I’m reading Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. First time reading it. Haven’t seen the movie. Don’t know the plot or the end.

I now mark off the pages where a Plot Point should happen when I start a new book – to see if it follows the structure. I was really stumped w/ Salem’s Lot’s First Plot Point. (I’m not even half way thru the book, so I’m not looking back w/ hindsight yet.) I thought maybe the FPP was off a little bit, but there was nothing else close enough.
Something does happen at the Plot Point point. It’s when the son of one of the villagers dies. He’s the brother of the boy who had disappeared only weeks before. It was a very quiet scene. Which is fine. But the protagonist IS NOT aware of the FPP, not aware of his change in mission. And NEITHER IS THE READER – because I’ll be damned if I know what’s going on yet. I can’t see how the boy’s death changes anything. I’m sure it will be shown later to be a harbinger of …everything, perhaps. But where I’m at, coming up at the First Pinch Point spot, I’ve got nothing.

So, is this a rare example of a FPP that happens w/o the reader OR protagonist’s knowledge?

I’m glad you worked through this because my first reaction would have been a clear-cut no.

But then…isn’t a story like A Beautiful Mind an example of something like this? Or..then again…maybe not…. maybe it further confuses the issue.
The hero and the audience wasn’t let in on the real story for quite some time. Hmmm. Back to coffee.

Maybe after FFP, you can talk a little about Midpoint? A few examples maybe? My MP is sucking wind big time. Just in case you’re taking requests.

I can see situations in which the environment actually changes (PP1) and the protagonist doesn’t really know it. Congress does this all the time by passing far-reaching laws which affect a lot of our lives. We, the “ordinary characters/citizens” don’t realize the consequences until much later, and often don’t even know the law was put into force.

The stakes actually do change whether or not the protagonist knows they have.

The key is that the reader has to know. We (the reader) knows the monster is lurking in the basement, yet the protagonist doesn’t know. She still investigates the noise in a diaphanous nighty and with a candle. “Didn’t know the gun was loaded” applies.

PP1 needs to be exactly where it belongs so the reader knows things have changed. If the protagonist doesn’t really know, he may have to start reacting to unknown circumstances. Part of the response needs to be him figuring out what’s really going on so the MidPoint shift to attack works.

In a way it’s almost a form of extending the FPP. The one particular moment is THE FPP, but the scenes right after it build the context from the character’s PoV and begin to show the reader AND the character the consequences of that moment, ramping things up for the run to the mid point.

Hm, I may have to see if I can come up with a way to play with this, either in my next Novel (current one is already past the FPP, and the rewrite necessary to try that would wreck the work, so no way ) or the one after, depending on how the next idea would take to such a gambit.