The Story Grid

That is, the Inciting Incident of a global Story must make a promise to the reader… the ending.

This is what stories are for…to reassure us that we’ve made the right decision in our own lives or to help us recognize our mistakes, learn from them and find the courage to change.

You’ll notice though that Harris does not give us the antagonist’s POV until the Middle Build portion of his novel, nor does he give us Hannibal Lecter’s until even later on in the book.

This event gives rise to an object of desire in your lead character’s conscious and often subconscious mind, a tangible object (a conscious want) and something intangible (a subconscious need).

It must describe the climactic value charge of the entire Story, either positively or negatively. 3. And it must be as specific as possible about the cause of the change in value charge.

An Inciting Incident can occur in one of two ways: 1. Cause 2. Coincidence

Every scene must turn a Story value or it is not a scene. It must start someplace (happy) and end somewhere else (sad) or there is no movement, no change and the Story stops dead in its tracks.

By the way, if your character isn’t making any decision in a scene, it’s not a scene. It’s goofing around. Cut it or revise.

Taking a value that we all rely on to live peacefully day to day, challenging its stolidity and then paying it off with its confirmation or its vulnerability. So