Is having the inciting incident of a novel in the second or third chapter too late?

Cafe Society
1

Three or four weeks ago, I finally completed the editing of and research for my novel, which I have discussed here before. I sent it to one publisher and am awaiting their answer. I’m in no hurry to submit to others, as I feel this specific one is a good fit for my fiction writing and am interested in getting their feeback.

Having completed this task, I have still one lingering question about which I would like to get some thoughts. It concerns the timing of the “inciting incident” in a story. I first provide a good definition of an “inciting incident” from an article on www.masterclass.com:

“The inciting incident of a story is the event that sets the main character or characters on the journey that will occupy them throughout the narrative. Typically, this incident will upset the balance within the main character’s world.”

So in my novel, the very first chapter does not contain the inciting incident. It is one of the longer chapters, and it introduces the narrator and a key character, as well as their day-to-day world. These things set the scene and contextualize the novel; I then continue the chapter with several plot episodes that serve to demonstrate what role the key character comes to play in the narrator’s life. But there is as yet no inciting moment. Only a hint of what the upcoming inciting moment could involve is introduced at the very end of the chapter.

The second chapter is where the inciting moment occurs, and its dramatic climax occurs mid-chapter. And the effects of the inciting moment are only made plain in the third chapter. It is there that we clearly see what the story is going to be about.

I ask for your opinions. Would an average reader consider this acceptable timing? Or is it better if the inciting moment happens already in the first chapter?

I am wondering this for future reference. I also have many as yet unpublished short stories, written or in progress, of which I plan to make a compilation one day. One of them is actually a six-chapter novella, my second-longest piece of written fiction. This is a story about a social issue. However, that social issue, and its effects on the protagonist, only get introduced in the second chapter. The first introduces the character and what kind of person she is, what an average day in her life is like, and the things she believes in (and in it she’s dealing with a different social issue, which somehow comes around and assists in bringing about the resolution later in the story, but that’s not obvious). Arguably, the inciting incident, as in the cause of the problem of the story, does happen at the very end of the chapter, but other than a hint in the last sentence, it is not as yet obvious what consequences it will have. We find out quickly enough in the second chapter what that problem is, though, and then that issue informs the rest of the story. Is the story structure I have described in this paragraph bad?

2

I don’t have any writing qualifications, but I’m an avid reader. :grinning:

The books I enjoy most (and reread) are simply ‘well-written’ and keep my interest throughout.
This is more important than when ‘an inciting incident’ occurs.

I’m sorry if this is vague, but I hope it helps.

3

I too read a great deal, mostly fiction.

Books that I discard after reading a chapter or two, are those which have long detailed descriptions of things that are not immediately pertinent to the story. For example, we are introduced to the protagonist and, naturally, there is a description. We may need a description of their surroundings as well, but unless it’s important to the plot, we don’t need the protagonist’s family history and we don’t need excessive detail on the scenery.

4

This man has read Michener. Or at least a first chapter or two.

As long as I recognize what I consider good writing I’ll keep reading. What I consider poor writing, what turns me away from a book (hello, Stephen King), is the use of excruciating, unnecessary, microscopic detail:

I don’t think I would have any problem at all with the inciting incident appearing “late”.

mmm

5

I think if you can keep them reading up to the inciting incident, you’re probably good.

Do you have something in that first chapter, in the first paragraph even, to draw the reader in? Something that provokes a question that the reader is going to want the answer to? A hook? That goes a long way.

If you start out by showing me, for example, a middle-aged man feverishly searching through a closet, finally finding a shoe box, opening it, and being relieved to find a collection of pogs in it, and then you shift to a scene where a high-powered attorney is showing up for work in the morning, I’m going to be pretty curious as to what pog guy’s deal is.

If you’re using that chapter to describe the MC’s day-to-day life, that can be either interesting or terribly boring. If you have a guy who goes to work at the auto assembly plant and spends each and every workday, all day, bolting seats into cars, then goes home and watches TV until it’s time for bed, that’s not very interesting in and of itself. But add, for example, a coworker who’s always trying to rope him into some kind of fanciful get-rick-quick scheme, and maybe I’m drawn in a little more deeply. What’s this other worker going to come up with next? (Bonus points if one of these wild-ass schemes ends up feeding into the plot.)

