If a story is focused on MC, what do you do for OS?

[Lakis]

@SharkCat

Some ideas I’d liked were things I struggle to find justification for (ex. if MC is excessively anxious, his fears should be proven false, so having his brain escape and turn into a giant monster that, at the climax, starts rampaging thru a city, absorbing all living things to protect them from life’s hardships at the cost of autonomy… well, that sounds like a real threat and I don’t know if that undermines the stuff about most of MC’s fears being unjustified.).

Without totally knowing your story or intent, I read this and thought it’s a great example of what happens when you Avoid dealing with your anxieties. Your brain turns into a monster and hurts everyone around you. And the brain-monster is also driven by the story Problem of Avoid – it might claim it’s trying to protect everyone, but it’s doing this by trying to force everyone to avoid everything.

[Greg]

@SharkCat

if MC is excessively anxious, his fears should be proven false

Nope. If MC Being excessively anxious is the source of conflict, it needs to be shown that being (or not being) excessively anxious leads to success or failure and that the MC feels good or bad about having taken the journey. If you want a change, success, good story, you don’t necessarily have to worry about trying to make his rampaging brain less of a threat. You just show that he stops being excessively anxious and that that leads him to solve his personal and the objective story problems.

I added a post last night (From Conflict to Storyform). Maybe take that approach. Could it be that being excessively anxious isn’t the source of conflict, but the conflict that comes from some other source? I’m not saying that I think it is, and don’t want to muddy the waters further for you, but just wondering if it might help to try something like that.

[pattyloof]

I was thinking this too. Why is this guy so anxious? Is that perhaps the real problem?

@SharkCat - just something I thought of when I read the thread title: how far inside this guy’s head are you? If you’re in very close first person narration, as far as the audience knows the OS is the MC line. As the author, starting with the MC throughline and working backwards to find the OS might be helpful, and give you some insight into what everyone else is doing.

[SharkCat]

He’s anxious due to an anxiety disorder, but I’ve been down the road of using Impulsive Responses as Concern before. I liked it because what drives the anxiety cycle is trying to avoid that painful fight-or-flight feeling offers temporary relief, but ultimately makes pain worse in the long run, habituating the brain to fear the avoided thing even more (I considered Conscience vs Temptation). However, I didn’t like OS of Being and I can’t choose Avoid as the problem if I use that set of Concerns. Also, fear of failure is also a problem, but that sounds like Innermost Desires. I gave him a backstory with a failure that drove him to run away from life, so he’s also afraid of repeating that, but it was giving into anxiety that caused it.

I planned on keeping it 3rd person, but personal, mostly focused MC and his thoughts. I’ve tried working backwards from MC, but I wonder whether his problem is the disorder or lack of self-worth with learning to face fears being OS. Is the problem fear of failure or fight-or-flight… or what he does/doesn’t do about it? Is it Avoiding fears or giving into the Temptation to Avoid them for short-term relief and long-term consequences? So I went with Innermost Desires and Avoid.