Seen any great movies recently? Did you recognize major story elements in the unfolding tale?
My husband and I watched Reign of Fire the other night. (Yeah, I know…big surprise: Debbie owns dragon movies!) Anyhow, as we watched the opening scenes, my husband nodded at me and said with the wisdom of a man married to a writer, “They woke the dragon. Inciting incident.”
I smiled and nodded my agreement, until a few minutes later when I recognized my mistake. We paused the movie (a definite benefit to watching a favorite film at home via DVD) and I explained my epiphany.
Actually, the scenes of Quinn as a child act as a prologue, then the movie takes us forward 15 or 20 years and we establish the “ordinary world” as a bleak, hopeless place where the few surviving humans struggle to avoid dragons and find enough to eat. In reality, the inciting incident is the arrival of the dragon slayers. At that point, Quinn (as our hero and protagonist) has a choice: he can believe in the possibility of killing his deadly foe, or he can turn the slayers away.
As I pointed out to my husband, the discovery of the dragon can’t be the “inciting incident” or “call to action,” because there’s no possibility of refusing the call. The dragon is awake. Deal or die. A true “call” requires that the hero have a choice: believe and hope that a better future can exist, or continue to scrape by hording the few available resources.
This may be the key to plots that seem exciting, but go nowhere. I’ve got this great idea, a grand event that will threaten the world…but do I give my hero a choice? Do I set my story up so that refusing the call is a viable and believable option? If not, I’m making a huge mistake. Characters can’t be forced to grow; they must make the hard choices on their own. Otherwise, I’m writing martyrs. And while they may be admirable, I don’t think martyrs make particularly good heroes.
So…the next time you settle in to watch a good movie, put your muse on duty. Learn a few points of story technique from that visual banquet.
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