In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the global inciting incident. This is when Harry learns he's a wizard and that someone named Lord Voldemort tried to kill him when he was a baby, and also there's a spot for him at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where he can go to learn magic. Now, a little caveat I want to point out here is in the action beat that Sean Coyne wrote. The global inciting incident of an action story should usually be a life threatening attack by the forces of antagonism, and in this case we don't have one. Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming, so each week, I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. In this extra special bonus episode, I'm sharing part of an interview that Abigail K Perry andI did for the StoryGrid's YouTube channel, and in this interview we talked about the plot structure of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and how it works within the action genre framework. So part of what I love about the StoryGrid is its attention to, and prioritization of, genre. And what's really cool about genre is it can inform so much stuff when it comes to building a story from the ground up, which makes your job as an author so much easier.

So today, abigail and I are going to take you through the action genre framework and then the global five commandments of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So the inciting incident, the turning point, the crisis, climax and resolution of the big picture story, and we're going to show you not just how and why this story works, but why looking at your own story this way can be a really valuable exercise. So, in an effort not to spoil anything that's coming, let's just go ahead and dive right into the conversation, because we know this is an action story, we know we're in the realm of survival, we know this is a story that the protagonist is going to face life or death situations and stakes and they're going to have to figure out how to survive. So the underlying question in every action story is how does a person overcome those powerful external forces that are intent on killing them and other innocent people or victims, and basically, what does it take for this person to survive and thrive? So the framework gives us a bunch of information. It tells us the core need of an action story is survival. So the protagonist both wants and needs to defeat the antagonist, save themselves and others, as well as restore their individual and or collective agency. And to do that they're going to have to find the courage to activate that inner potential, heal that inner obstacle. Whatever it is they need to do to survive. We also know the core value is life to death. So there's things like the risk of injury, illness, unconsciousness, damnation, all these things that play on this spectrum. So what we're going to do is look at how the plot navigate the spectrum of life and death, of injury, illness, unconsciousness, damnation, all these things that play on this spectrum. So what we're going to do is look at how the plot navigate the spectrum of life and death and how the 20 core scenes work to move us along that spectrum.

The core emotion in an action story is excitement. So this is the main feeling that readers want to experience and feel while reading an action story, especially in some of the bigger plot moments. So we'll take a look at that as well. And then the core event in an action story is the protagonist or the hero at the mercy of the villain. So we know, in this big climactic scene, either the protagonist is going to survive or they're going to die trying, and we'll take a look at what that looks like in Harry Potter. And then what we're getting to is some kind of controlling idea or theme that tells us what happened. So, in an action story, either life is preserved when the protagonist is able to overpower and outwit their external and internal antagonists or, if they're not, death results when the protagonist lacks the courage to sacrifice for the survival of self and others.

So this is great. This is the framework that the story grid gives us. We're working in this realm. We know our global genre's action and when writing our own stories, we can look at this framework to start shaping our stories. This is also what we're gonna look at Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone through and specifically, we're gonna take you through the biggest picture of all. So what are the global five commandments? And then what are the 20 core scenes? So the five commandments in each one of the sections. So we're going to show you how Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone delivers on this framework. But first Abigail is going to lead us through a chat about the five commandments very quickly before we dive in.

So if you have studied the story grid or you have heard other analysis teams, dan and I are probably familiar with five commandments of storytelling. But quickly, because it's so paramount to understanding what we're going to go into. We're going to go over what they are and how they are used in analyzing the scene. So an exciting incident is that unexpected event or disturbance that kicks off the action. That means that when this disturbance happens, it either is going to change the goal that the main character is going to try to achieve or it's going to create the goal. So either it's going to have to change their approach and how they're going to try to get that goal, or it's going to maybe establish what the goal is and move us forward. So we understand very clearly this is the goal, this is what we need to accomplish. They will have reached this or not reached this, or attained this or not attained this. Then there's going to be a series of progressive complications, but these are mini conflicts that ultimately peak at a turning point.

Progressive complication and this is the main conflict, because it forces the character into a crisis decision. So a turning point is either an action or a revelation that forces that character to face a crisis, and a crisis is created when we have this big question either a best-bad choice or an irreconcilable goods decision the inverse of a best-bad choice that comes with consequences even if you don't do anything. And that's the key thing there, because that will establish action. The action taken on that crisis is the climax. So once we see it's actually I used to always think of this as I have to explain a long climax, but I realized no, it's actually really short, it's the direct action, and then everything else that follows is the resolution, let the outcome of the action. Often we see where a character is internally in this stage, how they change from beginning to end, internally, how they develop, and we see the literal change, the active change. So, and ultimately, we can determine there has been a value shift.

