Thanks so much for taking the time to help me out. What you’ve written makes SO much sense. I haven’t extrapolated the problems far enough. I think if I had, the word trust word probably have appeared in both of them. Thanks again!
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Did you try this on the Dramatica program? Or on Subtext? Either way there should be something that shows up! If you don’t have Dramatica, you can go on Subtext and under Storyform Connections just under Thematics - MC Problem - Test, several possible premises come up. If you do have Dramatica, you can pop this in with the Story Engine…I did it along with the other points you’ve determined and have it narrowed it down to 16 storyforms:
If you choose Be-er for MC Approach, this cuts it in half to 8.
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Welcome, Kirro05,
I find it best to think of the throughlines in terms of the source of conflict. Does the source of conflict within the throughline (e.g. the Overall Story throughline) grow from which the conflict grows. Conflict appears everywhere, but its source will be focused. The domain shows the nature of the conflict. The Concern / Types show how the conflict evolves, including the effort to resolve the conflict.
So with your OS, what are the problems with the new technology designed to solve human problems? How does new technology create conflict, and/or the effort to solve human problems create problems for many? The domain will indicate the nature of the conflict. Is it an internal problem (Fixed Attitude or Psychology) or external problem (Situation or Activity)? Is it the current state of things (Situation or Fixed Attitudes) or an ongoing process (Activity or Psychology/Manipulation)? The answer helps hone in on your throughline’s domain.
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Thanks Maddy. I’m using the PC version of Dramatica and sometimes it doesn’t show the full list of MC problems when you scroll the list but I worked it out. Thanks for your help.
Thanks so much! You’ve given me a lot to think about so I’m just working my way through it all 
Piggybacking on what @MWollaeger was driving at… before jumping down to the Issue or Problem elements, I’d need a little bit more about the Overall Story to really gauge… but I can tell you that your MC sounds like they’re maybe in Mind. But I wanna make sure you’re separating MC from Protagonist.
I would ask you first… if you were to take your MC out of this story and put them in another Plot from another story, what is the issue they would bring with them?
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@JohnDusenberry, want your take on this.
What a character brings with them does not define their throughline. For instance: I am a pirate, and I have a peg leg and an eye patch.
So, at first blush, I am in Situation.
But, let’s say this is a dance movie that I’m thrust into. The problem could be one of confidence—I am embarrassed by my peg leg. Or I believe I cannot dance. The problem is Internal. (But, no worries, this is a lovely Change Story and we end up winning the competition because once I get over my Internal problem, I can embrace the fact that I can pirouette better than anyone else, and for longer, since I do it all on a wooden tip.)
Or maybe, I’m having trouble learning to dance. Suddenly, my thread is Physics because I need to win a spot on the national dance team in order to climb the social hierarchy of the OS, which is in Mind.
But, back to the main point, if you can’t tell us what your character is bringing from one story to the next, then you probably haven’t separated them enough from your OS.
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Right… it’s not technically the Character at all, it’s the source of conflict in that Subjective POV—BUT! Recognizing what the real dilemma is with the character is an easy way to think about it rather than the more abstract/universal dilemma.
So the thing about your peg leg pirate… I don’t see a problem with having a peg leg. You’ve yet to define that throughline. Those Internal or External suggestions you mentioned are what I’d peg 
as the MC Throughline.
But yeah, 100% agree if you can’t tell us what their personal deal is, you could be talking about OS Protagonist.
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I admit that I have trouble with this litmus test. If my OS story is about the conflicts that arise from being a refugee on divided island (Universe), and my MC is one of those refugees, then the question of “what he brings from one story to the next” doesn’t make sense to me. Sure, he has a personal take on what’s going on. In this case, he decides to sneak across the border and must avoid the occupying army (Physics). From a personal perspective, discovering the old photographs and diary are part of his journey of Understanding. From the point of view of all the characters, those photographs and diary are symbols of a terrible Past they can’t let go of.
Now, I could try to imagine what Petros’ life would look like if I transplanted him to New York City, but I’m not sure how that would help me write the book.
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I was also not a fan of this litmus test… until I got much better at separating my MC out from the OS.
For instance, it sounds like the throughline you’ve chosen for your MC is really just part of the OS. Stuck on an island? Try to sneak across the border!
If I were your development exec on this, I would aim for something like, “Petros has to Understand the value of his past before he will join the revolution or lead the revolution” or something.
That said, I’m not 100% sure it’s a fail-proof test.
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To me the problem is interpreting what “take them from this story and put them in another” even means. For me, the natural way to interpret it immediately disqualifies it, because it implies the same character can’t have a different MC Domain in a sequel.
You might argue a sequel is special because they’ve changed/grown in the first story. But what about an “inquel” – e.g. a story that takes place on Tatooine after the droids arrived but before Luke left on the Falcon? He’s the same Luke, but in this new story maybe his problem is Mind/Subconscious (grieving his aunt & uncle on the way to Mos Eisley) or something.
