The Inciting Incident: How to Create a Great One

Every story requires a great hook. Hooks can come in a number of sizes and lengths—the first sentence, the first few paragraphs, or even the first couple of pages, slowly reeling the reader in. If you want to craft an excellent hook that lures in the reader bit by bit and increases the engagement as it goes, you’ll want to use the Inciting Incident.

The Inciting Incident is the first part of The Hero’s Journey, a classic storytelling structure still used to great effect today. This blog post will dissect the Inciting Incidents of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Treasure Island as well as Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth so you’ll learn why and how Inciting Incidents work. Once you understand these elements, you can integrate them into your own story to craft an Inciting Incident that readers won’t be able to peel themselves away from.

An Inciting Incident happens in the very beginning of a book. It’s an event that upsets the normality of the protagonist’s life—whether it’s a bomb, a mysterious letter, or the arrival of a stranger. That last one is a common but always exciting way to introduce trouble into the main character’s life. How will they respond to this trouble? How will it change their lives? How will they change because of it? What bigger adventure will this incident lead the protagonist to?

A great Inciting Incident raises questions in the reader, leaving a teasing breadcrumb trail of answers that lead to more questions, which increase the tension.

You can make your Inciting Incident anything you want—as long as it’s unexpected for the main character. The foundation of the Inciting Incident is that it disrupts the protagonist’s normal life, altering it to an immense degree so the plot is kicked into gear. Whether they are a reluctant hero or a willing one who doesn’t realize the danger the Inciting Incident poses, it has to be something big. Not physically large, although it could be if you want—it has to feel big, both to the protagonist and to the reader.

The Inciting Incident of Treasure Island

Treasure Island begins when a stranger arrives at the inn the main character’s father runs. This stranger, whom Jim calls the captain, upsets the life the main character knows in many ways. He intimidates the other guests as well as Jim’s father, who is too intimidated to remind the captain he must pay for his room. Here’s where things get interesting: Stevenson does the exact same thing in chapter two. He introduces a second mysterious stranger—but because we are so engaged with how the captain is influencing Jim’s life at the inn, we automatically feel suspicious about this second stranger and defensive of Jim and the captain. If the Inciting Incident is like a wrench thrown into your main character’s normal routine, Stevenson is sneakily throwing a second surprise wrench at you from behind—only it’s not a wrench at all, but a tire iron.

Stevenson does this in several ways. He adds layers to the second stranger’s introduction, so it doesn’t feel overly similar to the first—at this point, readers are too hooked on the tension and mystery to realize what he’s done. Instead of thinking, “Hey, this seems awfully familiar,” they’re feeling alarmed and thinking, “Oh no! A threat!”

This is because Stevenson makes the second stranger—the second Inciting Incident—directly related to the first. That way, its connection makes it blend in seamlessly. The second stranger asks Jim if his mate Bill is at the inn. Jim gets a bad feeling about this stranger. And, when the captain and the second stranger do finally meet, the captain is terrified of him. This is someone who significantly upended Jim’s regular life at the inn—what could he possibly be afraid of? And why?

Tucking a secret, second Inciting Incident within the pocket of the first is a genius move. If you add it to your story, you can make it stand out from the rest. It layers questions upon answers we thought we knew. “This captain is an intimidating character. It feels like nothing can scare him. Surely, he’s the most intimidating character at the inn—but what if that’s not true?”

When Jim eventually discovers the captain is hiding a wooden sea chest, and within that chest is a treasure map, it increases the stakes and depth of the Inciting Incident even more. Before the discovery of the chest, Jim met—that’s right—a third stranger. This one is the most terrifying of them all: a blind man named Pew, whose cane-tapping adds a light horror element as Jim and his mother must avoid his creepy pursuit. Pew is after the captain’s chest. The tapping of Pews’ cane makes readers think of the previous time he showed up, in which the captain died moments after speaking with him. This causes both Jim and the reader to fear the dangerous unknown element Pew represents.

The Rule of Three

Let’s take a quick tangent to explain why this works so well. The Rule of Three is another timeless storytelling technique you can use to make your story enthralling to readers without them even realizing it’s there (if you integrate it well). Three is an easily recognizable pattern our minds take notice of—for instance, The Three Little Pigs has a repeating structure of three pigs, three building materials, three houses, three obstacles for the Big Bad Wolf. The story of Goldilocks and the three bears does the same—three meals, three chairs, three beds. That’s not to say this pattern is present solely in old fairy tales, though—it’s everywhere today, even outside of fiction. It’s a fundamental rule our world operates on—Newton’s Three Laws, the three acts of a play, the rule of thirds in art composition—which is precisely why it’s such an excellent technique to use inside the playground that is fiction.

This is what Stevenson uses to make his Inciting Incident so effective. Even though it was written in 1883, Treasure Island remains a gripping and effective adventure story even before Jim hits the high seas. That’s because Stevenson uses the Rule of Threes to constantly pile on mystery, questions and tension. Three strangers disrupt Jim’s life, they’re all connected to one another, and each one is scarier than the last.  

Gideon the Ninth’s Inciting Incident(s)

Now let’s take a look at a modern example—it also uses The Rule of Three, like Stevenson’s book, but with an excellent extra layer. The 2019 sci-fi fantasy Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is one of the most beautifully written and intricately plotted books I have read in many years. An outstanding element is the way in which Muir instantly hooks readers. Because not only does she have an intriguing Inciting Incident that arouses readers’ curiosity—she has two of them. Whereas Stevenson had a second, smaller Inciting Incident inside the events of his first, Muir uses her first Inciting Incident as an epic setup for the second one (the central Inciting Incident that kicks off the rest of the plot.) In order to get there, the story’s protagonist, Gideon, must battle through a first Inciting Incident where she encounters three obstacles that stand in the way of her goal: boarding a space shuttle and escaping the planet.

