Is It Done Yet - Part 6: Destabilizing and Inciting Incidents

This is the sixth installment aimed at helping writers know when their novel is ready to query. The series is based on the presentation I made at the Las Vegas Writers Conference in April of this year, "Is It Done Yet? How to Know When Your Novel is Ready to Query"

Is it Done Yet - Part 6: Destabilizing and Inciting Incidents

As I was getting ready to move to the final stage of revision, What the Reader Needs, it occurred to me that I haven’t touched on a very important aspect of What the Story Needs: The destabilizing and inciting incidents. So I’m going to do that now before moving on to the final stage of getting your manuscript ready to query.

These two moments are absolutely crucial for getting your novel moving forward, and, surprisingly, a lot of the manuscripts I edit miss them, minimize them, conflate them, or have them occur too late. If you’ve ever gotten comments that your story starts in the wrong place, chances are good you’ve misplaced either the destabilizing incident or the inciting incident.

So what are they?

The Destabilizing Incident

The destabilizing incident, as the name implies, is the thing that unbalances your main character’s world. It’s Frodo Baggins when Bilbo disappears from his birthday party in Lord of the Rings. It’s the renting of Netherfield Park in Pride and Prejudice. It’s the discovery of the direwolf pups – one for each of the Stark children – in Game of Thrones. It’s Athena telling Telemachus he needs to leave Ithaca and visit his father’s friends in the Odyssey. It’s the moment the main character’s life is interrupted by something that breaks them out of their regular routine or pattern.

Though destabilizing incidents need to be present in the story, not all of them occur onstage. In the famous opening of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the destabilizing incident has already occurred – the wife’s discovery of Count Oblonsky’s affair with the children’s governess – three days prior to the opening of the novel. The moment in which Dolly discovers the infidelity is given to the reader in retrospect, but the focus is on the upheaval (the destabilization) this discovery creates from the first sentence.

Whether it occurs onstage or off, the destabilizing incident almost always occurs within the first few pages, even better (for contemporary fiction) if it occurs on page one. I’ve referred before to the opening pages of The Hunger Games and urge you to take a look at it.

Collins opens the book with about 300 words of Katniss Everdeen’s regular life – the poverty, Katniss’s cold life-or-death pragmatism, the restrictions of the society in which she lives. There’s also the sense of something unsettling about to occur. In the very first paragraph, which is three sentences long, Collins references the bad dreams Katniss’s sister has been having: “Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.” Collins doesn’t tell you what “the reaping” is until later, but, importantly, she conveys the sense this thing makes this day different even as Katniss goes about her regular routine of meeting Gale in the forest to hunt.

An effective destabilizing incident really has two components – the ordinary world the main character exists in, and the event that upends the ordinary world.

The destabilizing incident is important to both the story and the reader.

For the story, it’s important because it sets the main character up for the inciting incident. The main character’s world is no longer routine, their awareness is heightened, possibly things no longer fit together the way they used to making the main character restless and ready for change.

For the reader, the ordinary world is the baseline that allows the reader to see the changes that occur in the main character over the course of the story. If the reader doesn’t know what’s normal or routine for the main character (not just in their external world, but also their internal one of reactions, emotions, decision making, etc.), then the reader has no understanding of the effect of the events on the main character.

The Inciting Incident

The inciting incident is that event, without which, nothing else in the story can occur.

In the Lord of the Rings, it’s Frodo picking up the One Ring (though you could also argue, it’s Bilbo giving up the Ring before he leaves the Shire). In Pride and Prejudice, it’s Elizabeth Bennett dancing with Mr. Darcy. In Game of Thrones, it’s Robert Baratheon’s arrival at Winterfell and Bran’s fall from the tower. In the Odyssey, it’s Hermes telling Calypso to let Odysseus go home. In Anna Karenina, it’s the titular character’s arrival, having shared her journey from St. Petersburg with Vronsky’s mother. And, in the Hunger Games, it’s when Prim is selected as tribute.

