Read Online How to Write a Brilliant Novel: The Easy Step-By-Step Method of Crafting a Powerful Story (Go! Write Something Brilliant) by Susan May Warren - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Susan May Warren
Tags: Fiction, General Fiction, Reference, Writing, Writing; Research & Publishing Guides, Writing Skills
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is when he meets her in the restaurant. Everything before that is backstory. So, for your characters you need to ask: What will jumpstart their journey?
I love the magic of a good Inciting Incident—that moment when everything goes haywire— or at least hints at going haywire—in our hero’s journey. Sometimes it’s an earthquake of epic proportions. Other times, it’s just a 2.5 on the Richter scale.But regardless of the strength of the event, the Inciting Incident delivery demands an exquisite balance of delicacy and resonance.
Delicacy and Resonance?
Delicacy in the Inciting Incident doesn’t mean a light touch.It means treading lightly through backstory, digging up only that which is most pertinent. It’s so easy for an author to want to load in all the significant life events of the hero that have led up to this moment. Why, when he sees the red car parked in front of his mother’s house, he realizes that his father has returned from years on the run. Or why, when our hero wakes up after being beaten up and left in an alley, he knows he wasn’t just mugged. Yes, we as the reader need to know why these details matter, but light touches are the key when inserting back story.
I’m going to give you an example in just a moment from one of my books, but let’s talk about Resonance for a moment.
Resonance is meaning . We want to know how this event fits into the Story Quesstion, as well as the past. We also want to understand what the next step is for the character. However, we need to keep it free from melodrama. The reader wants to see the event, yet they don’t know the character well enough for heavy interpretation.
So, how do we balance Delicacy and Resonance in our Inciting Incident? Answer: By keeping the backstory from stalling the –action—and keeping the action at the forefront.
Here’s a scene from my book Escape to Morning . It’s a romantic suspense, so I wanted to start right in the action. But I try to give you enough information to know that Will isn’t who he seems. We don’t need to know all of Will’s past—just that he’s trying to save his friend’s life, that he was momentarily thrown by news from his past, and perhaps also that there’s more at stake than just a reporter getting beat up in the woods.
Reporter Will Masterson didn’t have time to be right. Time to prove that the men who’d hijacked him and hauled him into the forest to express their displeasure at his recent op-ed piece weren’t actually disgruntled rednecks, but rather international terrorists. Because, the lie that had just saved Will Masterson’s hide, the lie perpetuated by the boys toting 0.22s and wearing work boots was the only thing standing between undercover Homeland Security agent Simon Rouss and his brutal murder.
Which would only be the first in a hundred, maybe thousand murders by the terrorist cell hiding in the northern Minnesota woods.
Please, God, be on my side today. Will raced down the two-lane rutted forest service road, cursing his stupidity, wincing at a few new souvenir bruises. Blood dribbled from his nose, into his mouth. He should have known his sympathetic commentaries in the Moose Bend Journal toward the recent immigrants flooding over the Canadian border would have drawn blood with the locals. Blood that would hopefully protect Simon as he embedded deeper in the terrorist cell in the hills.
If only Will hadn’t been ambushed by the double-edged sword sitting in his P.O. Box. A letter from Bonnie. He’d opened it, and the words knifed him through the chest.
Bonnie Strong and Paul Moore invite you to a celebration of life and love in our Lord Jesus Christ.
He should have dropped the invitation to his floorboard and crushed it under his foot. Instead, he’d let his grief, his failures, rush over him and blind him to the three hillbillies laying in wait like a nest of South Dakotan rattlers.
A year of undercover work, of slinking around this hick town in northern
I love the magic of a good Inciting Incident—that moment when everything goes haywire— or at least hints at going haywire—in our hero’s journey. Sometimes it’s an earthquake of epic proportions. Other times, it’s just a 2.5 on the Richter scale.But regardless of the strength of the event, the Inciting Incident delivery demands an exquisite balance of delicacy and resonance.
Delicacy and Resonance?
Delicacy in the Inciting Incident doesn’t mean a light touch.It means treading lightly through backstory, digging up only that which is most pertinent. It’s so easy for an author to want to load in all the significant life events of the hero that have led up to this moment. Why, when he sees the red car parked in front of his mother’s house, he realizes that his father has returned from years on the run. Or why, when our hero wakes up after being beaten up and left in an alley, he knows he wasn’t just mugged. Yes, we as the reader need to know why these details matter, but light touches are the key when inserting back story.
I’m going to give you an example in just a moment from one of my books, but let’s talk about Resonance for a moment.
Resonance is meaning . We want to know how this event fits into the Story Quesstion, as well as the past. We also want to understand what the next step is for the character. However, we need to keep it free from melodrama. The reader wants to see the event, yet they don’t know the character well enough for heavy interpretation.
So, how do we balance Delicacy and Resonance in our Inciting Incident? Answer: By keeping the backstory from stalling the –action—and keeping the action at the forefront.
Here’s a scene from my book Escape to Morning . It’s a romantic suspense, so I wanted to start right in the action. But I try to give you enough information to know that Will isn’t who he seems. We don’t need to know all of Will’s past—just that he’s trying to save his friend’s life, that he was momentarily thrown by news from his past, and perhaps also that there’s more at stake than just a reporter getting beat up in the woods.
Reporter Will Masterson didn’t have time to be right. Time to prove that the men who’d hijacked him and hauled him into the forest to express their displeasure at his recent op-ed piece weren’t actually disgruntled rednecks, but rather international terrorists. Because, the lie that had just saved Will Masterson’s hide, the lie perpetuated by the boys toting 0.22s and wearing work boots was the only thing standing between undercover Homeland Security agent Simon Rouss and his brutal murder.
Which would only be the first in a hundred, maybe thousand murders by the terrorist cell hiding in the northern Minnesota woods.
Please, God, be on my side today. Will raced down the two-lane rutted forest service road, cursing his stupidity, wincing at a few new souvenir bruises. Blood dribbled from his nose, into his mouth. He should have known his sympathetic commentaries in the Moose Bend Journal toward the recent immigrants flooding over the Canadian border would have drawn blood with the locals. Blood that would hopefully protect Simon as he embedded deeper in the terrorist cell in the hills.
If only Will hadn’t been ambushed by the double-edged sword sitting in his P.O. Box. A letter from Bonnie. He’d opened it, and the words knifed him through the chest.
Bonnie Strong and Paul Moore invite you to a celebration of life and love in our Lord Jesus Christ.
He should have dropped the invitation to his floorboard and crushed it under his foot. Instead, he’d let his grief, his failures, rush over him and blind him to the three hillbillies laying in wait like a nest of South Dakotan rattlers.
A year of undercover work, of slinking around this hick town in northern
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