From the first couple of pages, readers know she wants to board a shuttle and that it arrives in a certain amount of time. This gives readers a sense of impending action; something big is going to happen soon. The time Gideon has until the shuttle arrives is a countdown and readers are already cautious and defensive of anything disrupting it. Will the shuttle arrive in time? What if something goes wrong before it does? Furthermore, the first page details Gideon leaving her awful jail cell of a room and a miserable life as an indentured servant. This adds more tension and a second time bomb. If she escaped from a jail cell, how long until she’s found out? So, Muir has created two-time bombs within this first Inciting Incident, which make them instantly gripping.

And then she uses the Rule of Three to introduce three obstacles for Gideon to face. These obstacles are three people who, as they interact with Gideon and try to stop her leaving, show the reader Gideon’s personality as well as her relationship with them. It’s an effective way to show the personality of the main character on top of having two time bombs and the Rule of Three.  

Each of the people trying to stop her are a hurdle for her to overcome while she anticipates the arrival of the spaceship. As they arrive one by one to try and prevent her departure, readers know that if Gideon makes them mad, they’ll make sure she never gets on board. Because they want to stop Gideon from boarding the shuttle, Muir creates a link between them, and the time bomb the shuttle represents.

The first person who comes to stop Gideon is Marshal Crux, a one-eyed, terrifying tombstone of a man with “hoary hands,” someone bursting with so much spite that if he died, Gideon thinks to herself, “he would keep going out of sheer malice.” Muir tells the reader what kind of position Gideon has on this planet through Crux’s dialogue—and while you don’t want to write dialogue that all the characters know, thus removing the need for it to exist, Muir maneuvers around this by having Crux being a malicious person who absolutely loves to talk and loves to remind Gideon how awful she is and what her duties to the planet are.

Muir infuses the introduction of character with dialogue the reader needs to know, and not once does it sound like exposition—it’s entirely based in character. Crux threatens Gideon with the addition that “the Lady has said that you will come to her.” This raises a question in readers’ minds. Who is this Lady and why is Gideon immediately and truly afraid of her? The Lady is the third person Gideon will meet, and although new readers wouldn’t know that, Crux effectively foreshadows her arrival. So, not only do readers have the tension of the shuttle arriving, the tension that Crux is trying to stop Gideon, but that there is someone who—unlike him—is a real threat to Gideon.

The second person who tries to stop Gideon from leaving is Captain Aiglamene, Gideon’s mentor in swordplay. Because she is Gideon’s mentor, she has an instant air of authority. Whereas Crux hinted to readers there is someone Gideon hates and is afraid of, Captain Aiglamene tells Gideon in more detail: there’s an important meeting and Gideon must attend. Gideon says the meeting is merely the Lady’s “need for control” over her. Subtextually, this is her saying no. This is the second time this mysterious Lady is brought up, and there’s even less time before the arrival of the shuttle Gideon is so eagerly awaiting. Going to the meeting would mean Gideon would miss her shuttle—and be forced to confront the Lady.

But then the Lady arrives at Gideon’s location. She is the third and final obstacle. She has been foreshadowed twice, each time by characters with increasingly threatening personalities and connections to Gideon. Readers know Gideon hates and is terrified of whoever this is. Harrowhark Nonagesimus is the final obstacle Gideon must surpass—and it’s extremely doubtful she will.

Because Harrowhark has been built up so hugely, the tension is the highest it’s been. In terms of plot, Harrowhark’s arrival means she is here to take Gideon to the next Inciting Incident. What follows between Gideon and Harrowhark is a battle of wills—and eventually of sword against bone (Harrowhark can create and control skeletons.) She offers Gideon a chance to leave if she only attends the meeting first, but Gideon refuses. They duel for control of events, and Gideon loses and gets hauled off to the second Inciting Incident. The characters and the time bomb of the first are all connected to the goal but the goal itself—boarding the shuttle—turns into an expression of character itself when Gideon battles someone who goes to any length necessary to ensure it does not happen.

Not only is the introduction to Gideon the Ninth’s story a brilliant way to introduce characters, creating a second and detailed Inciting Incident that leads to the next one is an extremely effective and memorable storytelling technique. While it has a time bomb and three increasingly difficult obstacles, the main purpose of the first Inciting Incident is to introduce the reader to Gideon so thoroughly that they’ll know her reaction to the second Inciting Incident before they even know what it is.  

So, now you’ve read about two compelling examples of Inciting Incidents and how both use the Rule of Threes with different levels of complexity. If you’ve been wondering how to begin your story, brainstorm how you can use the Inciting Incident to introduce and challenge your main character. Try several ideas and throw them at the wall to see what sticks. Writing is all about experimenting, after all, so don’t feel frustrated if you don’t get it right away. These may be complex examples, but every good Inciting Incident begins simply. It gets more detailed as it goes, but the simplicity is what grabs readers’ attention. Jim meets a stranger. Gideon wants to leave. Ask yourself how you can present a seemingly simple scenario for your main character to encounter—and then ask yourself how you can deepen it (if your story requires it.) As Gideon the Ninth demonstrates, the best Inciting Incident is connected to character at every opportunity. The next time you sit down to outline or write your story, look for this blog on tips and inspiration for your Inciting Incident—and you’ll make something to be proud of!