Bethany Henry: Writing & Wellness

Understanding story structure helps us create stories that keep readers reading. Story structure provides a critical framework to make our stories powerful and engaging.  We’ve looked briefly at an overview of the core elements of story structure. Today we’re going to dig deeper into the inciting incident.  The Inciting Incident The inciting incident is where the main character is thrust into the action of the story. It occurs shortly into our novel,  some say around 10-12% if you’re looking for a number , but generally in the first few chapters. We’ve already started our story off with a strong hook where we caught our reader’s attention and introduced our main character and the world they live in. We basically have a brewing pot filled with potential. The inciting incident is the plot point that upsets the balance of things and pushes us into the main story. Our story has been set up and this is where it starts moving forward in earnest. So what does an i...

Story structure is the framework that makes a story “work.” When utilized, it can provide a firm foundation to make stories more powerful and allow readers to resonate with them.  We’ve looked earlier at an outline of the core elements that make up strong stories. Today we’re digging a bit deeper into a story’s “hook” and what it should look like in our writing. Strong Story Structure: The Hook The hook is where we begin our story! This is the first scene, maybe even the first sentence of our story. And it is critical for several reasons. Perhaps most obviously, the hook needs to engage the reader immediately. When picking up a new book, readers will usually only look at the first few pages, or possibly even the first few sentences, to see whether they think they’ll like it. Therefore, it’s extremely important to catch their interest quickly!  How to Catch a Reader’s Interest: Through action It doesn’t always need to be a life or death fight, but something happening can m...