This sounds stupid and obvious, but it’s the only real rule for Act 1. Many things usually happen in the first Act, but the one thing that ALWAYS happens is a transition to Act 2, the meat of the story. This is the beginning of Act 1, the initial conflict. Two men wearing black ski masks and blue business suits were standing to the side of the door. The story moves briskly along, each sentence heightening the action between Anders and the women in front of him. It just means that on the spectrum of pleasures one usually gains from reading, this one is absent, and you need to compensate for that in some way if you want people to read what you wrote. If your characters aren’t interesting, it doesn’t mean your story will fail. It just means that it might not be as strong as it could be.Įverything anyone tells you about writing should be thought of on a spectrum.

If, at any time, the reader does not understand what a character wants and sees them struggling to get it, they won’t be as interested in the story as they could be. This is the first sentence of the story and it introduces a problem that, while not the meat of the story, is enough to keep the reader interested, especially because of the strong language: loud, stupid, murderous.

Tobias Wolff is an amazing writer, and he is able to do this because even without the inciting incident, there is conflict and escalating action throughout the beginning of the story.Īnders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. The inciting incident in this story despite its short length, occurs kind of far into the story. A causal chain simply means that one event leads to another.Įnough jargon - lets apply these ideas to the story. It sets off a string of events in an escalating causal chain that come to form a story. The inciting incident is the first event that makes this day different from all others in the eyes of the protagonist. In novels, it’s not uncommon for the inciting incident to occur within a chapter or two. This is because short stories are… well, short. In short stories, the inciting incident often, but not always, occurs within the first paragraph of the story. If you don’t want to put in the work, you won’t make it.Įvery story starts with the inciting incident.

It’s only on the second read, when you know what’s going to happen, that you can start to see the structure of things. This is important because the first time you read anything, you’re going along as a reader. If you really want to get a lot out of this, read the story twice. It’s short, emotionally resonant, masterfully crafted, and fresh. Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff is one of my favorite short stories of all time.

Bullet in the brain wolff