From Conflict to Storyform

[Greg]

I thought it might be neat to run through a throughline with this idea. @lakis, hope you don’t mind that I stole from your post to do this one!

@Lakis

A team of burglars hacks into a city’s electric utility servers and gets data that allows them to determine when wealthy homeowners are on vacation so they can rob their homes. At some point though, the burglars come across information that a foreign government is also hacking the utility, and that this government plans to bring down the grid. The burglars struggle with what to do – expose the plot and incriminate themselves, or allow the foreign agents to shut down the Eastern Seaboard? But before they can take action, the foreign agents strike, and the city is blacked out. Now in an attempt to eliminate loose ends, the foreign agents try to hunt down the burglars. The story turns into a cat-and-mouse thriller in a blacked-out city.

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Step 1- the Conflict
I tried to use only what was in Lakis’ story idea for this part.

Domain
An unchosen item leads to foreign agents enacting a plan to attack the city.

Concern
An unchosen item has the burglars stumbling into a plot to shut down the grid and crossing paths with secret agents.

Issue
An unchosen item causes the burglars to struggle with what to do–incriminate themselves or let the foreign agents shut down the grid.

Problem
An unchosen item has burglars and foreign agents leaving a trail of chaos as they chase each other through the blacked out city.

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Step 2-The Storyform (or The Source of Conflict)
Just picking random Gists that were not in Lakis’ description of the story.

OS Physics
Domain
Arresting criminals leads to foreign agents enacting a plan to attack the city.
-When the government increases its efforts to arrest Foreign Guy #1, FG1’s government enacts a plan to attack the city.

Concern
Collecting intelligence has the burglars stumbling into a plot to shut down the grid and crossing paths with secret agents.
-Hacking into the city’s utility servers to collect information on houses to burglarize causes the burglars to find themselves mixed up in a foreign governments plot to shut down the grid and has them crossing paths with foreign agents. They are way in over their heads.

Issue
Analyzing the competition causes the burglars to struggle with what to do–incriminate themselves or let the foreign agents shut down the grid.
-Determining what the foreign agents are doing and what they might do to the burglars if they get caught has the burglars fighting with each other over whether to continue their own schemes and leave the foreign agents alone or to incriminate themselves in order to protect the city.

Problem
Needing someone to be reduced has burglars and foreign agents leaving a trail of chaos as they chase each other through the blacked out city.
-With both foreign agents and burglars driven to kill each other to stop the other and protect themselves, the burglars must do anything they can to escape through the city, even though it means creating lots of additional chaos, committing more crimes, being in more danger, etc.

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So that didn’t take long at all and I think it worked great. Maybe I’ll try putting it in the other three domains tomorrow and see what happens.