While the destabilizing incident can occur offstage and still be effective, the inciting incident needs to occur onstage where the reader can experience it (notice I say “experience” it – in contemporary fiction, it’s most effective if this moment is portrayed in scene, shown to the reader, rather than the reader being told about it in exposition).

The function of the inciting incident is to generate the energy needed to propel the main character (and the reader) into the story. Think of these two moments in your story as if the destabilizing incident lights the fuse on a stick of dynamite and the inciting incident is when the dynamite explodes.

But, wait, you say, your novel isn’t a thriller with explosive pacing, it’s literary fiction. Even so, even when the pacing of the novel and its focus is on more introspective and quite moments, the inciting incident is still the moment that propels the main character forward into the rest of the story. Austen’s pyrotechnics come from the verbal sparring that occurs between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy while they dance, setting up Elizabeth’s disdain for the recalcitrant Mr. Darcy and their subsequent interactions, including her willingness to believe Wickham’s story about Darcy cheating him of his birthright. The essential aspect of the inciting incident is that, without it, nothing else happens in the book, and that holds true no matter the book’s genre.

Typically, the inciting incident occurs somewhere around the 10-15% mark (in an 85,000 word novel, that would put it between 8,500 and 12,750 words or approximately between pages 25 and 40), though I’ve seen it effectively placed as late as page 50 in longer works. What’s absolutely essential is that the destabilizing incident creates tension for the reader, draws them forward with the awareness that something is about to change, and the inciting incident releases that tension in a way the propels the reader and the story forward. Both events need to be meaningful, organic to the central organizing principle of the story, and relate to the story’s climactic moment and ultimate resolution.

One of the reasons I chose to include this post in a series focused on getting your manuscript ready to query is because these two moments in your novel occur at the very beginning, the pages most likely to be read by an agent. Without them, the reader (whether it's an agent, editor, or someone who bought your book) doesn't have the sense of a story getting ready to be told. They're crucial moments, in the early pages of your novel, that can make the difference between engaging a reader and having the reader say, "No thanks."

And with that, I promise, the next installment of this series will deal with the final stage of revision: What the Reader Needs. See you next time!

If you'd like to hear more about how to use destabilizing and inciting incidents to create a dynamic opening for your novel, I'm speaking on this topic at the Thoughtful Book Festival on Friday, August 28, 2020. Please go HERE to reserve your tickets. 


If you’d like to receive a copy of my revision flow chart, please contact me at: diane.glaz@gmail.com

If you'd like more information about my editing services, please visit my website or contact me through email, Facebook, Twitter, or IG. I specialize in literary, upmarket, commercial, YA, contemporary women's, erotica, and fantasy, and have a diverse and international client base whose work has appeared on the NY Times best seller lists and Amazon top seller lists.

Twitter: @DeeGeeWriter

IG: diane.glaz

(If you follow me on IG, be forewarned: you'll see a lot of pictures of my Airedales and whisky)

Here are the links for the all the parts of this series: 

Part 1: The goal of a fully-realized novel

Part 2: Know your genre

Part 3: What the writer needs - Telling yourself the story

Part 4: What the story needs - Telling the story

Part 5: What the story (also) needs - Telling the real story

Part 6: Destabilizing and inciting incidents

Part 7: What the reader needs

Slush Pile Reader -- Let Us Begin

Taking off my writer hat for a moment and putting on the one I wear as a slush pile reader for a literary agent, I want to talk about beginnings. At this point, I've been reading submissions for about two years and have looked at about 1,100 query letters and opening pages as well as read a significant number of full manuscripts. It means I've seen a lot of openings that just don't work, and I want to share with you some of the common pitfalls I see in the slush pile.

First, though, I want to talk about what an opening should do.

A novel's opening pages are how you introduce the reader to the world of the novel -- its characters, setting, conflicts, premise, themes, hopefully even the imagery and voice. These elements are the vocabulary you are going to use to tell your story and you need to have them on the page from the first word. In addition, the opening pages should capture some essential moment in the narrative arc, the moment when things are poised on the brink of explosion, a moment beyond which things are never going to be the same again. There should be tension and something should definitely be at stake even if it is not the grand stakes for which the characters are playing, something needs to matter in the opening pages.

