Tales of Time: Writing Tip IV

Today we are going to be talking about the beginning of stories and the "Inciting Incident". The inciting incident is the event that truly starts your story. Examples of famous inciting incidents include, Darth Vader captures Princess Leia, Indiana Jones learns about the Ark, Harry gets dropped off at the Dursleys.

Your inciting incident doesn't have to be the first thing that happens but is should happen early in the book. Your story should start when everything changes for your main character rather than a normal Tuesday; unless of course their normal Tuesday is extraordinary by normal people's standards.

It's fine to have a prologue or a first chapter that starts with some exposition but your inciting incident should still occur within the first 10 pages. There have been numerous studies conducted by various publishing companies which agree that if a reader is not hooked by the first ten pages (some even say as little as five), they will not read the rest of your book. The inciting indecent is how you hook your readers, it makes them interested in the story more than exposition will.

Quick announcement! On Prime Days (July 8th - 11th), the paperback edition of my book will be 10% off and selling for 8.99 rather than 9.99. However, the Ebook will not be on sale and will instead stay at its current price of 5.99. Also thank all of you who pointed out spelling errors and other mistakes in the book. When this sale starts the book will have been updated to be free of such errors!

Well that's all I had for today, be sure to check in next week for more writing advice! If you have a topic that you specifically want me to cover please leave it in the comments. As always thank you for your support! Until next week dear Readers.