Is there Really a PE?

Reality Versus Psychological Reality

Trying to think rigorously about what a PE really is will probably leave you chest-deep in philosophical quicksand. Is the PE when Anne arrives at Green Gables? Or before that, when a mistake is made and Marilla and Matthew are sent a girl instead of a boy? Of when they request a child, or decide to request a child, or maybe some event that causes them to realize they need help?

Or, is the PE Voldemart killing Harry's parents, Harry becoming old enough to attend Wizard School, or Hagrid arriving to get him?

Instead of thinking of the PE as something real, I invite you to think of it as something you can decide upon and create in the reader's mind. It's one of the basic parts of 'Story' – readers understand and like a story having a PE.

So, you can (and should) try to discover a PE in your underlying story. That's the reasonable first approach. But you can also decide on an event as being the PE, then structure your story around it, essentially crafting an event into being the PE.

For example, The Juror (Patterson & Cross) is about a trial of a mob boss. It starts with his capture, which is in one sense outside the events of the story (as defined by the title). But it's a reasonable choice for a PE, and a fair way to start that book.

The PE in Pieces

In Jurrasic Park, the philosophical idea is, roughly, that in complex situations more than one thing can go wrong, with unforeseen consequences. So a single PE would have violated the premise of that book. Instead, there had to be several smaller PEs, contributing together to events spiralling out of control.

Or, consider the start of Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent. The precipitating event, in my opinion, is someone coming to town and offering the main character an attractive but immoral choice.

But Steinbeck didn't want a single PE. The main character turns down the offer. Nothing happens, immediately. And Steinbeck writes a story about a man very slowly being tempted, then succumbing.

Basically, one writing technique is something happening suddenly. That would be the single PE. Another writing technique is the slow (but careful) happening or reveal. That would be a series of events adding up to the PE.