Plotting with Hamlet: The Relationship Between the Inciting Incident and Climax

If you look at a 3-act plot structure, you'll find two points on either end of a steep slope: the Inciting Incident and the Climax. Your inciting incident and climax can be vital for tying together your beginning and ending. Finding the connection between the two can lift a saggy middle, keep your characters on track, and informing theme.

While this analysis comes from script-writing for the stage and screen, it's a helpful tool for any type of storytelling structure.

Inciting Incident

At the Inciting Incident, the world changes forever. Here is the real point of no return, where the hero must progress to protect their world or try to pretend nothing has happened.

• Hint: don't ever go with the latter if your antagonistic forces won't push the hero back into their adventure very early. Your hero might resist the Call to Action at first, but successfully ignoring the world crumbling around them will kill your story. It will also kill your story if Fate--not your antagonist--pushes them to act, battering your character onward whether they want to or not.

The Inciting Incident always comes with a decision. No one wants to read a story where the world irrevocably changes, but the main character simply waits for fate to lead them to their next plot point.

From that decision comes the Major Dramatic Question (MDQ). 

What is the MDQ?

The Major Dramatic Question is the driving force of the entire story. The MDQ should always be a "yes/no" question, answered at the climax.

You want your readers always asking this one question. It keeps them moving toward the climax. If you find readers losing interest before you answer the question either the question is not strong enough, or your characters aren't holding onto it tightly enough.

A good, powerful MDQ should drive your characters. Done properly, it should also inform your theme. Checking scenes and character decisions against the MDQ can be a good way to determine tension and to make sure your plot is going forward. That can be vital for tightening up a saggy middle.

The MDQ isn't the only question you can ask in a narrative. The story might ask other questions, but these, generally, are either thematic or related to subplots--for example, if two of your characters begin expressing romantic interest amid the main action. These other questions ("will they, won't they?", "will this supporting character get what they want?") are still important to subplots and character development, but they are not the MDQ.

Climax

Here is where your readers find the answer to their question. In the 3-act structure, it is the moment of highest plot-related tension. 

No, it does not mean the moment where the plot has the most explosions.

Usually, this is where the protagonist and antagonist clash for the last time, with all the tools they need to win. Neither gets to walk away anymore; their options to do so have evaporated by this point. Only one can leave, or neither. After the climax, the resolution begins, and brings the (surviving) characters to a new stasis. 

Theme

Earlier, I mentioned that your MDQ can affect your theme. Just by asking the question, you can find a major element of your theme and plot. 

Look at the first Thor movie (also highly Shakespearean in its telling). Early on, Thor's arrogance gets him cast out to Midgard. Will he ever be worthy again of his powers and being king? Worth and the rights, responsibilities, and consequences of ruling a realm figures heavily into the theme of this movie as well as The Dark World and Ragnarok. 

The more detailed your MDQ is, the more likely you'll find a theme buried in there somewhere. 

Structure and Hamlet

The ghost's appearance is the inciting incident of the play. Without the old king making his appearance from beyond the grave, nothing would change. Hamlet would complain and resist making nice with his uncle, who--for the sake of his wife--would likely continue to tolerate him as long as he didn't get too annoying.

Unwilling to act too hastily, Hamlet's choice is to pretend madness and see what information he can gather. But he has begun his first steps towards obeying the ghost's words by doing so, even if he thinks he's delaying.

The Major Dramatic Question for Hamlet, then, is "Will Hamlet kill his uncle and avenge his father?"

The plot builds in the rising action with stakes and plot turns. Things get worse for Hamlet, especially when he kills Polonius, and he eventually decides to act once he has gathered all the information (and motivation) he thinks he needs. He plans for his final showdown--as does Claudius.

Here, at the climax, we answer the Major Dramatic Question.

"Will Hamlet kill his uncle and avenge his father?" Yes.
Because it's a tragedy, there's a "but" attached to that. "Yes, but he--and half the Danish court--die, too."

By including the choice of murder in the MDQ, the play introduces themes of revenge and making the choice to take a life.


What MDQ is your plot asking? Is your plot asking the question at the right moment in your story? Are you answering your question too early, or too late? If so, it's time to find what's rotten in the state of your story, and repair that foul and most unnatural plot point.