How to Start Your Story: 4-Step Inciting Incident Checklist

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The start of your story needs to hook readers and keep them turning pages. BUT... it's so much more than that!
In this video you will learn the 4 steps to develop the perfect inciting incident for your story.
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🖐️ Five Commandments of Storytelling
• Inciting Incident - • How to Start Your Stor...
• Turning Point Progressive Complication - • 4 Powerful Rules to Cr...
• Crisis - • The Story Climax (and ...
• Climax - • The Story Climax (and ...
• Resolution - • How to END your story:...
🧰 Additional Resources:
• Genre Conventions - • Genre Conventions 101:...
• Write a Perfect Protagonist - • 7 Steps to Write the P...
• Un-boring Your Writing - • The #1 Fix to Write En...
• How to Learn How to Write - • 3 Steps to Master the ...
*I'm still working on the Five Commandments of Storytelling video series*, so for now, check out our articles: storygrid.com/five-commandmen...
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[@philm9593]

Thanks for this ,Tim. The "Inciting Incident" seems simple enough. However, when broken down it becomes clear just how important it is to get this element right. The detailed breakdown is really useful. Nice one.

[@DawnMK2023]

This is exactly what I needed right now. Questions I didn't know I had were answered. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@alexe8996]

Thank you Time! this is the BEST channel for writers who has a real story to tell💜

[@MrNoucfeanor]

Absolutely! Tim, The Write Mindset & John Adamus are hidden treasures! They approach things different but actually have useful Information! Not just a short form video in a set, with an empty cup of coffee and shiet eating grin. Curious that the actual helpful folks get little to no recognition while the pretentious fart sniffers are bumped to the top! Looking at you Stephen King. Just my humble opinion. Thanks for the info!

[@patnor7354]

Good points and straight to the point.

[@PhoenixCrown]

Very helpful. #3 and #4 are incredibly complex... Pointing to the end seems simple enough, but invisible elements has me pondering... Thanks!

[@andreabknight]

I way I see it is when life sends you something unexpected it is sudden, shocking, confusing etc. You don't understand why it has happened. That is the invisible elements part. Those bits you don't understand become clearer/have more obvious impact later on. Imagine if you had unexpectedly received a huge sum of money anonymously- you wouldn't know where it came from, who chose you and why. As time goes on you get more clues and you find out it is someone you know, then you find out who it is and why they chose you etc. Then the implications of that are realised, with something even more sinister underneath that requires action to deal with it.

[@PhoenixCrown]

Thanks great example!@@andreabknight

[@chrismantonuk]

“The night was sultry.”

[@arzabael]

“It was a hot day when John woke up and he was angry.” By far my favorite game

[@thinkislamcheckmychannel]

😂. Great film

[@XPM22]

Yo, I’m actually hooked off that sentence 😂

[@pol565-gi6il]

ew 😂

[@MrNoucfeanor]

It's a horrible night to have a curse...

[@captainnolan5062]

Why is it critical that we know whether the inciting incident is causal or coincidental? (See your statement at approximately @3:20)

[@mangledtapes]

Loving this channel. Thanks so much, Tim

[@Pualn08]

Great stuff! Simple and easy to grasp.

[@picklesandstardust3250]

Great video. Thank you!

[@gabo6713]

Good advice. Thanks.

[@lrodriguez5545]

Thanks! I am too much novice, so I am expecting/waiting for the foolscap exercise for a scene or chapter, to better understanding of the technical

[@tymelyneentertainments7478]

Perfect

[@jeffj4440]

excellent

[@tomlewis4748]

I have a quick question, and I apologize if it may not pertain precisely to this particular video. The concept of the 5 story elements in a scene is one of the most important lessons Story Grid has taught me. But is it OK to have more than one set of them in a single scene? I have a few scenes that do. One might assume that once you have one set of 5, a successive set of 5 might be considered a new scene. But if there is no significant change in focus, if there is no gap in time or change in location, and if the two sets of 5 seem interrelated, that feels to me like one scene. I know there is a danger in making any scene too complex, but is it OK to have more than just the 5 in one scene? When it happens, it feels like it works. It mirrors what sometimes happens in real life.

[@Banguelas]

“It was a dark stormy night.” Snoopy, peanuts

[@LiviaMortensen]

Can you do a video about subplots?

[@blazel462]

Moe turned around ominously and approached Curly, his voice resolute. “Niagara Falls! Slowly I turned, and step by step, inch by inch, I walked up to him and I smashed him! I hit him! i bonked him! I bopped him! I socked him! I mashed his face and I knocked him down!” …

[@joshuam2212]

here is a new spin on a dark story night JACK STOPPED TO CAUGHT HIS BREATH LIGHTNING LIT UP THE WOOD HE HAD TO GET OUT OF HERE BUT WITH WAS WAS HOME O NO HE WAS LOST. this has to many possibilities he could find a cave to ride out the storm or on his way back home he hears a child crying and finds a young kid next to a seriously injured older boy I HOPE SOMEONE FINDS THIS HELPFUL OR ENTERTAINING I WILL CHECK BACK AND SEE IF ANYONE COMMENTS ON THIS IT COULD BE FUN TO SEE WHAT SOMEONE THINKS OF HIS

[@HLLeRoy]

Nucular?