Inciting Incident vs. Catalyst

The difference between them and why a great story needs both

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been on set, directing and producing a thriller for Lifetime Network. If you remember back to January, when I put out a call to writers for concepts, this script is the first of those concepts that were approved. The story centers around a young woman who decides to participate in a documentary about the unsolved murder of her mother, in which her father was the primary suspect. When a second murder happens in her hometown and her father is arrested for it, the protagonist has a ‘come to Jesus’ moment where she either must trust that her father is innocent or believe that he’s been guilty all along.

It's that pivotal point in a character’s life, one that forces them onto a journey that they can no longer avoid taking, that makes for great storytelling. That pivotal point is referred to as a story’s catalyst.

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The catalyst isn’t necessarily the inciting incident. It can be but doesn’t have to be.

The inciting incident is the incident that …