The Case For – Okay, Against – Dual Protagonists
This one comes up a lot, in the form of a question seeking to validate its own intention. Far more frequently, in fact, than the number of times I’ve ever seen it done in a published piece of work. Dual protagonists… not a good idea. In the category of jumping out of an airplane… butt naked. […]
Last Minute NaNoWrMo Tips
It’s easy to blast NaNoWrMo. I’ve done it myself. Not because I think I’m above it. Rather, because it invites the wrong goal. The point of it all is too easily missed. It implies that the craft of writing a novel is quantitative rather than qualitative. That simply finishing 50,000 words will take you closer […]
1) “An Education” – The Opening Act (Part 1)
A Story Deconstruction Welcome to another opportunity to jack your learning curve to an even steeper angle. Because nothing says “I get it” better than knowing what to look for in a story… seeing it… and understanding why it works. When analyzing a story, especially one as good as An Education, there are several levels […]
Welcome to “An Education”
A deconstruction wherein we analyze this critically-acclaimed story… part by part, milestone by milestone, scene by scene. Let’s do this. I always get a little nervous when I tear into a deconstruction. What if the milestones are in the wrong place? What if the storytelling principles I write about are contradicted and blown to smithereens? […]
2) The Deconstruction of “Shutter Island” – A Primer
The first in a series of posts that deconstructs and analyzes Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island – both the book and the movie. Welcome to Shutter Island. A place – and a story – in which nothing is what it seems. If you haven’t recently seen the movie or read the novel – preferably both – […]
The Deception of Shutter Island
SPOILER ALERT – the following spills the beans about Shutter Island. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Knowing this will completely change your experience in seeing the film or reading the book. Which is absolutely necessary to understanding the forthcoming deconstruction of the story in order to expose its inherent story architecture. You can’t understand how […]
Storytelling Theory vs. Music Theory, by Steve Steuart
The following is a guest article by Steve Steuart. (Picking up from the post, which appears HERE.) A story has a beginning a middle and an end and like the story, a song also has a beginning a middle and an end. Brilliant! In today’s world, music plays a prominent part in every single person’s […]
We’re Back! New Post: Chapters, Scenes and Parts… Oh My!
Wherein we address the question: how long should my chapters be? We’ve all been there. It’s late, the eyelids are getting heavy, you’re laying there reading and the lights are begging to go out. But the book is good, it has nothing at all do with your jonesing need to fall asleep. Like, right now. […]
I suck. Let me make it up to you.
Okay, maybe I don’t exactly suck. At least I hope not. But I am feeling guilty. I’m cramming on a deadline for the publisher of my forthcoming Six Core Competencies book, and because of that I’m force-feeding you some early Storyfix posts that I’m assuming the bulk of new subscribers haven’t seen. One of them […]
Your Next Deconstruction Challenge
If you’ve just arrived here via Copyblogger, welcome! We’re all about going deep into the infrastructure and principles of effective storytelling, and we’d love to have you join us. Just saw Shutter Island, the Martin Scorsese film starring Leonardo DiCaprio based on the Dennis Lehane novel. And I’m here to tell you, if you’re a […]