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along with his partner and learns that the likely suspect,
Catherine (Sharon Stone), is a smart, beautiful, and
accomplished novelist. And while he questions her, Nick is
immediately attracted as she daringly flaunts her sexuality at
him. It's easy to see why he's smitten and intrigued by her,
and we know the temptation she offers is going to hook him.
It doesn't take too long before he becomes so infatuated
with her that he can't listen to his voice of reason, or his
associates' warnings, as he plunges headlong into a
tumultuous affair that costs him his job and may wind up
costing him his life.
I began to understand that this opening sex/murder
scene is the incident that sets the story in motion and
directly draws the main character into the story line. The
murder is committed to grab our attention and show us the
reason Nick is called upon to investigate the crime. When he
leaves the scene of the crime, we follow him and his partner
and begin to learn more about this man and the choices he
makes. The opening scene and the story that's going to
unfold are directly linked.
This incidentthe murderand the story of a cop giving
in to his temptations epitomize the illumination of character
and incident. Remember Henry James: "What is character
but the determination of incident? And what is incident but
the illumination of character?" You can't reveal a character
dramatically (or comed-ically) unless you have him/her react
to a particular incident; the nature of drama, after all, is to
show the universal connection between all humans,
regardless of race, color, gender, or cultural differences.
The incident of the murder leads directly to the infatuation
Nick feels for Catherine. And that attraction is reinforced
when the police question Catherine as the prime suspect.
There is a relationship between these two incidents. One
incident, the opening sex/ murder, is called the inciting
incident, because it sets the story in motion; it is the first visual
representation of the key incident, what the story is about,
and draws the main character into the story line. Remember
the definition of incident: "a specific event or occurrence that
occurs in relation to something else."
When I understood this connection, it was almost a
revelation. Using an opening sequence to draw the main
character into the

TWO INCIDENTS

SCREENPLAY

story line is pure cinema. From here on through the rest of

the screenplay, the story is set up, the characters and
premise are established, and there is a story line, a direction
to followand all because of the connection between these
two incidents. This new understanding gave me another
tool to use in the craft of screen-writing.
I went back through all of Eszterhas's scripts and began
to examine his screenplays, focusing on how he wrote
and structured opening scenes or sequences. And I saw, in
most cases, that the opening scene, the inciting incident,
was a cinematic tool he used to set up the story from page
one, word one.
I began to see that in certain kinds of moviesaction
films, action-thrillers, mysteries, action-adventures, sci-fis,
even dramas writers structure their stories so that this
opening, the inciting incident, serves two distinct functions.
First, it grabs or hooks the audience immediatelyjust look at
the opening scenes or sequences of The Matrix, Jaws, Cold
Mountain, The Bridges of Madison County, American Beauty,
Pulp Fiction, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,
Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and other films, and
you'll see that this opening scene or sequence is what sets
the entire story in motion.
For example, in The Matrix, a squad of policemen
confronts Trinity, and as we watch her defy all known laws of
physics and gravity, leaping over buildings to escape, we are
drawn into a world of cyberspace that grabs our attention
immediately. The inciting incident anchors us to the edge of
our seats, and lets us know that we're in for an incredible
adventure. In Jaws, the late-night beach party and a nude
swimming lark turn into a horrifying experience as the great
white attacks.
In Cold Mountain, Union troops burrow underground and
plant explosives beneath the Confederate camp; when the
charge is detonated the result illustrates the total madness of
war, just as in the classic The Bridge on the River Kwai (Michael
Wilson and Carl Foreman). In The Bridges of Madison County
(Richard LaGravenese), after the death of Francesca (Meryl
Streep), her two grown children are going through her things
and uncover a hidden diary. As they read, they discover that
their mother had a love affair with a man named

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