While I've heard a lot of writers complain that contemporary publishing favors the quick start, the high stakes, flash and fire over substance, the fact is you can look at almost any classic work and see the same elements. Even Tolstoy, who is not the most succinct of writers, gets a heck of a lot of information into the opening paragraph of Anna Karenina:

ALL happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

All was confusion in the house of the Oblonskys. The wife had discovered that her husband was having an intrigue with a French governess who had been in their employ, and she declared that she could not live in the same house with him. This condition of things had lasted now three days, and was causing deep discomfort, not only to the husband and wife, but also to all the members of the family and the domestics. All the members of the family and the domestics felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that in any hotel people meeting casually had more mutual interests than they, the members of the family and the domestics of the house of Oblonsky. The wife did not come out of her own rooms; the husband had not been at home for two days. The children were running over the whole house as if they were crazy ; the English maid was angry with the housekeeper and wrote to a friend begging her to find her a new place. The head cook had departed the evening before just at dinner-time; the kitchen-maid and the coachman demanded their wages.

The novel opens at a moment of high tension and discord brought about by the discovery of a husband's affair. It affects not only the married couple, the Oblonskys, but the family and their servants, and is so explosive that household staff are seeking employment elsewhere. And look at the movement of the narrative -- Tolstoy begins with a grand, sweeping statement of his entire book's premise. Then he immediately brings it to the family level, "All was confusion in the house of the Oblonskys...The wife did not come out of her own rooms; the husband had not been at home for two days." A quick summation of the current state of affairs that reveals the stakes (the future of the household) and is specific to this family and how the situation is affecting the individuals -- not only the upper class Oblonskys, but their children and their servants - the English maid, the housekeeper, the head cook, the coachman. The scope of this novel is global -- here, in the opening paragraph, Tolstoy is giving the reader notice of his intentions.

In the paragraph that follows this one, Tolstoy focuses on Oblonsky and, bam, we're in the story, and the looming conflict because Oblonsky is looking forward to the arrival of his sister, Anna Karenina, who will set all things to right in his household because Anna is dependable and steady and always knows what to do. Given the opening line of the novel, the reader should have a pretty good clue that Anna's arrival is not going to make things better.

So what are some of the common problems I see in the slush pile?

1. Starting in the wrong place -- it seems like it should be pretty easy to figure out where to start the story. It starts at the beginning, right? Not necessarily. There's a difference between where the novel starts and where the story starts. If you look at the opening paragraph from Anna Karenina, you'll see that the story starts three days before the novel, at the point where Countess Oblonsky discovers her husband's affair and locks herself in her room. Many writers would start with the fight (it's dramatic, right?) and use that fight to give a great deal of backstory about this couple (more on backstory in a moment), but the problem is the fight is not where things are about to change. And that's what's at the crux of a dynamic opening: the situation is dire, the stakes are high, and something is about to change.

2. Flashbacks and core dumps of backstory -- you would not believe the number of submissions I see where the writer gives a sentence, maybe a paragraph, of story and immediately goes into flashback or a core dump of backstory.

What this looks like:
Janet stood by the window of her corner office and stared at the people on the street below, so tiny they looked like ants. It had been a long hard fight to the top for her, starting in the mail room fresh out of college, studying for her MBA on the subway from Queens when she was living in a fifth floor walk up with no heat and five roommates (not counting the cockroaches)....etc etc etc

Why this doesn't work: it stops the forward momentum of the story dead in its tracks. In fact, there is no forward momentum to the story for the simple reason that no story has started. In simplest terms, story can be defined as a person in a place with a problem. While we've got Janet in an office, there's no problem, there's not even a situation. Think of the novel like a car trip. You get everyone in the car, turn on the engine, back out of the garage, and someone says, "I have to go to the bathroom." So you put the car in park, turn off the engine, and wait.

