There are a number of critical elements you need to have in a properly structured script. I talk about the importance of all of them in my workbook Idea to Story to Screenplay, which is a step by step guide to writing the first draft of your screenplay.
In this post, I want to talk about the most pivotal of those elements:the inciting incident. Simply put, without it, there is no movie. And placed in the wrong part of the script, your story falls apart.
First of all, for those unfamiliar with the term, the “inciting incident” is the event that occurs in the main character’s life (in the story) that changes everything. The term was coined by Robert McKee and he describes it as something that changes the main character’s life irrevocably. That means they can’t ignore it. It’s huge. They have to deal with it in some fashion. It will not simply go away.
Some examples? Think Rocky being offered the chance to fight Apollo Creed. Think Will Hunting being arrested and told that the only way he can avoid prison is to accept the court’s order to see a psychologist and work with the MIT math professor. Think Charlie Babbit’s father dying and Charlie learning that his father’s estate is going to go to the autistic brother that Charlie didn’t even know he had.
The inciting incident is why we watch the movie. If it doesn’t occur, there is no story. The main character just goes on with their life as before. Rocky continues to box in the dingy athletic club and work for Gazzo. Will continues to hang out with his friends in Southie and not pursue his genius.
Whatever your idea, the inciting incident has to be contained in there somewhere. If it isn’t, you must create it in order for your idea to be the basis for a three act film.
In addition, it as to come within a certain time in the script/film in today’s Hollywood. It goes without saying that it must come in the first act. In days gone by (Rocky), it could come late in a long first act. And even today there might be exceptions. However, the studios making commercial films today expect the inciting incident to take place no later than eighteen minutes into the film, which means eighteen pages into your script.
Notice I said “no later than”. Eighteen is the outer edge. Ten is the earliest, in my view. Most often these days, the inciting incident comes at around the twelve minute mark.
Now you may wonder what the big deal is with this timing. You say you write “art”. You aren’t restricted by rules. Great. Go ahead. You may be one of those writers who can pull that off.
However, you must be aware that audiences are accustomed to “receiving” the inciting incident somewhere between 10-18 minutes into a three act film. That’s just fact. They have been watching movies their entire life. Without even being aware of it, they’ve had their brains wired so as to “expect” a change in the story sometime in those eight minutes. That change is the inciting incident.
Again, if you have an idea for a film, that inciting incident is either already in your mind or else it is implied in the idea somewhere.
If the original idea for Rocky could be said to be something like “a down-on-his-luck club fighter is given the chance to show who he is when offered a title fight with the world heavyweight champ”, then the “offering” is the inciting incident.
On the other hand, if the idea for Good Will Hunting is “a South Boston genius is forced to confront his troubled past and his own intellect in order to escape the trap of living an unfulfilled life”, then the inciting incident had to be created – namely the arrest resulting in him being “forced to confront”.
Whatever your idea, make sure you’re clear on the inciting incident and make it strong enough that the main character cannot ignore it and go on living as before. Make it “upset the apple cart”. Then make sure you place that scene somewhere between page ten and page eighteen so as to “hook” the reader into your story.
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