lack of 'inciting incident'

Guys, some people find the 'Just write' advice just right, but remember that not everyone works the same way. Some people are pantsers and just spill whatever's in their soul until they're done, and others need a bit more structure to get from A to B.

Disclaiming the validity of the OP's question is kinda short changing her a little, don't you think?

It's just a name. The OP has a set up - now she needs a plot point to get going. Call it the inciting incident or Aunt Sally, without a plot the idea's not going anywhere.

James D. Macdonald said:

So, how to start the book? Do you know how the book ends? Who's standing there?

Okay, back up six months from whatever the final scene is. At the same location, have the same people wanting something. It can be as simple as looking for a pizza. So, get them looking for that pizza. Have something stop them from achieving that goal. Continue from that point.

The perfect opening may not appear until you're in second-draft territory.

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This is excellent advice. Like some of the others, I'm not sure about tying your world to the Mayan calendar thing, but you'll find out soon enough once you start writing it.

StephanieK said:

I completely agree with this. As cool as the premise of your story is, it needed to be done a few years ago in order to be relevent. If you simply tweak it, though, so that it's a fictional prediction, that problem is solved.

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Not really.

If magic started coming back on 12/12/12, no one may notice until sometime in 2017. First a trickle, then a stream ... and now a flood.

Kallithrix said:

Guys, some people find the 'Just write' advice just right, but remember that not everyone works the same way. Some people are pantsers and just spill whatever's in their soul until they're done, and others need a bit more structure to get from A to B.

Disclaiming the validity of the OP's question is kinda short changing her a little, don't you think?

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I think you've missed the point, Kallithrix. Whether the OP writes a detailed outline or ricochets from scene to scene, the take-away is that the necessity of an "inciting incident" is highly over-rated. "Once upon a time" will work as well as anything. If someone is paralysed by the thought that they need an "inciting incident" when what they have for an opening is a bunch of friends sitting around in a park BSing about a trip to the swimming hole last summer, well, start with the friends in the park.

In other words, it isn't helpful to force this thread onto the Procrustean bed of that other discussion happening in Roundtable about whether "Is 'Just Write It' ALWAYS Good Advice?"

BklynWriter said:

I thought I was writing an adult dystopian urban fantasy, but in turn it seems to be more of a YA dystopian urban fantasy. My premise is not that the Mayan calendar was incorrect, but that it was interperated incorrectly. Instead of the end of the world, it is the end of the world as we know it. Magic, held in dormancy for so long, has reawakened. Throughout time there have always been unexplained occurences, paranormal events; things that could not simply be explained away. It was magic. On December 21st, 2012, magic is coming back, and at the same time, technology, and the laws of physics as we know it, starts failing.
In a nutshell, this is the world I’ve built so far. I hav e a main character Camille, who has been warned this time was coming. She’s blown it off as the ramblings of a superstitious grandmother, but she is going to learn all superstitions have basis in fact. The grandmother is her mentor character (and a betrayer), even if she doesn’t know it yet. I’m having a hard time coming up with a plausible ‘inciting incident’ that would put Camille on the path to seek out her grandmother’s help, and eventually blaze her own path.
Any thoughts/suggestions?

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Start with the first time she is warned. She can blow it off, but then something happens (she observes something that can't be explained?) to cause her to doubt her position and seek her grandmother out.

If you have something to say, Kallithrix, say it in public.

James D. Macdonald said:

I think you've missed the point, Kallithrix. Whether the OP writes a detailed outline or ricochets from scene to scene, the take-away is that the necessity of an "inciting incident" is highly over-rated. "Once upon a time" will work as well as anything. If someone is paralysed by the thought that they need an "inciting incident" when what they have for an opening is a bunch of friends sitting around in a park BSing about a trip to the swimming hole last summer, well, start with the friends in the park.

In other words, it isn't helpful to force this thread onto the Procrustean bed of that other discussion happening in Roundtable about whether "Is 'Just Write It' ALWAYS Good Advice?"

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The way I see it, all stories have inciting incidents, but you don't necessarily have to have yours nailed down to start writing the story.

The OP can just throw the MC onto the path of seeking out her grandmother, and worry about the inciting incident later, if at all. If the character is well-developed, and the plot well-constructed(consciously or unconsciously), the inciting incident will arise naturally.

The "inciting incident" in your book may be something that an academic invented in a classroom a hundred years after your death.

James D. Macdonald said:

The "inciting incident" in your book may be something that an academic invented in a classroom a hundred years after your death.

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We can only hope to be so lucky.

So she sees auras. She must have seen one over this grandmother of hers, right?

So have her see the same aura over someone else, somewhere else, which looks identical to her grandmother's. Over the head of a little girl in a park. Or a serial killer on the evening news as he's walked into court. Or someone selling the latest cosmetic craze on an infomercial.

She seeks the person out; the aura is gone. MC is befuddled. Then gets a call that granny has left the assisted care apartment where she lives.

So many ways this sort of story can go. The world (of writing) is your oyster, so to speak, and if you sit down and write just one part, one incident, one 'event,' so to speak, this story might start flowing.

I'm having this trouble too. I have the all my major incidents laid out...I just can't seem to start the story correctly and now I wonder if they structure makes any sense.

BklynWriter said:

I thought I was writing an adult dystopian urban fantasy, but in turn it seems to be more of a YA dystopian urban fantasy. My premise is not that the Mayan calendar was incorrect, but that it was interperated incorrectly. Instead of the end of the world, it is the end of the world as we know it. Magic, held in dormancy for so long, has reawakened. Throughout time there have always been unexplained occurences, paranormal events; things that could not simply be explained away. It was magic. On December 21st, 2012, magic is coming back, and at the same time, technology, and the laws of physics as we know it, starts failing.
In a nutshell, this is the world I’ve built so far. I have a main character Camille, who has been warned this time was coming. She’s blown it off as the ramblings of a superstitious grandmother, but she is going to learn all superstitions have basis in fact. The grandmother is her mentor character (and a betrayer), even if she doesn’t know it yet. I’m having a hard time coming up with a plausible ‘inciting incident’ that would put Camille on the path to seek out her grandmother’s help, and eventually blaze her own path.
Any thoughts/suggestions?

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Now that I read this carefully, it points to the sort of plot that tends to make the Hero reactive. Something happens and the reluctant Hero is caught in its wake. Therefore his/her actions - and by extension the main conflict - are determined solely by an external source of events rather than something from inside the Hero. As Job mentioned a few posts up, what's missing is something internal to the Hero, an unfulfilled need or something she holds dear for which the unleashing of magic conflicts with.

Contrast this to the movie Ghostbusters . Same basic premise - dormant magic is suddenly unleashed. Dr Venkman is a fake scientist and a con, both professionally and in love. He's the one telling everyone magic (aka occult science) is real but he doesn't really believe in it. It's when ghosts start to appear and a love interest is caught in the middle that his faith in his own crappy science is put to the test. There is no faking it no more. The Hero has to deal with the external conflict created by the sudden unleashing of ghosts, but he also has to deal with his own beliefs which is as painful. It all comes down to the climax: will crossing the beams kill everyone, including the sexy Dana? It's a huge leap of faith for Venkman.

As for the movie's Inciting Incident, it starts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXMcbhn6Np0

Hope this helps.

-cb