The first part of Wake the Dragon is called “This Is How It Is”, and that’s exactly what it is: your protagonist’s life as it stands, and the shove that gets them out of it. It takes up roughly the first fifth of the book.
There are four pieces. Read one after the other, they already tell a beginning: nothing happening here yet, all hell breaks loose, somebody else’s job, no turning back.
Beat 1: Nothing Happening Here Yet
How your protagonist lives before. An ordinary day, with their routine and their excuses, and with the lie they believe running at full power.
In Wanted: One Dragon, it’s the night of the summer dance: all of Valdrago is dancing in the square and Mara is locking up the library alone. She believes she’ll never belong in this town, so she doesn’t go to the party. That way nobody can leave her out.
Notice that nothing happens, but a lot shows. Readers don’t know it yet, but that night is already showing them what Mara is missing.
Tip: you don’t need a long introduction. One concrete scene where the lie shows is worth more than three chapters of background. It’s the before picture: at the end of the book there’ll be another one just like it, with a different person in it.
Beat 2: All Hell Breaks Loose
The event that breaks everything: something concrete, that happens to them (they don’t choose it) and that can’t be undone. In Valdrago, the glass case with the dragon egg is empty on Sunday morning, and the only person without an alibi is Mara.
This piece has an article of its own, with the most common ways it goes wrong.
Beat 3: Somebody Else’s Job
All hell has broken loose, and your protagonist’s first thought is what most of us would think: somebody else should deal with this. The police, the neighbor, anyone but me. In the hero’s journey it’s called refusal of the call.
The doubt shows what they’re afraid of losing if they move. Mara could lock herself in the library and wait for someone to clear up the business with the egg. Investigating means knocking on doors in a town where hardly anyone talks to her, and that scares her more than the accusation.
One scene is enough, sometimes half of one. A doubt that lasts half the novel is a novel that’s standing still.
It’s a flexible piece. Some protagonists don’t hesitate for a second, and sometimes the doubt belongs to another character: a friend who begs them to stay out of it, a parent who’d rather not know. Both work. If there’s no doubt in your novel, leave the piece empty. It isn’t a gap: it’s your novel.
Beat 4: No Turning Back
The decision there’s no coming back from. Your protagonist stops waiting and gets involved. From here on, the story can’t go back to the first picture.
Alex, the town’s police officer, asks Mara not to leave town “until further notice”. And Mara decides to find the egg herself.
In The Hobbit, Bilbo runs out of his front door after the dwarves in such a hurry that he even leaves his pocket-handkerchief behind.
Tip: ask yourself what deciding costs your protagonist. If it costs nothing, it’s more of a step than a decision.
This one’s flexible too. Sometimes others make the decision (they’re forced, they’re taken), or it’s more about believing something than doing something. If there’s no clear decision in your novel, leave the piece empty.
In Sunday Plot, these four pieces are in the Structure, under “This Is How It Is”, and guided mode asks you about them one at a time. If a flexible one isn’t in your novel, it stays empty. And in Wanted: One Dragon you can see them all filled in.