One of the most important lessons I've learnt as a professional author is this:
Every good story starts with an “Inciting Incident”.
This is true in movies, books, TED talks, TV shows.
And in real life too.
1 - Life is going like this:
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2 - And we all assume the trend will continue.
Like this:
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3 - But then something big happens
💥 Kappow 💥
… and life shoots off in a new direction, like this:
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👎👎👎??? 👍👍👍👍 ... 🚀
4 - And then, after a while, it reverts to this:
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- In Die Hard, the inciting incident occurs when 💥 terrorists invade the Nakatomi Plaza💥.
- In Finding Nemo, it's when 💥Nemo is taken by the divers💥
The inciting incident doesn't always happen on page 1 of a script or novel, there's usually a bit of set-up and context-setting first.
Remember Brie - my big cheese 🧀 client whose team grew from 30-300+ people?
Here's the start of her story:
- after years of constant growth, accolades and success (context)
- 💥 she suddenly realised there weren’t enough hours in the day to do her job💥, (inciting incident), and that,
- unless she did something different, everything she’d built would collapse.
Remember that saying about straw and camels and broken backs?
That's what had happened to Brie.
Hope you're having fun! Hit reply ... say hello!
Clarke