George Saunders on getting the water to boil in a story:
We might, for simplicity, think about those first five minutes of a movie, and in particular, that first incident that tells you what the film is “about,” or “what you should be wondering.” For me, it’s a bit of an “aha” feeling, kind of like, “Ah, I see. Oh, this could be good.”
Elsewhere I’ve described this as the moment when the path of the story narrows.
One way of thinking of it, in terms of the famous Freytag Triangle: the water starts boiling when the story passes from the “exposition” phase, into the “rising action” phase.
A story made up of all non-boiling water is perennially stuck in the “exposition phase.” We might think of this as a section where the components are joined by a series of “and also” statements. “The house looked like this and also the yard looked like this and also the family was made of five members (and also, and also).”
(At this point, the reader may ask the Seussian question: “Why are you bothering telling me this?”)
Basically, it’s a world without (let’s call it) time-based complication. Nothing started happening at a certain point and then changed everything.
I sometimes joke with my students that, if they find themselves mired in this purely expositional mode, they should just plop this sentence in there: “Then, one day, everything changed forever.”
Then the story has to rise to that statement and, voila: boiling water.
I love his description of “the moment when the path of the story narrows.” When the scene setting ends and the writer works to focus your attention, and starts to bring the water to a boil.