Week 6 of the “2 scripts in 2024” Challenge
If you haven’t been present on the site lately, here’s the deal. I’m guiding you through the process of writing an entire feature screenplay. Then, in June, we’re going to have a Mega Screenplay Showdown. The best 10 loglines, then the first ten pages of the top 5 of those loglines, will be in play as they compete for the top prize. So far, I’ve helped you choose a concept, sculpt your outline, and build your characters. Last week, we wrote our first ten pages. Here are the links if you’re late to the party…
Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters
Week 4 – Outlining
Week 5 – The First 10 Pages
One of the things I baked into this challenge was making this ACHIEVABLE. I mean, all you need is one hour a day. Who doesn’t have that? So, if everything is going according to plan, you should have ten pages written by now. Two pages (aka one scene) for five days a week, with two extra days in the week to catch up, make adjustments, or rewrite.
Now that we’re headed into our second ten pages of the script, that means we’re hitting one of the most important beats of the entire script. I’m talking about the inciting incident.
The inciting incident is built out of this idea that, before the crazy stuff starts happening in your story, we have to get to know your character. We have to see them in their “normal” habitat. The reason we want to see them in their normal habitat is so we have something to contrast them against when they’re thrown on this big journey.
In that sense, the inciting incident (which typically occurs between pages 12-15) is a divider. It divides the past life (pages 1-14) from the future life (pages 16-110). My favorite way to think of this “divider” is the event that causes the “problem.” The problem is the thing that your hero must now deal with for the rest of the movie. The problem also creates the goal because the act of solving any problem is a goal. If I wrote a story about a guy whose car broke down on the way to a date with the girl of his dreams, the car breaking down is the event, which creates the problem (I no longer have a car to get to the date anymore), which creates the goal: do whatever needs to be done to get to the date.
One of my favorite examples of an inciting incident is War of the Worlds. In that movie, we see Tom Cruise’s everyday life as a construction worker and a family man and then BOOM, the event is sprung on us. And boy is it a good one. Alien tripods come out of the ground and start killing everyone! This creates a problem: Tom’s family (half of it) is in danger. Which creates the goal: Reunite with family.
Like all classic story beats, inciting incidents work best when you’re using the Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is when a character is content (but unknowingly unhappy) living a mundane life. And then: BAM! Something happens to shake them out of that existence, sending them off on a life-changing journey.
But inciting incidents can be tricky when they don’t fall under the classic Hero’s Journey template. That’s when I hear writers complain and say, “These forced plot beats are restrictive and ruin the art of creation! They are evil, Carson! Eviilllll!” Watch, you’ll see some commenters make that argument down below.
Look, no one’s saying you have to use an inciting incident. But it’s such an organic part of every story, it makes your story better 99% of the time. Think about it. If you told a friend about your day, you’ll include an inciting incident without even thinking about it. “I was at work, minding my own business. Then Sara comes up to me and says I’m responsible for our biggest client canceling their order.” Sara coming up and saying you screwed up the order IS THE INCITING INCIDENT of your story.
But yes, it’s true that some scripts don’t allow for organic inciting incidents. Take yesterday’s script for example: Neobiota. In that story, Melanie’s “normal life” occurred before the script even began. The inciting incident, technically, is the plane crash that placed her in this position. That created the problem that our hero had to solve.
But Mikael actually did something clever here. He made the “life in her normal habitat” section of the script her life on the beach after the crash. We spend 10 pages of her getting acclimated to her new surroundings before we introduce a new problem, aka the inciting incident: one of the dead passengers stands up and starts moving.
Another movie that has a non-traditional use of the inciting incident is Star Wars. In that script, we don’t even MEET the main character until 15 pages in. That’s when we start Luke Skywalker’s “normal life.” The inciting incident doesn’t come for another 15 minutes when Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed. This motivates Luke to head off on this journey to save the galaxy.
What’s interesting about Star Wars is that it has an earlier inciting incident as well. But, in order to understand it, you must understand that the first fifteen minutes of the movie has a different protagonist: Darth Vader. Yes, Darth Vader is the “protagonist” of the first segment of the movie. The reason he’s the “protagonist” is because he’s the one with the goal: Recapture the stolen Death Star plans.
That’s why he barges into the ship. He needs those plans! The inciting incident for Darth Vader’s story, then, is R2-D2 escaping in a pod and heading down to nearby planet, Tattooine. This is the “problem” that gives Darth Vader his goal: Retrieve that droid. Some people might even call this the “actual” inciting incident of the movie as it happens near the traditional “inciting incident” point (12-15 pages in). But the real inciting incident is what motivates your *real* protagonist, which is why Luke’s aunt and uncle being murdered is the more accurate representation.
A lot of people get the inciting incident mixed up with the break into the second act (pages 25-30) and it’s understandable why. Once your inciting incident happens, your hero should technically be thrust on their journey, which is where the second act begins. But what’s supposed to happen in the traditional Hero’s Journey is that your hero feels safe in his world. He likes his world. Then this inciting incident comes around, creating a problem he must solve. But guess what? He doesn’t want to solve it. Solving it requires going off into this new strange scary world that he doesn’t want to go into. So what does he do? HE RESISTS. That’s what the space between the inciting incident and the beginning of the second act is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be the section where the character resists.
The reason this resistance matters is because it conveys something important to the audience: that your hero has a weakness. Their refusal to change conveys that they have growing to do. If the problem occurred and the hero was just like, “Yeah, let’s go! Woohoo!” Then your hero is already internally strong, which isn’t as interesting. The resistance shows that growth is required. And growth is the whole point of a journey.
Another reason why the resistance after the inciting incident is important is because it’s similar to real life. In real life, nobody wants to change. We’re all resistant to it. So when we see our hero resist, we relate to that. This is a key reason why stories work so well. When our hero finally does take on the journey and ultimately change, it’s a reminder that we can change too! So it invigorates us, gives us hope, sends us back out into life with a pep in our step.
Now, as some of you might’ve caught onto, certain scenarios don’t lend themselves to this. Take War of the Worlds. The attack of the Tripods is so intense and in your face that you don’t have the opportunity to sit around and resist. “Hmmm, I don’t know if I want to go on this journey. It’s too difficult.” No, the journey has come to you! You have to go on it!
But you can still create resistance in how your hero reacts. A hero only truly goes on a journey when they take action. So you can create that resistance by having Tom Cruise run away a lot, hide, resist. Then, when he realizes he has to save his freaking family, he takes action and you’re thrust into your second act.
Star Wars had its own issue with the resistance period. It had used its first fifteen minutes on a bunch of characters other than its hero. So when Luke experiences his inciting incident of his aunt and uncle dying, we’re already 30 minutes into the movie. We don’t have time to dilly-dally so Luke takes a beat then says, “I’m ready. I want to go on this journey.” And off they go.
Now, Lucas and his writing crew did a sly job here because they incorporated an earlier scene after Luke and Obi-Wan escape the sand people where Obi-Wan tells him, “You need to help me out.” And Luke resists then. He says, “Nope.” So that resistance was retroactively built into him in a way where he could say “I’m ready” the second his aunt and uncle are murdered. That’s important to note. Each inciting incident has its own potential issues. It’s up to you to figure out how to solve them.
Some of you may want to say that the real inciting incident in Star Wars is Leia’s message to Obi-Wan Kenobi but it isn’t. That message is not meant for our hero. It’s meant for Obi-Wan. Let me make this clear. The official inciting incident is the thing that sends YOUR HERO (not any of the supporting characters) out on their journey.
By the way, this is why important plot beats such as the inciting incident get complicated in big ensemble pieces (Star Wars movies, Avengers, Fast and Furious). In those movies, each character has their own journey, which forces you to motivate all of them. In some cases, this requires you to create a bunch of mini-inciting incidents, like Star Wars does. A lot of writers will solve this problem by treating the group as one character (Avengers). Give us a Thanos trying to destroy the world and everyone’s problem and subsequent goal is the same.
Also, with Avengers, or serial killer movies with detectives, or Indiana Jones, you often don’t have that resistance period because the problem is their job. Indiana Jones doesn’t resist because his freaking job is to find ancient antiquities. The Avengers don’t resist because they’re superheroes and saving the world is their job. Same with detectives and cops. When they get a new case, they don’t usually resist (although in some situations they will and I actually find those stories to be better because of that) because it’s their job.
The main thing to remember here for these next ten pages is that you want to introduce a big problem in your hero’s life and then, if it fits your story, show them resisting it afterward. A character journey is almost always more powerful if they, at first, don’t want to go on it. This shows the audience that they’re not yet ready and that change is needed. That way, later on, in your third act, when they finally are ready to change, it will be more powerful. This is why they say that if you have a problem in your third act, it’s usually because there’s a problem in your first act. Not properly showing that resistance could very well be that problem.
Friday = write 1 scene
Saturday = write 1 scene
Sunday = write 1 scene (you should be near your inciting incident here)
Monday = write 1 scene (should be an inciting incident day)
Tuesday = write 1 scene (the beginning of your hero’s resistance)
Wednesday = go back and correct any issues with your five scenes
Thursday = go back and correct any issues with your five scenes
