The Key Event (Plotting Through Backstory #9)
Okay, this is where we get a bit deep. The Key Event.
The Key Event is, essentially, the point at which our protagonist gets personally involved. I’ve often heard it described this way: The Inciting Event is about plot, the Key Event is about character.
Often, though, that distinction (plot vs. character) led me to introducing something a bit too big as the Inciting Event. Just the title alone sounds like it should be something life-changing. Again, as I said last week, I often find it’s best not to jump too far with the Inciting Event. For me, this is the point at which things just begin to change. The Key Event is the point at which your protagonist gets emotionally involved.
Let’s look at a couple of scenarios:
Romance
Hook: Emma inherits a bookstore in a quaint coastal town. Now, of course it needs lots of help. Renovations galore. But she’s in love with it—and she’s ready for a change.
Inciting Event: Emma chucks life as an attorney (and all the uncomfortable heels and suits that go along with it) and moves to the small town.
(Meet Cute) - Emma meets Jack, a local carpenter. Now, it’s a meet cute, so Emma can’t just meet him. It’s a romance. The way in which they meet has to be some story they’ll tell over and over, eventually to grandchildren. Maybe she’s locked herself in the store, and as a carpenter he can get the door off the hinges? Anyway, it has to be something they laugh over.
Key Event: Jack offers to help her renovate the store. They begin to find they have a ton in common. Sparks fly.
(See what I mean? At the Key Event, they’re emotionally involved.)
(Also, notice that I stuck a Meet Cute in above the Key Event. It really is essential to have a handle on the beats specific to your genre. Genre-specific beats can absolutely also be the Key Event, First Plot Point, etc. Here, I thought the Meet Cute would work better as a connection between the Inciting Event and Key Event.)
Mystery
Hook: A woman appears on security footage belonging to an independent bookstore. It’s timestamped 2024—five years to the day after the woman’s death.
Inciting Event: Emma, the owner of the bookstore, hires Jack, a detective (and our protagonist). She needs him to find the woman in her footage, who is her sister.
Key Event: Jack quickly discovers the twin sister has been using an assumed identity, raising the stakes and opening up a slew of new questions.
But that’s not quite enough…
Like I said, this is the point at which our protagonist is emotionally, personally involved. Romance is structured to immediately get our two main players involved (or at least attracted to one another). But we could go a step farther. And our mystery is in dire need of something personal. Something emotional.
So how do we dig deeper? How do we complicate things, get our protagonist personally involved?
Hello, backstory!
Romance
Jack once had a fianceé who left him for life in the big city because this small town stuff was just not cutting it. He has some serious trust issues (and, to be sure, a self-protective lie that has to be torn down). And here he is having feelings for a…big city girl. Emma, meanwhile, is fiercely independent, due to a childhood tragedy (her single mother trusted the wrong man and lost her savings in the process). Her independence is what has won her success, and while it has served her well, she also has a hard time letting anyone in.
Mystery
Our detective (Jack) once helped a friend create an assumed identity to escape an abusive relationship. Now that he’s faced with another situation regarding an assumed identity, he’s having to grapple with his former decision—issues of identity and the morality of deception (even when done for good reason)—all bubble to the surface.
See how the story is slowly building? And how a finely crafted backstory begins to add a richness that wouldn’t be there otherwise?
Next week? The First Plot Point (and another sneak peek from A Troublesome Heart, my forthcoming Ruby’s Place book).
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