7 Point Plot: Big Trouble Arrives

       The Inciting Incident rocks your hero's world to its foundations. It is always a conflict between your hero and the antagonist. It should be obvious to the reader that after this confrontation (direct or by proxy) your hero cannot go back to his normal life.

        The Inciting Incident should be logically connected to your Hook, even if the connection is full of bending and backtracking.

       The Inciting Incident is usually imagined as a direct confrontation between your main antagonist. But if you plan to have your main antagonist stay in the shadows until the final show-down, you can use a proxy. That's proxy not proxies. Even if your hero faces off against a group, one opponent should stand out from the crowd and be the main opponent. This gives the reader someone to fixate on.

       The Inciting Incident often includes a reaction section in which the hero internally commits to the journey. No matter how violent the Inciting Incident – even if he is bodily thrown from the Ordinary World into the Adventure World – the transition is not complete until he recognizes there has been a change. He doesn't have to be happy about it, he can resolve to get his ordinary life back, but he has to recognize that things have taken a dramatic turn.

      Even adventurers – those heroes who go looking for change – have an Inciting Incident that propels them through this first point-of-no-return. Their Inciting Incident is still (traditionally) some sort of conflict and confrontation.

      Whether your hero is kicked out of the Ordinary World or is leaping at the chance to leave, the Inciting Incident marks the place and time when the inner conflict is jolted into motion. There are two main scenarios here. 1) The inner conflict was static before. 2) The external conflict creates an inner conflict. More than one inner conflict can be put into motion. In either case, the resolution of this conflict should feed into how the final showdown plays out.

7 Point Plot: Hook and Ordinary World

Prickily Hooks (Photo credit: derekGavey)

      Beginnings are wonderful. They really are. Because a book doesn't really begin there. A book usually begins in the middle of action of some kind. Dialogue, a search, a chase, something that grabs the reader's attention.

It begins with a Hook.

       A Hook is usually the first hint of trouble – trouble the hero doesn't recognize or isn't willing to admit. The Hook relates to the main plot – either the internal conflict or the external conflict.

       A Hook's mood will set up reader expectations. A Hook's pace will set up reader expectations. A Hook's conflict will set up reader expectations. Expectations for what? For the rest of the book. So when writing a Hook, think about what is typical for your book.

       The Hook is your stepping stone to introducing your character and that character's Ordinary World.

       The Ordinary World is the setting, characters, tensions, and rules that surround your hero before the Inciting Incident. The Ordinary World shows your hero as he is before he begins to change. It shows the flaws he doesn't recognize or doesn't try to change (yet). It shows the inner conflict that he is doing nothing to resolve. It shows his relationships with supporting characters.

       The Ordinary World is the setting for all action from the Hook until the advent of Big Trouble. Often writers build on the Hook by 1) dropping clues about the Big Trouble, 2) having the hero make choices that make the initial situation worse and worse – eventually causing the Big Trouble, or 3) having the Bad Guy thwart the hero's goal no matter what the hero tries. And within the Ordinary World, the hero's balance of normalcy becomes more and more difficult.

       When you design your Ordinary World, keep in mind that it would be as different as possible from the Adventure World. Even if your character stays in the same town for the entire book, after the Big Trouble hits his world will change – inside and out.