Refined it a bit in the shower this morning, though…

FPP is the rocket that changes hero’s trajectory, inciting incident is the lit fuse (or however rockets are launched these days).

If (and this is how I think about it now) the First Plot Point is the event that knocks our hero out of his status quo trajectory, then the inciting incident is the rocket that is launched to impact his (or her) trajectory. The hero may or may not know about that rocket, it has to launch well before the fist plot point, and even if the hero thinks s/he sees it coming, when it hits it alters the hero’s actions to the final conclusion.

A little trivia to brighten your day: “Flibgibbet” is short-hand for “flibbertigibbet”—–a flighty, frivolous and restless person. What a great word! Wish I’d invented it.

Cheers.

I MUST express my gratitude to u, Larry, for clarifying this issue. It has plagued me for some time, & when diff. authors use the terminology diff., it doesn’t help. You’ve cleared up all my confusion & let me confidently assess my opening of my WIP. (My hook/II is too late, so I’m combining that scene w/ my first, sort of.)

You said:
The FPP lends meaning to the hook while “…adding stakes and the context of an antagonist with other plans and needs than those of the hero.”

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Put that on Ur monitor. Put that on Ur bulletin board. Put it on Ur forehead. It’s a keeper.

You’ve done it again, Larry.

Can’t argue with your semantics. If an Inciting Incident early — which, technically, is a plot “point” in the sense that it is a “story point,” then the FPP isn’t really the “First” plot point. But rather than rename it, as you say, I have to say that in novels the term “First Plot Point” is already a bit of a renaming. And, perhaps ironically, the thing it was initially called in some circles was, in fact, the Inciting Incident. That said, can’t argue with your suggestion — think of it (if not rename it) the First Major Turning Point.

But I could argue that’s not always true, either. An early Inciting Incident is still a choice, and when that happen then “the turning point moment” were’re talking about here really isn’t the “first” afterall.

It gets muddy when the line between noun and adjective blurs in this regard. For me, I’m trying to bring a screenwriter’s structural discipline and sensibilty to novels, and in doing so I contend that the vocubulary (where “First Plot Point” is an untouchable term) to it. And many readers are getting it, and clearly, for the first time.

Your contribution will help all of us “get it” even more clearly. So thanks for that, Flip.

In any case, it’s all semantics, and the real issue — as you clearly and poignantly state in your Comment — is that the writer be able to wrap her/his head around it. Whatever works is all good. L.

Sometimes, only restrospect allows you to separate the II (or II’s in some cases) from the FMTP, because only then can you see how much more important/significant the one is from the other. If a character is simply trying to survive, going along to get along (as in the II of Collateral Damage), it’s not a Major Turning Point.

If you think of a story as having three Major Turning Points in all, I think it’s easier to understand the structure of most successful stories. Each MTP requires a serious change in stakes, a major sacrifice from the character who’s being squeezed tighter and tighter, with the final (third) MOST MAJOR Turning Point setting up that Belly of the Beast moment when our hero is trapped and must risk everything single thing he personally holds dear. (And I’m not just talking action movies here. The definition of Risk depends on the character/genre).

What muddies the waters, I think, is that within each Arc of the story, there are mini-turning points which exist to set-up the Major Turning Points. (II’s, I consider minis). The Mini’s set up the Major, but they’re also the place where the originality of the story/characters shines through. Particular characters whose particular lives are interrupted by particular circumstances.

I have a story that I’m practicing this on, and my hook is that this girl is trying to get her friend, a courier, to take her to her home city with him, so she can care for her sick mother. She doesn’t know that Kieran is carrying something that the enemy will kill for…and the enemy’s on his trail right at that moment. He can’t tell her about it because he’s sworn to absolute secrecy.

So he’s telling her ‘no’ and she’s insisting. (She’s strong-willed and stubborn and too apt to get into trouble on her own on a normal day, so the prospect of trying to keep her safe on a journey like this isn’t pretty, even without what he’s carrying.) And then her father joins her, begging Kieran to take her back to help his wife. He succumbs…and then wonders if he’s lost his mind. heeheehee!

That’s my hook, the first scene. The story is the journey home, and them falling in love along the way. (This is YA.)

So I was REALLY struggling with figuring out what the FPP should be/could be, etc.

But somehow, these comments clarified it for me. You see…the next few scenes are them leaving the city, her innocently thinking it’s a journey with the normal low-level danger, and him doing all he can to lose those on his tail. I have him marginally successful until a few chapters in.

Now I realize, all I have to do is make him THINK he’s successfully lost those after him. He failed in keeping her from coming along with him, but he thinks he’s okay as long as he really has lost them. So then, that FPP is the moment he realized he failed in that, too. The moment he realizes that he really DOES have the now-enormous task of not only getting himself home alive with what he’s carrying, but also getting his headstrong, adventuresome, and clueless friend home safely as well…and keeping her from making the whole thing even more difficult without telling her what he’s sworn not to.

That’s my huge BINGO!!!! This fits SOOOO well. Thanks!

And BTW, this is a short story/novella, which is why the FPP is only a couple of chapters in. I really does work on short stories as well. I tested an older story I wrote with your story structure, and realized that if I’d added another chapter in box #4, all of the points would have wound up in the exact right spots…which explained why the ending felt rushed. It NEEDED that extra chapter.

So THAT answers the Laureli’s question about how this stuff helps you when you don’t know how long the story will be yet. You just keep it in mind and write, but once your story is written and you’re editing, you use it to help smooth out your pacing.

In the second scene of this story, a woman is kidnapped. That’s really early, so it’s a hook, not a Plot Point. It’s also an Inciting Incident, because it “incites” the forthcoming story.

At the 12th percentile, our hero (the woman) escapes. But she has to be clever since the original kidnapper is right on her tail. This is a plot twist, but it’s not the Plot Point (for two reasons: it’s still too early, and it doesn’t give the story the “meaning” — with regard to the hero’s ultimate quest in this story — for the stakes and tension to become fully realized.

At the Plot Point (let’s say, at the 23rd percentile mark), our woman is still on the run. In fact, she’s run into the arms of her husband in the scene right BEFORE the plot point… but in the next scene — and this IS the plot point — we learn that the kidnapper is none other than her husband himself. So she has to run again, and because her husband is a U.S. Senator, nobody will believe her when she tries to get help.

Three Inciting Incidents… one the story’s hook… another a killer plot twist… and the third the intended Plot Point that fully defines her story-quest and the stakes, as well as the opposition (none of which were present with the “false/early PP at 12%).

Hope this helps. Let me know what you think. Larry