So we're going to look at these on the biggest picture of all like I said, the global five commandments for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So we can see how these five commandments help us deliver on the framework of the action genre that we went over earlier In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the global inciting incident. This is when Harry learns he's a wizard and that someone named Lord Voldemort tried to kill him when he was a baby, and also there's a spot for him at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where he can go to learn magic. Now, a little caveat I want to point out here is in the action beat that Sean Coyne wrote, the global inciting incident of an action story should usually be a life-threatening attack by the forces of antagonism, and in this case we don't have one. So why does this work as a global inciting incident?

And after looking at the story through thousands of lenses Abigail and I have landed on, it actually does work. It does fit, just in a not so literal way. So we don't have a literal attack by the antagonist in this scene, but we learn about one that happened when Harry was a little baby. So this is actually a pretty unique way to deliver the global inciting incident of an action story, but with stakes that are appropriate for a middle grade audience and for how old Harry is at the time. So just let me point out if you're a diehard StoryG Grid fan, you're probably like but wait, it should be an attack. This totally counts, just in a very not literal way. Anything to add there quickly, abigail?

Just to jump in with another point to emphasize that I think one of the many lenses that Ben and I have analyzed, I think some people might question why it's not the prologue of disguise, like why is it not that actual attack when Voldemort went to attack Harry as a baby? And I know that we have had other people come to us and say, oh, we think that this would be more exciting than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So, savannah, do you just want to elaborate a little bit on why we came to this decision about why it's not the Prologue in Disguise? Because we do see that in the opening. Yeah, in a sense that this attack has happened, but we're not picking it for what is on the page.

Yeah, and this is something we've talked about at Nazeem at this point. But one of the things that we always look at is is the inciting incident on the page and in this case, even in that prologue in disguise, which we call chapter one, when Harry's removed from Godric's Hollow and brought to Privet Drive, we're still not actually seeing that attack happen. We're still hearing about it. So, either way, we are hearing about the attack and it's happened already in the past and we like to see that inciting incident on the page. And I actually think this is really clever, because I see a lot of middle grade writers or even young adult writers who are like the stakes just aren't going to be life and death right away, and this is still it's a great way to deliver on that expectation and to show us what the global stakes are, without having, like baby Harry falling out of a motorcycle flying 20,000 feet in the air, because that just might be a little unrealistic for the audience we're targeting. Yeah, okay. So then, like Abigail mentioned, we have a handful of progressive complications that happen between the inciting incident and what is the global turning point progressive complication. And in this story, the turning point progressive complication of the global story happens after serving detention in the Forbidden Forest, harry realizes that Voldemort is here because he was that figure drinking the unicorn blood and he is going after the Sorcerer's Stone. So, like Abigail mentioned, this is a big deal that causes Harry to force a decision that plays on those global stakes. So the decision he has to make is the global crisis. Should Harry try to stop Voldemort himself and risk his own life in the process? So again, try to stop him and risk your life. Those are global stakes or should he stay out of harm's way and let Voldemort come back to power, only to likely just kill him later? So it's like risk death now or risk death later. Right, this is the big crisis moment of the story.

The climax is that Harry decides he is going to go after Voldemort. So he embraces his identity and he confronts Voldemort underneath the school. So we see this in that big climactic scene and then the global resolution is he defeats Voldemort and he has saved the Sorcerer's Stone. So I like looking at this from a global perspective because we can see that action story framework at play just by reading through these five commandments. So we can already get a sense of what that core need is? Harry needs to survive. He wants to survive the core value. We know we're playing with life and death stakes. We know we're building to this hero at the mercy of the villain scene and we can infer or imagine that we're going to feel excitement. We can also get a sense of that controlling idea or theme. So what does it take for Harry to survive? What does it take for him to defeat Voldemort?

