Elements of a Successful Story: Part 1

Story structure goes by many names. Hero’s Journey, Heroine’s Journey, Save the Cat, Freytag’s Pyramid, Three-Act Structure, Five-Act Structure, Dan Harmon’s Story Circle…you get the point.

There are a lot of different ways to try to pin down a story.

And a lot of people with their own take. A quick search for writing craft books on Amazon yields over 30,000 results.

Many writers find these various methods to parsing out story structure helpful, and if you’re one of them, by all means, carry on. But I believe it’s helpful to see what’s behind the curtain. To understand what sits at the heart of all of these methods. What connects them all. And that’s the Seven Core Elements of story. When you hit all seven elements, you’ll have a story that works. Miss an element, misunderstand an element, or lack clarity on an element, and you’ll struggle to write a story that works.

These seven elements are the universal framing onto which you will hammer your unique story drywall. Here they are:

Open

Inciting Incident

Act 2 Build

Act 2 Midpoint

Act 2 Low Point

Climax

Resolution

There’s flexibility here. Sometimes you’ll find books that open with the Act 2 Midpoint. Or maybe the Act 2 Low Point. Maybe they even start with the Climax, then go back in time to show how the protagonist got here. It’s okay to scramble these seven core elements, but all seven need to make it to the page in order to write a satisfying story.

In this post, we’re going to look at the first two core elements: the Open and the Inciting Incident. Together, these two elements make up your Act 1. Let’s take them one at a time.

Open

The opening pages of your story are a masterclass in juggling. You’re trying to get all your balls into the air – your characters, your plot, your setting, your story question, your themes – and not drop any of them. If you do, your reader may never get past page 5.

No pressure, right?

There are three things your Open needs to do to get your story started on strong footing.

First, it must establish your protagonist’s Status Quo. Their Status Quo is all the things they’re thinking about, hoping for, planning for, or avoiding as they walk onto the first page of the story, before anything happens.

You need to craft this Status Quo with intention, so you can set your protagonist up for change. Because stories are about change. A character is in one place at the beginning of the story, and in another place at the end. They want independence at the beginning, only to realize the power of connection at the end. They reject love in the beginning, only to realize how much they need it by the end. They want to control the outcome at the beginning, only to realize that the only way to get what they really need is to let go. In order to understand, and develop a character arc that moves your protagonist toward change, you need to fully understand where they are as the story opens, and where they need to go by the story’s end.

Second, your Open must establish your protagonist’s external goal, or what they want. That *thing* they’re trying to achieve or avoid that they believe, if only I got this *thing* then everything would be okay. This external goal is the key building block of your plot.

Third, you need to nod to their internal need, or what they need to learn. This internal need is the key building block of your internal arc of change. The protagonist likely will not know what their internal need is – this is what they’ll discover on the adventure of the story – but you need to know it. And you’ll want to clue the reader in on it in some way. This sets up the overarching tension of your story question: will the protagonist figure it out?

Inciting Incident

The Open builds to the Inciting Incident, which is the moment where the protagonist has to make the decision that will send them on the adventure of the story.

This decision is sometimes referred to as a Best Bad Choice, because the choice is unexpected in some way. Either it comes completely out of the blue, or it’s a choice the protagonist has been anticipating but there’s an aspect to it that they didn’t expect. It’s not a clean choice – the protagonist may gain something but they also may lose something.

At this early stage in the story, they will make a decision to try to go after what they want – their external goal. And it will kick off their internal arc of change, where they finally learn to give up on what they thought they wanted (their external goal) and get what they really needed (their internal need).

But it can't be just any old inciting incident.

Remember - stories are about change, and a just-right plot is designed to move your protagonist along their internal arc of change. That means your incident incident needs to not just to kick off the plot, but to kick off that all-important internal arc of change.

Once the protagonist makes this choice – and faces the first set of consequences of that choice – Act 1 comes to a close and Act 2 opens.

Crafting Your Open and Inciting Incident

Whether you are developing a new story idea, deep into a draft, or getting ready to revise, take some time to examine your Open and Inciting Incident.

Get clear on your protagonist’s Status Quo, or what they’re thinking, hoping for, and avoiding on the day before they step onto the page of the story. Be intentional here: ask yourself, what Status Quo will set my character up for change?

And get clear on your protagonist’s External Goal and Internal Need. Their External Goal will point you to your plot arc, and their Internal Need will point you to their internal arc of change.

Then ask yourself if you inciting incident is kicking off that internal arc of change. For an example, look to Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. In what might now be the most famous inciting incident, Katniss’s little sister’s name is called in the Reaping. Katniss now faces a Best Bad Choice: does she watch her sweet sister go to her death in the Hunger Games, or does she stand up and take her place? Katniss chooses to stand up and take her place, kicking off not just the plot but an internal arc that will move Katniss from avoiding confrontation with the Capitol to actively confronting the Capitol, and sparking a revolution.

You want to bring the same intentionality to your inciting incident.

In my next post, we’ll dive into big, messy Act 2.

Till next time…

Happy writing!

Erin