Help with Help (and Hinder... and dynamic pairs...)

questions
#1

Bringing this question up from the Cars thread.

We’re still not settled, but our current storyform has both the OS and MC Problem/Solution as Hinder/Help.

It seems clear that there are plenty of examples where Hindering is causing problems in the movie. There are also plenty of examples about learning to accept Help and to Help others as the Solution. All good.

But there are also cases where the Problem seems to come from refusing to accept help (such as the opening scene where McQueen doesn’t go into the pit stop, blows a tire, and causes his crew to quit). But refusing to Help or to accept Help isn’t quite the same as Hindering, is it? Even if we flip it and say the Problem is Help (not helping) then the solution still seems to be … Help (start helping, accept help) rather than Hinder.

Anyway I keep running into this question with dynamic pairs in Problem/Solution, Symptom/Response. Is there another way to think about this that would make it more clear?

Any Help or Hinder would be appreciated.

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#2

IIRC an abundance or lack of the Problem element can be solved by an abundance or lack of the Solution element, and you can pair the positive / negative charge however you want.

McQueen not using the pit crew sounds more like a lack of Hinder than a lack of Help, i.e. he refuses to be held back, he won’t accept slowing down the race to be fixed up. Later, he has to deal with too much Hinder when he’s saddled with the asphalt machine. Notice that regardless of whether there’s too much or too little of a thing, the thing is still the problem. But then McQueen Helps the old car across the finish – problem solved in both MC and OS.

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Pixar’s Cars analysis
#3

Beautiful. That’s a really clear explanation. Thanks.

#4

how do you think this fits with stop/start?

#5

I’m not sure if abundance / lack is connected to stop / start. I’ve tried sussing that out before (from the book and from experts) but I don’t think there’s any hard link.

E.g. if you have a Change - Stop MC, then the MC focuses on stopping the obsession or preoccupation (or however it manifests) with the thing, the problem. But whether it’s a lack or abundance of that thing (or both?) is up to the author.

I personally think for writing purposes it’s best to pick one (lack or abundance) and mostly stick with it, but in some analyses I see a spectrum. In any case, all that matters is that the problem is the problem. Lots of characters (and people) try to solve their dilemma by increasing or decreasing the problematic variable when it’d be better for them to just abandon it.

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#6

I’m not sure how accurate it is on this point, but I’ve noticed the Four Throughlines Themes report in the software seems to use Stop and Start to indicate overabundance or lack. That is:

  • a Start MC will say “the Main Character’s lack of (Problem element) is what gets it into trouble”
  • a Stop MC will say “the Main Character’s excess of (Problem element) is what gets it into trouble”

At least for the storyforms I’ve tried.

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#7

Oh wow, it’s been a while since I’ve pulled up the Themes report. I remember seeing those lines but I didn’t connect to Start / Stop at the time.

@chuntley, how critical do you feel the start-lack / stop-excess connection is to the integrity of a storyform?

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#8

So long as you include the MC Growth in the story, it needed be targeted so specifically at the MC Problem.

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Production for a Steadfast-Start MC
#9

Only true for Change Resolve. For steadfast, the MC holds out for that in th IC and it appears as if it is in the environment.

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#10

I was only quoting the report, which has those same lines for Steadfast MCs. But for my own two stories with Steadfast-Stop MCs, I can tell you those lines are super accurate. One has an excess of Uncontrolled (drive to be free) getting her into trouble, the other an excess of Control (focus*) getting him into trouble.

* BIG ASIDE THAT SHOULD PROBABLY BE A BLOG POST: it took me 150K words of my first draft before I fully understood his MC Problem of Control. I saw him as this lovelorn guy who always gets these big crushes on girls, totally smitten before he’s even said hello. In the story, he’s pining after the IC, and his friends are like, “here we go again” but he’s like “no, this is different”. It all fit Mind/Subconscious/Hope perfectly, but for Control I was taking it as “his friends keep trying to control his love life, but he wants to do it his way” which worked, but I felt like there was something deeper I was missing. As a Steadfast Mind character I felt I should also be able to express his drive without referring to what others want, but I came up empty.

Then, just a week ago, I was playing a scene in my head and the MC’s friend Eric says, “Dude, we’re surrounded by hot chicks, perfect targets for you, but you don’t see them. You’re like a laser-guided missile aimed only at Becca.” Suddenly it clicked: laser-guided missile = excess of focus = Control. The MC is totally focused on one girl and nothing else.

How the hell did I not see that before? But I’m glad I found it so organically.

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#11

That is a cool insight.

Can’t you have excess control or lack the control regardless of the MC Growth? I think all the story points work that way. I think that is what Chris is saying.

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#12

Yes, absolutely. I was just documenting what the Four Throughlines Themes report says, and the fact that it happened to be really accurate for my own stories. But of course I agree with Chris that Stop/Start can be looked at more abstractly and needn’t always apply directly to the MC Problem element.

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#13

That’s really cool. Here’s to figuring out where to figure things out organically!

So in the current draft of my dystopian novel, my MC is Steadfast-Stop with a problem of Expectation. At the beginning of the book, he’ s a homeless vet living in a collapsing New York, and he’s basically just live-in-the-moment, having no Expectations for the future. But when he gets the opportunity to move to a seemingly idyllic farm/commune, it changes, and he begins to have huge Expectations for what life could be like. Unfortunately, the farm is dysfunctional, and his unrealistic expectations lead to conflict. Does that work?

#14

Gotcha.

I think it may be an error in the scripting:

This definitely doesn’t work for Lee in Manchester By The Sea [SPOILER]

Lee is a Stop Character who is Empty of Desire (Dead Inside) and arcs to Lack of Ability (Not capable of being a father figure as a guardian in Manchester)

Here is the Report info being generated for my forthcoming analysis:

“As the story develops we learn that Lee Chandler (Uncle).'s motivation comes from an imbalance between Desire and Ability. Specifically, what drives Lee Chandler (Uncle). forward through the story is an over abundance of Desire.”

If having or lacking on an element is a 50/50 choice this will be true 50% of the time.

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