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Ideally, transplanting him to New York and seeing that he still needs to find the old house with the photograph of the girl or whatever-can’t remember the specifics (for context, I’ve read the book Lakis is referencing-August in the Vanishing City-very good, highly recommend) should help you see that his trip into enemy territory is separate from being stuck on a divided island. While you can bring to the story the idea that the photographs are symbols for whatever, because Petros would carry the discovery of these photographs to any story he went into you know that you don’t need to show that everyone would see these photographs as symbols.
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So, this is all still treating the MC Throughline as a real person. As if “Luke” is really going to be pulled from “Star Wars” and put into the plot from “E.T.” Remember that none of these characters are real. They’re a way for an audience to appreciate the dilemma in the throughline. They’re stand-ins, metaphors, encoding.
The easiest way that I’ve found is to break down what’s going on with the MC Throughline in a more universal statement devoid of context. If your MC is dealing with a concern of Understanding… what’s the dilemma there? What’s are the details of his journey of Understanding?
… Say your storytelling with the refugee is about a dilemma about crossing the border like you said. So what’s the problem with that? Maybe they have to trick the border patrol to sneak across. But the more they interact with the border patrol, the more they come to appreciate why they’re protecting the border or start to see that they’re really not as bad as they first thought.
“Conflict Corner” participants might recognize this dilemma… If you break down what’s going on there, sans the context of your crossing the border story, you can see that the MC convinces themselves it’s okay to mislead others to cross the border, but understanding their foes brings them closer together.
That construct, that dilemma, is the thing that’s your MC’s personal dilemma in this story. And hopefully that’s a much easier thing to envision being dropped into another story’s Plot.
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I think @JohnDusenberry and I are doing the same thing a different way.
The trick is not to find a different story that they can be in as Luke. Because if you were really going to do that, of course you wouldn’t want it to be repetitive and you’d look for something slightly different to learn about Luke.
The point is to find the thing at the heart of Luke that could be moved to another story.
For instance, I’m writing a story about a girl—Annie—in a mining town who believes life ends at 18 because then you take on a terrible, life-long, low-paying job. Which is a huge bummer because she’s a great singer.
If I took Annie and put her in NYC, I’d want to explore her attempts to get onto Broadway. But this is the wrong way to look at it.
What we should be transporting is this fear that life is over when you are very young. I could put that into just about any story. And once I have the thing I can extract, then I know I have my MC.
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I really wish I had more time to join and/or listen to more of the Conflict Corner classes. I can see that you’re onto something here but it’s not quite clicking with me yet (or at least, the process still feels too labor intensive). I hope to remedy that in the coming year.
Anyway I wrote a long response to this and ended up disproving my own point. So there you go. 
Okay, that’s really helpful.
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It’s been an eye opening workshop for a lot of people, myself including–giving an hour to explore and exercise that muscle of coming up with proper sources of conflict.
If there’s a better time/day for you or others, I could shift things around.
The process isn’t so much labor intensive as it is mentally intensive. Like Dramatica itself, it really forces you as Author to stop and think about what it is you’re actually trying to say.
The other approach is to be more exploratory, and use Dramatica as a quick tool to double-check your work–work out any kinks or missing pieces… but I think the power of Dramatica offers so much more than that. It’s worth it to Authors to really take the time to dig in.
This week’s Conflict Corner is a bit of review and I go over the benefits of the theory–if you care to catch the replay.
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I think others might have said this, but DESIRE the way you mention it is already part of every theme. What i want. In the case of desire as a Concern, that means the story pivots on desiring itself, not that a character has desires. It’s not “the mc desires (a car)” but "desiring causes problems for the MC_ " and the MC’s life has to be upset because they desired in the first place, and they have to get over it or hold firm to the desire though people try to knock them off that hill.
@kirro05 I put together a little book related to finding your quad. Take a look at this and see if it helps you figure out which quadrant your story is in (upper right/lower left), and possibly even which domain each is in.
But first figuring out the set of four helps you identify which of THOSE the RS most is like or the IC is most influential in might help you figure it out.
It’s not “the mc desires (a car)” but "desiring causes problems for the MC_ " and the MC’s life has to be upset because they desired in the first place, and they have to get over it or hold firm to the desire though people try to knock them off that hill.
It very well could be that the MC desires a car being the problem. It’s not so much that desiring is the root of the problem, it’s that the process of desiring describes some dilemma in the mind.
For example, the MC is itching for a new car so they can look appealing driving it, but people with fancy new cars tend to be perceived as lacking by others.
And therein lies a dilemma.
Is this what drives the first justification?
The inequity is between desiring a car and not having a car.
• Choosing to work toward getting a car is problem solving.
• When you cannot get a car and choose to pursue another way/step to get the car, such as getting money to buy a car, this is when problem-solving turns into justification
WHY?
Because the next problem-solving choice would be to try to get rid of the desire for a car, which would remain in the problem-solving realm.
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