Inciting Action

The Inciting Action is the incident which introduces the Conflict of the play; it sets the plot in motion and elicits the central or major "Dramatic Question." During the Inciting Action, the main problem of the play is revealed, and a Character decides to take Action to solve it.

Examples of Inciting Actions include:

An owl delivering a letter - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

A dead body being found - Law and Order, CSI, etc.

A houseguest breaks his leg and has to stay all winter - The Man Who Came to Dinner

Before an Inciting Action, the world of the play had some kind of balance to it. The Inciting Action throws that balance off. After the Inciting Action has occured, the characters can no longer return to the way the world ways before it happened.

Get In Late, Get Out Early
Especially in a ten-minute play, you don't have too much time to goof around. You may want to try "getting in late": starting the play as close to the Inciting Action as you can, without going so close that the audience misses something it needs to know; and "getting out early": ending the play and soon after the Climax as you can. This keeps your play effecient, and focused, and will help the audience pay attention to just the story, not the extraneous details.