“Inciting Incident” vs “Key Event” vs “First Plot Point”
Untangling the confusion surrounding to these similar story events
The three most important events in the first act can be summed up very simply as:
- Inciting Incident: Reveal a doorway
- Key Event: Step up to the doorway
- First Plot Point: Pass through the doorway
If you have studied storytelling at all, you will have heard of a least one of these concepts. Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion regarding what they are because the terms are often used interchangeably. Much of this confusion comes from the fact that sometimes two of them occur within the same scene, and occasionally even within the same sentence. This article will untangle these important events so that you can use them to great effect.
Please understand that it doesn’t have to be a literal doorway, although it can be, and often is. There is a whole sub-genre of ‘portal fantasy’ where the threshold from one world to another is a literal doorway or portal. But for most stories, the doorway is figurative, such as starting a new job, moving across country, or entering a new relationship. Regardless of whether the boundary between the old familiar world and the scary new world is figurative or literal, it must be clearly defined and shown to be a point of no…
