Take Your Women Out of the Fridge
The other day I watched The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. It’s based on a true story, so I can’t fault them for the character diversity (or lack thereof) – although the casting was pretty amazing. The one female character – who was a person in real life, found herself in quite the pickle and I turned to my partner and said, “if they kill off the only female character, I’m going to have something to say.”
Now, because it’s based on a true story, it’s not really a spoiler (though I really recommend you watch the film), the woman survives . . . that escapade. I wasn’t enraged by that film like I have been with others.
It’s time to end fridging.
Fridging is when a character only exists to be killed or harmed in order to serve as an inciting incident for the main character.
Often it’s women or other minorities who get the fridge.
Incidents Need to Be Incited
Now, don’t get me wrong. Stories and characters need an inciting incident or two. Luke Skywalker wouldn’t have gone to Mos Eisley with Obi-Wan if his aunt and uncle weren’t killed. (Conversely, did Missendai need to die to get Daenerys to go badonkers? I say no, and that’s probably the last we’ll speak of the final season of GoT.)
That Doesn’t Mean Death
But people don’t have to die for an inciting incident. Elle Woods wouldn’t have gone to Harvard if Warner didn’t dump her (Legally Blonde). Natasha and Daniel wouldn’t have met if she didn’t skip school to plead her deportation case and then go to a record store, and if Daniel wasn’t in the city for a college admissions interview (The Sun is Also a Star).
What’s Your Personal Inciting Incident?
In my own life, I wouldn’t have moved to Alberta, received a drama degree, become an award-winning playwright, then shifted to developmental editing if I wasn’t billeted with a woman who asked me point blank, “why are you going to college if you don’t know what you want to do with your life?” Her words burned within me and forced me to evaluate my life up until that point.
Life decisions can be influenced by a simple question, or something witnessed; your characters do not have to have someone die in order to change their life. Not only is it dishonouring the character that dies (come on, give them more than death), but it lacks originality.
Of course, we all know there is nothing new, but the delivery of the old, of the established, is what’s new.
Have I changed your mind about an inciting incident? Send me an email; I’d love to hear about it!
