The Inciting Incident: How to Fire Up Your Story's Conflict (Writing Advice)

Learn how to write an inciting incident--with examples from Star Wars, John Wick, Jurassic Park, and more!

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The Anatomy of Story REVIEW:

Save the Cat Writes a Novel REVIEW:
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[agentbullwinkle]

This cures my writer's block. I thought my inciting incident was X because it kicks off the plot, but it's Y that kicks off the main conflict

[brandonbuchner]

My favorite inciting incident...Finding Nemo. For me, what makes it so good is the opening hook sets Marlin up to understandably be an overly paranoid overprotective father and the inciting incident is literally his worst fears realized as his kid is kidnapped and taken to a place he literally can't even go.

[Seenospidey]

So the inciting indecent in two of my favorite movies would be:

1: Buzz Lightyear arriving in Andy’s room

2: Mr incredible listening to Mirages message

[jkta]

One of my favorite inciting incidents is from Kurosawa's film "Stray Dog" where the protagonist, a newly promoted homicide detective, gets his gun stolen while riding a bus. Unlike a lot of other inciting incidents, it happens right at the start of the film, but it really effectively sets the tone of the film.

[epicmotorcyclechannel]

Somehow I never get tired of you using "somehow".

[WilliamReginaldLucas]

I know I go on about Game of Thrones a lot but I think it’s clever how the inciting incident for most of the initial conflict is (spoilers) the death of Jon Arryn, but this happens before the story even starts, I think the true on-page inciting incident is Bran being thrown out the window, especially as this takes away his ability to walk and leads him down a path of magical discovery.

[Iron-Bridge]

Stephen King's The Mist. The opening hook is the storm that brings down the tree into the protagonist"s garden. The Inciting incident is getting trapped in the mall with the other people in just as the mist envelopes the town. That really kick starts the story.

[lonjohnson]

Eventually, I would love to see a playlist that goes from Hook to Dénouement.

[AnujChatterjee-qb]

One of my most favourite inciting incidents is from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and it interestingly obeys every point you made.

1) We see the everyday life of Puss. He is going from town to town and party to party. "Who is your favourite fearless hero ?"He fights the henchmen of the city Mayor and then fights a giant monster. This shows his everyday life as a heroic outlaw.

2) Then we are introduced to the conflict. Puss has lost 8 of his lives and is down to his last. The village doctor suggests him to retire but Puss ignores it and goes to a bar to have drinks.

3) The conflict gets started by a Wolf, the physical embodiment of Death. One of the best DreamWorks villains and cinematic villains too. We see how Puss who took down a giant monster is unable to fight Death. Anyways, Death manages to bleed Puss (who had never been touched by a blade).

4) Then we get Puss's internal conflicts. He starts fearing about his life and makes the choice to retire and be a lap cat of Mama Luna.

5) Then this conflict gets resolved at the end of the movie. Puss values his last life and instead of running away stands his ground against Death. Death no more sees in Puss, the reckless and arrogant legend who took his lives for granted. He lets Puss live his last life but before leaving tells him that he will meet again. To which Puss replies in Spanish "Yes, to Death".

[jimjo]

The Big Lebowski. They peed on his rug, man.

[markdrejza]

My favorite inciting event is in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The scene where Roy Neary is lost at a railroad crossing and the UFO spotlights his truck…which creates the psychic connection that compels him to travel at all costs to the destination where the UFO mothership will land.

[Stephen_The_Waxing_Lyricist]

The inciting incident for Knives out is Benoit asking the nurse a question about the murder, and plot point 1 is her answering the question. The beauty of that is there is an entire flashback scene between the question and answer, which really adds a lot of weight to it

[mr.graves]

My favorite inciting incident comes from Dean Koontz Frankenstein series, the really begins when the two detectives come across a new murder victim that's not human (two hearts, extra or enhanced body parts or even thicker bones) and one of the detectives goes to the victim's apartment and while investigating is brought face to face with the original monster, only in this particular series it's Victor Frankenstein who's creating more enhanced humans to slowly make the world in his ideals of perfection that the two detectives are thrust into along with Deucalion (the original monster). Great read if you're interested in horror mysteries.

[mattbilyeu]

I liked the video, you've got a great speaking style.

I'm sure you already know your audience, but I thought I might provide some helpful "meta" feedback for the sorts of people who find and follow your channel.

I'm neither a writer nor an aspiring writer. My guess is that your channel was recommended to me because I've watched lots of other videos that are about technical analysis of movies/shows. I really enjoy story and I feel that I enjoy story better when I have a better grasp of what's going on and what the author/director/whomever is trying to do.

I like this channel because you use examples to make your points from movies and shows, and in doing so you wind up providing a sort of technical analysis of those things. I came into your channel through the "good/bad" series, and in that series you do a really good job of explaining *exactly* what line of dialogue or part of the scene related to the point you were making.


I should also say, I don't mind at all that I'm not your target audience and it seems it would be a mistake to lose focus on providing helpful writing advice for aspiring writers as your primary audience. I'm just suggesting a way that your videos might appeal to a broader audience.

I haven't been on your Patreon (assuming you have one but I don't see a link?), but I'd expect your target audience to be more apt to sign up for webinars with live Q&A after or workshops. People in the demographic like me would be more apt to buy your book but not necessarily join a community or webinar.

On that note, I'm surprised you don't talk more about your own writing on the channel? This is a talk about inciting incidents and, generally speaking, inciting incidents happen so early that telling the inciting incident is spoiler-free. You could throw in a line like, "In one of my books, 'The Half Murders', the inciting incident is X. It works because of Y. If you're interested in that book, I'll include a link in the description below, " and then move on. Perhaps because books are written and this is a visual media? ChatGPT can make some pretty amazing photorealistic images to depict scenes that you could show during a line like that.

Anyway, for what it's worth, thought the feedback might be helpful.

[BodyTrust]

In Alien, when John Hurt gets plastered in the face by the baby alien, that set me on edge throughout the film, right to the very end.

[LordBaktor]

The inciting incident that lead to two young boys burning down their house on the 3rd of October, 1911 is my favorite. It's messed up, it has thematic significance, philosophical depth and it makes perfect sense that two young kids would try something like that given their situation.

[thepiratemongoose]

One of my favorites is from the Battlestar Galactica opening miniseries: the Cylon attack/fall of the Colonies. Honestly, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a better 3 hours of television.

[HumanAki]

My favorite definition of "Inciting Incident" is that it's either a Threat or Chance for the Protag, in terms of their Character Arc! It upsets the status-quo and gives the Protag the chance to decide whether to jump into Act 2 or have that "refusal of the call" moment; which is a beat that is by no means necessary for every character!

[Augustus]

I like this very much. Sometimes I will mildly disagree on a point or two, but this is pure gold. In my own novel, the protagonist witnesses a murder after a job interview. This upsets their life. Then halfway through the first act, they get pushed through the door of no return. Good stuff, Brandon. Thank you.

[caedrewan]

always interesting to map the contents of your videos onto my own work - at the moment, I feel like my hook, inciting incident, and choice follow each other in quick succession. Bing bang boom