Dramatic Action Inciting Incident and Character Emotional Development Dark Night

A writer asks: isn't the inciting incident of an example I use -- the Pulitizer Prize winning The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt -- when he steals the painting?

Yes, the dramatic action inciting incident is when he steals The Goldfinch in the museum. His action energizes the external action, changing the ordinary to the dramatic -- thus inciting the dramatic action plot.

I was describing just prior to her question the scene that occupies the all important 1st Energetic Marker: the End of the Beginning. Rather than the scene where he steals the painting earning the marker moment, the scene that steals the coveted spot is when his father arrives. His father's arrival is a pivotal no-turning-back moment that earns this honor because at its heart, this story is primarily character-driven. Long before his mother dies in the explosion, his father inflicted the protagonist's backstory wound when he walked out on them.

Yes, the dramatic action makes this a page-turning novel -- will he or won't he succeed? The answer we come to care about more deeply is will he or won't he find peace?

After that presentation and especially so after presenting solo Plot and Character Transformation in Novels: Character Goals versus Character Traits, I find I don't even try to resist throwing in what negative reviewers seem to hate in The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master -- the Universal Story, especially how it applies beyond stories to us in the human realm. I come home energized about my up-coming: Transform Your Creative Life through the Universal Story: Seize the Life of Your Dreams online personal transformation workshop. Join me and move from where you currently are in the Universal Story to your heart's desire.

Today I write!
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For more: Read my Plot Whisperer and Blockbuster Plots books for writers.
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Need more help with your story? 

• Looking for tips to prop up your middle with excitement? 
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1st Energetic Marker & Major Turning Point in Your Story

Prompt 30 in The Plot Whisperer Book of Writing Prompts: Easy Exercises to Get You Writing prompts you develop a scene showing the end of what has been in your novel, memoir, screenplay thus far. Next comes the middle where the real struggle begins.

For some writers, you couldn't get to the end of the beginning scene quickly enough. You followed prompts 1- 6, creating scenes and developing characters and relationships, conflict and dramatic action, setting and theme. Then, about halfway through the beginning section of the prompts book, you found yourself flipping ahead, combining more than one prompt in a scene, skipping prompts and struggling to develop meaningful characters goals and create enough tension and find the exact right secondary characters and becoming more and more impatient to get to the exotic world of the middle.

Other writers found the beginning prompts wondrous places to linger as you introduced things as they are in the story world starting out. The nearer and nearer you came to Prompt 30 and this final beginning scene, the slower you wrote. You took time to research authentic details rather than write, you filled out the exercises in for the beginning section The Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories.

However you find yourself here, celebrate your achievement. You have written an entire quarter of your story.

Knowing what to write where in a story with a plot allows for a more loving relationship with your writing. Whether writing a first draft or revising, if you falter wondering what comes next in a story with a plot, follow the prompts in The Plot Whisperer Book of Writing Prompts: Easy Exercises to Get You Writing.

Today, I write.

To familiarize yourself with the basic plot terms used here and in the PW Book of Prompts:
1) Watch the plot playlists on the Plot Whisperer Youtube channel.
2) Read The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master
3) Fill out the exercises in The Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories
4) Visit:
Blockbuster Plots for Writers
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