I just want to point out that you'll notice that between the inciting incident and the turning point progressive complication scene, a lot happens, so we basically jump to the end of act two or the middle when we catch the turning point progressive complication scene. This is the global five commandments. One thing to pay attention to when you're analyzing scenes, or when you're analyzing your own story, is how these five commandments are all aligned in ultimately like the main conflict. Yeah, right, and the main conflict in harry. Part of this first verse stone deals with baltimore, even though so much of act two basically all of his time at hogwarts until the end does not deal with baltimore. That we right and I think that's the key is that there's the author perspective, rowling knowing what he's doing and how she's setting up chess pieces and moving them. So, ultimately, we can get to the main conflict dealing with Voldemort, having it be more plot twist reveals and how it comes about, and what Harry is aware of and what he's dealing with. The main crisis, though and I love what you pulled out there, savannah is we're starting to see how, as you get further along in these global commandments, especially when you hit the crisis thread with the main internal arc and that's. You've heard Savannah and I probably say this over and over about how tightly woven the internal story and the external story is for Harry Potter and why we believe this is something all masterworks must do, but particularly Harry Potter does a stupendous job at this and you'll see that they're inseparable in these commandments, but especially as you hit crisis climate resolution, because his survival is dependent on his ability to rise to his celebrity status really what that means to be the boy who lived right and for him to believe in that himself and to take that on.

And he initially goes into this because he even says it on the page. In the chapter where he has this crisis, he's talking to Rana and he actually says, basically, he's like there's no choice. I have to go after him because if not, he's just going to come and find me and kill me anyway. Right, it's just a matter of time. Sometimes crises can be written on the page like that and it doesn't feel forced, and other times this is what I've seen with writers they feel like they have to write it and it does feel forced. So, regardless of where you are in your writing stage, just know what your crisis is. You can figure out how to perfect it in the storytelling actually on the page later, but just know what that crisis is and how it is connected throughout all of these commandments, so that we can see how we're raising those stakes as you build towards that climactic decision.

Yeah, and something that I just thought of. As you were saying, that is a lot of the writers I work with. They'll make a five commandment map for their global story, and if you read this one on screen, it doesn't seem like the most exciting, right? Yeah, every bad guy goes up against the good guy and every good guy has to decide whether to face that, and that's the pattern of the story, right? So I see a lot of writers. They come up with these global five commandments. They're like, oh, but mine's boring. If you just read this without knowing the story, it just seems like another action story, right? Abigail made a great point that it's all connected, though, though. So we see Baltimore in each of these commandments, and that's a good sign, even if you think in that moment it reads a little bit boring or a little flat or a little generic. To me, that actually means it's probably working.

Yeah, that's a great point, Savannah, because I think that writers think that they have to come up with something huge and different, and what I'm always telling people is that all stories are the same but different. Yeah, so it's an original story. So when you, it's actually something that, as a fan of action stories, we expect, this, yeah, to not have protagonists face the main villain in the story is disappointing, right, right, so it's not part of is the climax. We have to make it something really different have them face their villain, but do it in a different way.

And that's what makes the story. And just a caveat, I think same with themes too, right, it's like the more generic they seem, probably it means you're getting down to something universal. So it's the same with these global five commandments. And we'll start to see as we dig into the 20 skeletal scenes we call them skeletal scenes because they provide the skeleton of the story that things start to seem more interesting if you just take it at face value. And that's where you can also make the generic map more interesting and more specific to your story. All right, that's all I have for you today.

I hope you enjoyed this little behind the scenes. Look at what went into writing and editing the Story Grid Masterwork Analysis Guide to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. If you want to grab a copy of the book, go to savannahgilbocom forward slash masterwork to get all the information, including where to purchase and to see the bonuses I'm giving away for free with proof of purchase. One of my favorite bonuses is that Abigail and I are hosting a two-hour live workshop and Q&A where we're going to take you through exactly how we analyze the climactic event of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So you know the part where Harry and his friends navigate the tunnels under the school and ultimately come face-to-face with Voldemort in that final chamber. So we're going to talk through that, including lots of tips on how to write your own great climactic moment, and then we're going to open up the floor for Q&A so you can ask us anything about the book, the Harry Potter series or writing in general. It's going to be so much fun and, like I said, you can get all the details about that and the book and all the other bonuses.

So that's it for today's episode. As always, thank you so much for tuning in and for showing your support. If you want to check out any of the links I mentioned in this episode, you can find them in the show notes listed in the description of each episode inside your podcast player or at savannahgilbocom forward slash podcast. If you're an Apple user, I'd really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to leave a rating and a review. Your ratings and reviews tell Apple that this is a podcast that's worth listening to and, in turn, your reviews will help this podcast get in front of more fiction writers just like you. And while you're there, go ahead and hit that follow button, because there's going to be another brand new episode next week, full of actionable tips, tools and strategies to help you become a better writer. So I'll see you next week and until then, happy writing.