Mulling things over, here: romance series toyed with a heavy (maybe antagonist type) character in one book then becoming the MC in a future book. Perhaps, one could write a story with the mc and ic both flushed out (letting it flow stuff), then keep most the the mc stuff unstated. I read a brilliant masterpiece short story sometime around 1965/7 in a Playboy magazine. Afterwards to date, I have always checked out the ending of every story in any form, before reading/watching. (as an aside I watched The Sixth Sense without doing so, and that went so well I watched the next film Unbreakable which tossed me back into checking everything out, first, again)
A little I remember goes this way: A woman is at home or comes home and the reader finds out a smidgen about her mood/life. An old friend? comes over? he calls/ran into her somewhere? and they go on dinner date/meet up? and they come to her home. She talks about her dead husband, missing him/life struggle, and we find old friend had been dumped. He is sweet and beloved type, then says things that get her to run to the bathroom and close the door. Ominous sounds from there are described, while old ‘friend’ listens, smiles then walks out of the apt.
Maybe choosing some storyforming options that emphasize unknown/hidden could give you a storyform you like? AND 40’s to 70’s science fiction short stories had bold combinations with failure/bad stuff, since realistic real world was not necessary. Could you storyform from a genre, these days?
However, if you are asking me in general “…how exactly…” I would go around the software not letting me have my preferred choices and since I am only a hobbiest not a writing professional, this is what I would do. I would have my character be an IC and work out best I could what I wanted. Then I would do another storyforming attempt with that character the MC. Maybe, one way would let me have more of what I wanted. I would print it out and blank out everything but what I wanted. Next, I would write the story rough draft about the character bouncing from that, sharing my vision, enthusiasm and great fiction flow, as best I could. Then, I would hire a Dramatica consultant expert to help me figure out what was the complete storyform and what might be missing.
Also, another film similar to Petulia in a possible failure/bad mood, and one that used the hidden/reveal format of the short story I referenced, is the Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer. I would have fun hiring a Dramatica consultant to go over a group of such films and give me those storyforms to play around with, also.