6

It really depends on the genre, but I believe the inciting incident typically falls at about the 12% mark of a book, or halfway through the first act. It’s sooner if you’re writing a thriller or something in the action/mystery genre. If you’re not writing something in that genre, I wouldn’t worry about it.

I recommend this blogger, she’s got a lot of concrete advice for structuring a novel.

I know some people are not into writing to a specific structure, but as a writer of thriller/action I find it useful.

7

That sounds like what it is like trying to read (at least some of the) books by Amber Benson, except it is constant name-dropping of women’s fashion.

8

For the first time in my life, and as an old geezer, I am trying to write. I have no expectations but I also am going to try to get it published.

From what I read, the inciting incident should happen at the 10-15% mark. That is definitely not the first chapter.

I think 10-15% is far along and have mine occur about 7% of the way in which is in chapter two. My chapter one is not long but not short either.

Chapter one? I think that is strange. You can’t set up much before the incident. Are you sure this publisher knows what they are doing?

Is it possible that they might be saying, poorly, that your pre-inciting incident is not exciting? I am on a critique site and that is a common issue.

9

I’m an avid reader and a writer. I’ve also taught writing classes. “Rules” like this are formulaic and matter much less than the quality and flow of the writing, if at all.

10

My big turn off in books and movies (besides lazy writing) is unnecessary exposition. Is you first chapter action that takes us to where we need to be for the incident or is it the protagonist going through his entire history with a blind date?

11

Your question made me think of some of the Christie novels I’ve been re-reading. In some of them the murder occurs quite early, but in several it’s much later on. In one in particular, the “inciting incident” is the relationship that the murder victim had with his family members dating back decades, because the murder only makes sense in that family context.

Which is a long roundabout way of saying that the inciting incident depends on the plot, not the other way around.

12

As Spice Weasel’s highly relevant link points out, there are several different things people might mean when talking about the “inciting incident.”

I was thinking along those lines myself. In a murder mystery, it’s reasonable (it seems to me) to think of the murder itself, and/or the discovery that someone has been murdered, as the inciting incident. But in some mystery novels that happens on page one, while in others it happens much farther into the book (and I was thinking of some of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novels as examples of this).

13

You can set up everything before the inciting incident, that’s the point of what comes before it. You can establish the character’s ordinary world, what they want (which is a driving force of the entire story) and what they need (usually they will have to sacrifice the want for the need at the climax.) You can establish setting and whatever secondary characters might be along for the journey. That opening piece is critical.

14

And in one Cadfael novel, and in one Lord Peter novel, there never is a murder. If you’re reading them, waiting for the murder, you’ll be disappointed.

15

I think you misread or I wrote poorly. I meant that if you have to set up the inciting incident in chapter one, basically close to 0% through the novel, it doesn’t leave you much time to do what you said.

16

After a long chapter or two isn’t necessarily too long to wait, but it is pretty long. I think I’d be more interested in something that started out with at least a hint of what it’ll be, something like “As I sat in the Turkish prison, I thought back on the choices that had led me to this point. My life started out normal enough…”. Then escape from the Turkish prison in chapter 2, and go on from there in “real time”.

17

One thing I did learn, writing my first novel, was to spend the proper time on setup. Don’t be afraid to spend that time, otherwise you run the risk of the reader not really understanding who your character is. That was my big mistake and it affected how readers viewed that character and her actions throughout the entire course of the story. Those opening chapters are so important I had to rewrite them many times. They need to be every bit as engaging as the inciting incident.

18

Ah, I see. Yes, I misunderstood.

19

I can’t speak for an average reader. But for myself: I’ve often wished for more about the main character’s ordinary world before the story yanks us out of it into other situations altogether. So I think it would be fine for me – as long as I found that world interesting.

20

This is why I THINK what this ‘publisher’ meant was that the story before the inciting incident didn’t hook. It’s a common problem writers on the critique site I joined have. They start out boring and it stays boring until the inciting incident. By then, many have DNF’d.

The challenge is to have the pre-inciting incident be interesting enough, as you say, to carry into the inciting incident. I still think the advised 10%-15% is too far in for most stories. I just looked at mine and starts at about 6%-7%.