From the mailing list Xarlen asks
The way I conceptualize Compels, it’s really easy to toss in complications in the middle and the end of the various stories. That’s when there’s clear conflict and the player has to make their choices.
But it’s also important to get the PCs some juice before things are ratcheted up to that point. In DF, players WILL start with low refresh.
So, how do you really toss compels and make complications at the beginning? Aside from the old “You have an Arch Nemesis As an Aspect, here’s a fate point for them to pop up later.”
Fred answers,
Compels are a tool for how I add pressure to the early events of the story.
My basic storyline might be “okay, so there’s been a murder, and you’ve got to solve it”, but compels would be how I add, “while trying to keep your marriage from falling apart” and “before the police catch up with you, since you’ve been framed for it”. Pressure becomes the motive that drives things forward.
Jan gives his own example,
“You’re a ‘Hot-Headed Kinetomancer’? Okay. So: You’ve been enjoyed a quiet evening in your local haunt when this group of low-level talents walk in, laughing among themselves about some in-joke. As they sidle up to the bar, you hear one of them crack a joke at the expense of your mentor, and that _really_ gets your bile up. Go ahead.”
In effect, start with the compels on generic things — temper, financial (“In Debt to a Loan Shark”) or social situation (“My GF hates what I do”). FATE is spent, action is had, and all things are good.