In a lot of cases, I think this happens because the writer hasn't found a way to fully integrate what he or she knows about the character yet.

So let's put Janet back in that corner office. She's standing by the window, staring at the street where the corporate limo is waiting to take her to the airport for the most important client meeting of her life, and she's picking at her carefully manicured nails, frustrated because she's just ruined a $200 manicure, a month's rent on her first apartment out of school, she notes dryly. She tugs at the her suit and tries to square her shoulders in it, but she can't get it to settle quite right, wishes she could imitate the ease with which her colleagues inhabit their Brooks Brothers and Brionis and Armanis. And in walks Arthur, the CEO, who plops a folder onto her desk and says, "I've decided to give the account to Allison. You're going to be working on the Podunk account."

And then you don't stop to add in all the stuff about Janet's night school MBA and the 5th floor walk up, you go on with how she copes with this change in plans and how all that other stuff informs her reactions to what has happened.

3. Withholding information -- it seems like holding something back from the reader would build suspense. The strange thing is it rarely does. I think this is because tension comes from the reactions of the characters to the thing, how they cope with it, what it does to them, not the thing itself. When you name the thing that has happened at the beginning, you create the space for the character to react, and you give the reader the satisfaction of knowing why the character is doing what he or she is doing. Another reason why this does not produce a dynamic opening is....

4. No stakes -- stakes are about risk, about what's on the line for your character if she does or does not do something. Stakes don't have to be life or death, but they do have to be important to your character. For example, while getting a bad grade on a test seems pretty low stakes, what happens if this grade is the difference between the character being able to play in a particular football game, which could be the difference between receiving a scholarship and going to college or ending up working in a fast food restaurant. And what if the character is trying to do the right thing and study hard, his friends convince him to go out and party the night before the test or, even better, give him the answers to the test so he faces a moral dilemma. Study on his own and possibly fail and ruin his life OR cheat and virtually guarantee his success.

While the stakes don't have to be sky high in the opening pages of your novel, something has to be at risk. In Anna Karenina, the household is falling apart. It's been three days, the children are running amok, the household staff is leaving, and the parents still aren't talking.

5. Cattle call of character introductions -- You need to get a story going, and stories need characters. One of the most delicate things a writer has to do is let the reader know which characters are important to the story, which characters they need to pay attention to, and who's expendable. One of the ways a writer does this is by how characters are introduced. Generally, more important characters are given more detailed introductions. We find out more about them, get a move vivid description of them, have lines of dialogue or interactions with other characters so we learn who they are. When you give readers an entire room full of characters, it's a little like being at a party where everyone goes around the room and tells you their name. Hi, I'm Alice. Jim. Samantha. Rupert. Stephen. Bob. Helen. And two seconds after you shake hands, you have no idea who you're talking to.

This doesn't mean you have to take things slowly. If you're opening scene is a party, by all means, make sure there's a roomful of people. Just make sure you introduce me to the ones it's important for me to know in a way that tells me this.


I think the most important thing to remember about your novel's opening pages is that this is the most important real estate in your entire book. The words need to be working hard, doing more than one thing at a time. Character introductions need to establish conflict and stakes, details need to provide imagery and theme, descriptions and exposition need to establish voice, setting sets tone, dialogue needs to provide characterization, and everything, everything, everything has to move the story forward. 


Want to know if your novel is ready to query? My current series of posts "Is it Done Yet?" based on my presentation at the Las Vegas Writers Conference in April, 2020, starts here and takes you through the stages of revision from first draft to query-ready manuscript.

If you'd like more information about me and my editing services, please visit my website or contact me through email or on Facebook, Twitter, or IG. I specialize in literary, upmarket, commercial, YA, contemporary women's, erotica, and fantasy, and have a diverse and international client base who's work has appeared on the NY Times best seller lists and Amazon top seller lists.

Twitter: @DeeGeeWriter 
Instagram: diane.glaz
Email: diane.glaz@gmail.com