the inciting incident

"'The inciting incident is how you get them [the characters] to do something,' Ben said, ' It's the doorway through which they can't return, you know. The story takes care of the rest.' "


"Robert Mckee says humans naturally seek comfort and stability. Without an inciting incident that disrupts their comfort, they won't enter into a story...The character has to jump into the story, into the discomfort and the fear, otherwise the story will never happen."

"Before I realized we were supposed to fight fear, I thought of fear as a subtle suggestion in our subconscious designed to keep us safe...And I guess it serves that purpose. But fear isn't only a guide to keep us safe; it's also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life."

~Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

My Inciting Incident of 2010: Leaving Bolivia

My Ambition: To live life embracing "whimsy"..."that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks."