1. When should the inciting incident occur?
2. The psychology of change and disruption
3. The inciting incident in one example

Also called the turning point, the curtain, the uh-oh moment, and the ignition point, among other names, it refers to the moment within a story when change occurs.

This is not just a superficial change, but an event or series of events that kick off the entire story’s development. It introduces conflict and, with it, opens up the critical question: What will happen now?

An inciting incident has, therefore, the consequences of a devastating eruption (which is what literally happens in the terrible movie Volcano). This event shakes the foundations of the protagonist’s world and forces the character(s) into a position where the “old ways” of dealing with the world are no longer useful. A new era of challenges and life-changing decisions has begun.

When should the inciting incident occur?

Story structure plays a significant role in the fact that stories engage us in irrational ways, taking us on emotional journeys filled with ups and downs. Since Ancient Greece, theorists have tried to explain the underlying structure that makes this possible.

The simplest way to structure a story is in three acts. In fact, it is so effective that it is the formula many mainstream movies, shows, books, and other fiction utilize. Act one sets up the story, act two develops a confrontation between two antagonistic forces, and act three resolves the conflict. In this type of structure, the inciting incident is usually located at the end of the first act.

In any first act, a world is presented to us. We get to know its characters, what rules govern it, and what “normal” means to those who inhabit it. There is usually one or a couple of main characters. They follow a common, plausible life, at least for the standards of that specific world. Everything is business as usual. That is until something unexpected happens.

This is the first moment of drama. Everything that will follow in acts two and three is a response to what has happened to those characters. Things can’t go back to how they were, and so the story will be one of change.

In a simple story like Spiderman’s origin story, the inciting incident occurs when the radioactive spider bites Peter Parker. Things change forever for him, turning him from a regular teenager into someone capable of superhuman abilities. What he does with these powers is what makes up the body of the story.

The following infographic shows a simple first act structure and the location of the inciting incident.

When it comes to straightforward stories, the inciting incident is quite easy to detect. However, not every story has such an obvious “uh-oh” moment and a story may have more than one moment with a similar effect to the one of the inciting incident. What does that mean?

According to John Yorke in his book Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them, the inciting incident is a structural narrative element that can be present in different moments. Because of its power to set a plot in motion, it can also appear within acts, as part of a cause-effect situation.

Depending on its length and complexity, a story can have different arcs, where the narrative structure repeats itself. Even in short dramatic scenes, there is a micro act structure with micro inciting incidents.

What this means is that what we call the inciting incident plays a function that is not unique to the first act. We can use and re-use the effect of the inciting incident in characters and the audience throughout our stories, in different moments, to mobilize them in a dramatic way.

All crisis points, like all choices, are invitations to venture into a different world. The inciting incident is merely the first invitation. But not only does this invitation occur across an overarching story and within acts; the fractal pattern continues and is replicated within the basic building blocks of drama — in the microstructure of scenes.

John Yorke, Into the woods: How stories work and why we tell them

This opens questions about what exactly happens in our minds when we are faced with such events. Why is it that we find those moments engaging enough to feel immediately hooked by stories or situations?

The psychology of change and disruption

According to Will Storr in his book The Science of Storytelling, inciting incidents are effective because of how our brains model reality.

The brain works by generating models of what normal and real means to us. Because we rely on our senses to do that, this world’s perception is inevitably flawed and biased. However biased, our worldviews and beliefs are usually stable, which is why we tend to be against and fight back when they are challenged. This is what he calls the “theory of control”.

Our eyes are naturally attracted to movement. It’s involuntary. That is because change defies the theory of control, and captures the brain’s attention. Stories and storytellers use this to their advantage. They build a world that makes sense for their characters and present it to the audience as the truth. Eventually, strong change is introduced that challenges what the characters and we know to be real, effectively grabbing our attention and the character’s attention.

The characters we tend to meet at the start of a story are, like most of us, living just like this — in a state of naivety about how partial and warped their hallucination of reality has become. They’re wrong. They don’t know they’re wrong. But they’re about to find out…

Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling

An inciting incident comes to disrupt a set of beliefs of a character. In doing so, the story gives the protagonist no other choice but to face a completely new reality: One where their ways of acting are no longer adequate.

The inciting incident in one example

The outbreak of a contagious fungus disease that turns people into zombies; a semi-giant bearded man revealing that you are not a normal person, but a wizard; a small clown fish being captured by sea divers in front of his father… and their consequences: People having to fight for their lives and abandon all ethics; the wizard going to wizard school and facing his destiny; a father crossing the ocean to find his son. All of those are famous inciting incidents that everyone could recognize in a second or two. The effect of what just happened catapults the story.

Yesterday I rewatched one of my favorite movies, Princess Mononoke. In the beginning, we are introduced to our protagonist: Ashitaka. He is the prince of a humble and friendly village that lives in harmony with its surrounding nature. People are kind to each other and Ashitaka is beloved in his town. 

Apart from those little hints, the movie doesn’t stop much longer in the context and jumps quickly to the inciting incident instead:

Birds and animals have suddenly run away, the forest is quiet, and something is clearly wrong. Out of the blue, a huge monster appears. It’s covered by a strange bloody dark mantle of worm-like infection. The monster is aggressive, possessed by rage and it’s on its way to destroy the village.

Ashitaka, an amazing archer, fights the monster by throwing arrows at its eyes. In a moment, the mantle recedes just a bit and he (and we) discovers that the monster is, in fact, a giant boar and a forest god. It has been possessed by rage and turned into an uncontrollable demon.

While fighting the boar god, Ashitaka accidentally touches the mantle of bloody worms with his arm, and they attach to him like leeches. A few seconds later, Ashitaka manages to kill the boar, and the worms disappear revealing the body of the animal. In a couple of seconds, the god pronounces its last words before quickly decomposing: he hates humans.

While inspecting the body of the dead boar god, the village’s wise old woman finds an iron ball. The ball broke the boar’s insides and crushed its bones, causing it such immense pain and rage that it became a demon.

Ashitaka’s arm wound has left big marks and it’s revealed to be a deadly curse. The marks will spread, reaching his bones and killing him with terrible pain, just as they did to the god.

Ashitaka must embark on a journey to find the place where the boar god came from, understand what is the strange iron ball, how it ended up inside the boar, and maybe a way to undo the curse that otherwise will eat him alive.

And so, the story begins.

Later, the story of Princess Mononoke reveals to be not just about Ashitaka and his journey, but about humanity versus nature. We are, as Ashitaka is, invited to witness what is happening in other lands, where humans and nature are fighting to the death.

It is fascinating how an element like the inciting incident is as much for the characters as it is for the viewer to engage with a story. Our brains wouldn’t be hooked to a story if it didn’t present any change. Without disruption, there is no movement. And there is no disruption if we don’t know what normal used to look like. Context – Character – Regular life – Change – Boom! And that’s how drama is born.