The power of your story depends on clearly locating your inciting incident. The fundamentals of this are often misunderstood.

Story is about transformation. A story is in how a character changes. This change does not come easily but there is something that pushes the character out of their comfort to begin the journey.

Three points to keep in mind–

– the inciting incident happens to the character, and it must happen where the reader, or audience for film, sees it.

– the character has to know about the event and react to it.

– the inciting incident is more personal than it often appears. And that brings weight to the story.

This principle is also true for non-fiction – after all, where there is a narrative, there is an inciting incident.

For memoirs I’ve worked on, we’ve worked over the theme and the story to identify the values in the story.  What is at stake?  What event forced the reaction and was irreversible?  What truly starts the path of the author towards the resolution of their story?

If you’re having trouble answering these questions, drop me a message. Let’s talk about your story.