Reader Question: How big of a plot point do I need in the middle of Act One?
Talking Inciting Incident, Call to Adventure, The Hook, whatever you call it.
Talking Inciting Incident, Call to Adventure, The Hook, whatever you call it.
A question via email from GITS reader Benjamin W:
been struggling with something and thought it might be a good question
for you to answer on the blog. im wondering about what i would call
the catalyst moment that happens around p10–15. i know that some event
usually happens here that kinda starts the story or tips the
protagonists life out of balance and sends him on a journey. my
question is how important of an event does this need to be in
comparison to the big event that happens around p25–30? can the
catalyst plot point just be a foreshadowing scene that doesn’t really
throw the characters life drastically out of balance or even start the
story?
so, my question- do i need to have a firm incident at around p10 or 12
that really throws my character a wrench and starts the story. im
wondering if by having an event that is inconsequential enough so that
the protagonists life can go on as usual it will be a recipe for
reader boredom.
This is one of the fundamental plotting questions every screenwriter has to face with every story. If you look at it per “The Hero’s Journey,” there is something big that happens which causes the Protagonist to be thrust out of their ordinary world into the world of adventure. That is what we would typically call the end of Act One. But surely something else has to happen in the first act set-up, right? Otherwise, as you suggest, it could be a “recipe for reader boredom.” And not just something else, but a “something else” that is also significant enough to (A) cause some degree of upheaval in the Protagonist’s life and (B) hook the reader into the story.
Did I say “hook?” Ah, fancy that. Because per my own take on a screenplay paradigm Narrative Throughline, that mid-Act One plot point is something I call The Hook which I describe as follows:
“Something big happens which jumbles the Protagonist’s world.”
So you type FADE IN and go about establishing your Protagonist and their ordinary world, then something happens. The scope of that beat will vary from story to story, but it’s got to be an event that creates at least some fissures in the way things normally are in the P’s life. There’s also this:
“The Reader gets an indication what the story will be.”
The Hook is not just an arbitrary event, rather it is something tied directly to and advances the Plotline, which nicely enough provides a tip to the Reader where the story will be going. This in contrast to the end of Act One plot point, what I call The Lock:
“A significant event which twists the plot in a new direction.”
Again the shift from ordinary world into the extraordinary world of adventure. And per the Reader:
“Set-up is locked down: The Reader knows what the story will be.”
Let’s look at some examples, movies that just popped into my head:
Thelma & Louise
The Hook: Louise kills Harlan (P. 17–21)
The Lock: T&L go on the run and the cops put out an APB on them (P. 34–35)
The Silence of the Lambs
The Hook: Clarice meets Lecter for the first time (P. 9–14)
The Lock: Lecter offers a deal to Clarice / Buffalo Bill kidnaps Catherine Martin (P. 24–29)
Up
The Hook: Carl meets Russell / Hits construction worker and goes to court (P. 18–22)
The Lock: Carl and Russell arrive in South America (P. 30–33)
Now let me say two important things.
1. Every story is different and despite what you may have read or heard, there is no one right way to write a story or even construct a story structure. Yes, most mainstream Hollywood movies do tend to follow the basic pattern as first laid out by Syd Field, but that does hold true in all cases. Moreover it’s not as important as this next point:
2. The structure should always arise from the characters. In other words, it’s not about superimposing some external structure onto a story, but rather digging into the characters so that it emerges naturally as a result of their interactions.
This is where it’s helpful to ask this question:
Why does this story have to happen to this character at this time?
If you look at a story as a psychological tale of a Protagonist’s journey through metamorphosis, it’s generally fair to say that the P begins Act One in a state of Disunity. They have constructed a life in their ordinary world that works — on the surface. But there is a genuine aspect of who they are, indeed, a more authentic part of their Self that they have denied or repressed.
Jung talks about the process of “individuation,” a major part of which is to raise into consciousness that which we hold in our unconsciousness. So we can look at a Protagonist’s journey in a movie as the means to do that, problems created to force the P to get in touch with and connect to the various parts of their psyche which up to this point they have not, why they may be said to be living in Disunity.
So this story must happen to this character at this time because that is their psychological destiny. And if we can bear this in mind when dealing with story structure issues, then hopefully we can make decisions that are grounded in the characters, not superimposed on them.
Circling back to your OP, if you feel like your Hook plot point arises from your Protagonist’s situation, jumbles their world, and is something that a reader will find compelling, then no matter how ‘small’ it is, that could conceivably work.
If you feel like it needs to be bigger, you can certainly brainstorm various possibilities to raise the stakes personally to the P or embellish the action to make the beat feel more substantive, but if you focus on the latter without paying attention to the former, then it’s likely that a reader will see right through you: “He just threw in the kitchen sink in this scene to make it feel big.”
In other words, the ‘bigness’ should arise from what the beat signifies to the P, not just a bunch of filigree to give the appearance of elevating its importance.
I’m sure GITS readers will have lots of opinions as story structure seems to be a real hot button item. But it sounds like you’re on the right track, that the mid-beat in Act One is a sort of foreshadowing of what is to come, a bigger plot point at the end of the act to twist the story out of the ordinary world. As long as that mid-beat (Hook) derives its real significance from what it means to the characters, especially the Protagonist, you should be in good shape.