Deconstructing Avatar – The Second Half of Act II
A closer look at the third quartile of a two million dollar home run story. Since the last post a reader got in touch to share his opinion of Avatar, story-wise. Not so good. Which prompts me to clarify, and to seize the teachable moment. I’m not qualitatively endorsing the entertainment merits of Avatar. That’s […]
Deconstructing Avatar: Act II (The First Half Up to the Mid-Point)
Avatar is a clinic on story structure. Every element is right where it’s supposed to be, which is both a relief and a revelation. The relief is for me – imagine my disappointment if I’d have gotten halfway through this deconstruction only to find the film is a structural mess. The revelation is for all […]
We Interrupt This Series (Avatar) For An Important Announcement
With humble apologies to those who are impatient with my infrequent efforts to make a buck from this site (hey, all this good stuff is free, and I do appreciate your support when these moments arrive), but I’m excited to break this news today: I’m announcing the release of my new ebook… The Three Dimensions […]
Deconstructing Avatar – The Second Half of the First Act
An Analysis of a Two Billion Dollar Story in Context to Accepted Structural Modeling In the first post in this series we analyzed the first 19 of the 30 scenes that comprise Avatar’s opening act, or in novelist terms, Part 1 of the story. If you’re doing that math, you’ve already red-flagged this, and are […]
Deconstructing Avatar – Part 1 of the Story
An Analysis of a Two Billion Dollar Story in Context to Accepted Structural Modeling Allow me to open with what this is, and what it isn’t. Actually, the other way around is better. What this isn’t is a sequential description of the movie on a scene-by-scene basis. For that you can simply go see the […]
Deconstructing Avatar – A Quick Friday Preview
My wife’s gonna kill me. After sitting at the computer yesterday for six hours proofing my new characterization ebook (coming next week, or thereabouts), I owe her better. She’s become my much appreciated typo Nazi, and when you see a typo here (which you do, and all too frequently), it’s because I’ve written the post […]
Five Scary Truths About Writing That Are Actually Good News
Here I go again. Exposing the underbelly of the writing dream in ways that some perceive as dark and gloomy. Discouraging even. Hey, I’m sorry this is hard. Do you really think that getting published and maybe even having a career as a fiction writer is anything other than hard? Allow me to clarify. Writing, […]
Musings On a Memoir, a Movie, and a Two Billion Dollar Story Model
The Memoir Just finished reading one of the best books of the year in any genre, and probably the finest memoir I’ve read, ever. It’s the autobiography of tennis legend Andre Agassi, entitled Open. If you haven’t heard about it – it’s the most highly publicized non-fiction book of the past few months – then […]
A Perspective on Why We Write… or Should Write: a Guest Post by The World’s Strongest Librarian
I’m happy to host Josh Hanagarne here on Storyfix, and not just because he posted a guest article from me earlier this week. Frankly, mine was a fluff piece offered in good fun, while his is a gift of perspective we would all be wise to absorb. This guy has it figured out — combine […]
The Three Dimensions of Character Development
Somewhere along the writing road you’ve surely read – and if you haven’t you will – a critic describe a protagonist in a story as one dimensional. Or worse, an agent to whom you’ve submitted your work. The implication here is that there are other dimensions to explore as we develop our characters. But what […]