“The Help” – Isolating and Understanding the First “Pinch Point”

It has been pointed out that I tend to linger over my set-ups, both here on Storyfix and in my new book.  To pre-sell the point, ad nauseum.  So let me get right to it today: The First Pinch Point in “The Help” occurs on page 184 (of the trade paperback), which is the 35th […]

Watch It Here, Right Now: The Movie Trailer for “The Help”

Check out the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help.”  If you’ve come here looking for the latest in our deconstruction series, it’s the post right before (shown below) this one. This trailer is two and half minutes of pure fun, especially if you’ve read the novel and have been following this […]

“The Help” – Fighting the Good Fight in Part 3

(Long post today, but good stuff, I think.  There’s a more personal message at the end, too, if you’re a skimmer.) The mission of the third quartile of a story (Part 3) is to show the hero proactively attacking what stands in the way of reaching of the goal, solving the problem, escaping the danger […]

“The Help” – Part/Act 2 (Response) to the Mid-Point

“The Help” is nothing if not a book of architectural subtleties.  Because the major plot points in this story are primarily contextual in nature.  They always are contextual in nature – that’s the primary mission of story milestones – but in many books and films they’re also loud and self-announcing.   At the typical First Plot Point, […]

More “Help”… Coming Soon

Patience.  Don’t have enough of it.  Appreciate it when I see it.  Love it when I’m on the receiving end of it. We’re in the middle of our deconstruction series on “The Help.”  Last post on this was Tuesday.  It’s Friday, high time for the next installment. But… this series got interrupted by an important family […]

“The Help” –Context and Concept

I sat down this afternoon to write a post about the second quartile of “The Help,” better known as Part 2 (Act 2, or the first half of it, for screenwriters), which in story architecture is labeled The Response. Bears slipping in right here… response to what?  Answer: the First Plot Point, as set up […]

A Guest Post About the Discovery of Story Structure, and The Matrix

We take this quick timeout from our series on “The Help” to offer the stage to Shane Arthur, who runs a cool website called “Writing Prompts,” with a very engaging exercise called the Creative Copy Challenge.”  You may want in on this: he invites people to offer ten random, interesting words, then readers respond with […]

“The Help” – A Closer Look at the First Plot Point

There are a million heroic stories that unfolded – true and fictional – in the era during which racism in America was exposed, called out, reviled, and when forces began to align to fight it and create a level and more moral playing field.  “The Help” is just one of them.  Which happened to become […]

“The Help” – Ripping Into The Opening Act

Part of a continuing series that deconstructs the mega-bestseller for the benefit of writers seeking to understand story structure and the dynamics of the six core competencies of successful storytelling. In the last post we looked at the entirety of the structure of this novel, as divided into four contextually-driven parts, separated by three major […]

“The Help”: Structure From 10,000 Feet

I’m a big fan of context.  It informs and empowers each moment of a story, and on several levels.  It also informs life, but that’s another series of posts.  Worth noting, however, how the principles that govern storytelling – structure, character, thematic weight, mission-driven exposition, even voice – are very much those that govern successful […]