events you have already ordered.
ReplyDeleteMargo - A year earlier, it would have been a prequel then, of him collecting the items, and not the story of the great war that happened around the thirteenth item and the opening of the gate and Nanyael and all that mess. Which is a precursor to all the mess that happens afterward in the other books.
ReplyDeleteAnd five years is sorta peaceful. There's no story there. Yet.
Hi, Sierra. So it doesn't just sound like the story of his daily life. There's a great war and a gate opening, which I assume are very important events. Something triggered these things happening now rather than five years earlier or five years later. Your inciting incident is somewhere in there, in 'why now and not later?'.
ReplyDeleteMichael and I are both big structure fans (he may be a pantser, but he comes from a theatre background). However, we have four viewpoint characters, so we have an "overall" arc, but also replicate the structure for the four individuals, who could be seen as responding to different inciting incidents, etc.
ReplyDeleteOur major deviation from this structure is that one of our main characters *creates* the inciting incident by making a panic decision. The first plot point is actually a lot more subtle. It is about 1/4 of the way through the novel, but it's a point where each character realises-- without a lot of fanfare-- that the power dynamics in their world have turned inside-out.
Hi there! New follower.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat tangentially related, this part of your post stuck out to me:
Especially in paranormal fiction, it’s mundane life rolling on in the background that lends an additional layer of urgency to the problems at hand. It’s not just the world at stake. It’s the people and things in the world that the hero cannot live without. Everyday problems should definitely complicate our supernatural ones, and vice versa.
I think you put your finger on something I've been trying to articulate for a while. I've spent the past few years trying to define paranormal fiction/urban fantasy in my head and on paper (part of my graduate studies involved this!) and this is a perfect example of how the structure of the plot AND the world really make paranormal fiction what it is. I think the everyday life aspect is what appeals so much to a lot of readers.
Hi, SB. Wow, sounds like you and Michael have woven all this together very nicely. I especially like the fact that one character incites the inciting incident for himself. The character as complication!
ReplyDeleteHi, Vivien. Welcome! You graduate studies sound more entertaining than mine were. :) I've heard a lot of people say they like paranormal fiction because it brings out the magic that could be hidden in the mundane world. However, I think having the mundane still play an important role is helpful for keeping the story just grounded enough not to lose the contemporary fantasy reader who values the contemporary at least as much as the fantasy.
I'm definitely one of those readers. I like the messy personal stuff (when it's done well) often more than the magical stuff. My inciting incidents (and really, all parts of my plot) tend to be of the relatively mundane order, or a combination of mundane and magical.
ReplyDeleteIn my WIP, the biggest point of no return really happens toward the end of the book, but this is meant to be a multi-book series. This first book is very much a coming-of-age story, in its way, so getting them to the point where they're even willing to accept the point of no return (I prefer that my characters make this decision for themselves) requires a lot of growth.
Several of my writing mentors have stated, three hundred sixty-five days in a year, the one that's different is the one to write about. All the rest are all the same. It is a life-defining, larger-than-life day.
ReplyDeleteReading the above posts, the term realize is a constant descriptor for the first plot point. It is a crisis too, the crisis turn, major reversal, major discovery when a protagonist realizes the full ramifications of a central complication building from the inciting incident crisis. Though frankly, I see several plot points, milestones, if you will, intervening priorly. The second major plot point, the second major turn, okay.
Hi, Vivien. Yeah, it makes sense to have another point of no return late in the book - the second plot point (or thereabouts). There all-hope-is-lost moment when it seems the hero has lost, more to his own inner demons than anything else.
ReplyDeleteHi, John Jack. I can always count on you for good quotes. "...major discovery when a protagonist realizes the full ramifications of a central complication building from the inciting incident crisis." Nice.
Very nicely put indeed, John Jack. Certainly more eloquent than what was in my head (the "oh crap" moment).
ReplyDeleteWow. I don't use any kind of formula for structure, but my inciting incident/first plot point ended up almost exactly where you say they should (I checked). Weird.
ReplyDeleteBut does it count if one of the main characters knew what was coming all along? I guess he's kind of the equivalent of The Mentor, though, so maybe it's okay...
Hi, Will. Some people do pick up on this structure instinctively. It's been around so long it really is part of our collective conscious.
ReplyDeleteBUT can I suggest **structural archetype** instead of 'formula'? I see a knee-jerk reaction from some people calling it a formula so they can justify not learning anything about structure, *any* structure, *ever*. Formula = formulaic = shallow, bad, derivitive writing = it's okay if I ignore it = when I get rejected it's because agents/publishers/readers are evil.
LOL @ Vivien. I'm with you. I would have said Oh Crap Moment, if only because I know John Jack will come through later and make the idea presentable to polite company.
ReplyDeleteExcellent breakdown, Margo!
ReplyDeleteI need to think about this more in my own novel, because the internal struggle is more of a the main plotline than the external struggle, which comes much later.
Thanks!
Margo: "Although it never hurts to try to learn something we find confusing."
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it doesn't, and this probably makes the 20th time or more that I've sat down and tried to comprehend someone's explanation. I get the reasons for identifying your structure and using it, but I can't parse it out to be able to identify it or use it myself.
It'll probably "click" one of these years. I understood the reasons for grammar rules and could quote them to you all through school, but it wasn't until I was about 13 that it "clicked" and I could finally apply them.
*realizes* Wow, I just realized that I have a pattern of it taking about 7 years of studying the theory of something before it "clicks" for me and I can apply it.
Hi, Carradee. That was tension for me. I didn't get that for awhile. The first couple of times it was like gibberish. It might have been a matter of getting in the right head space, learning other supporting theories that prepared the way for me to finally 'get' tension. Then, once I got it, I realized there were some deeper inner workings to it that opened up after that initial flash of enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteHi, Matthew. Oh gosh, I don't know if that really sounds like something you need to work on. The opposite is the problem I usually see. The internal conflict is the best part.
ReplyDeleteNo, I think you summed it up very well. The part about the hero not being willing (at first) to dive into their troubles is key. It really helps build strong characterization when characters change. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI wrote something similar to this a few weeks ago here: http://www.thebooklantern.com/2011/03/inciting-incident.html
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how we naturally write plot points without realizing it. Even writers who are terribly anti-structure manage to include structure in their work unintentionally. By the way, new follower here. I'm androidblues over on Bransforums.
Hey there, fellow Bransforumer! Yes, I agree. It's a rare person who doesn't at least unintentionally get some of the classic structure in there. It was old when Aristotle wrote about it. Thousands of years of literature steeped in a basic archetypal essence. Could our subconscious get away from it even if we tried? I doubt it. But most writers don't come naturally to an understanding of the complete structure. Just pointing out these points exist can be enough of an aha moment for some. Others will have to study deeper to see the moving parts.
ReplyDelete"It's filled with stars..."
:)