Heya guys I could use your opinions on whether this is a good encoding for a main character concern. All feedback and thoughts are appreciated.
MC Concern: Innermost Desire
More than anything else Chloe wants to have a great relationship with her mother, but the woman is dead and the only memories she has are of her mother being an utter and complete bitch.
…Well, I was poised to say “Yes,” but then you used the word “memories.” 
Seriously, though, I am drawn towards Memories rather than Innermost Desires for what you’ve described. After all, the way it sounds to me, the concern isn’t the desire, per se, but that the memories themselves get in her way. Now, if the conflict were something like, “Chloe struggles to maintain relationships due to her obsession with sanitizing her mother’s legacy,” I could see that as falling under Innermost Desire.
Actually, we could look at it a stage deeper. If that’s the Concern, what is the Issue? Is it about Closure vs. Denial, or Hope vs. Dream? I don’t see either of those–she’s dead, so there’s no way to gain closure or hope/dream for anything better. It sounds to me more like a Truth vs. Falsehood kinda thing, or maybe Evidence/Suspicion. Why does she want to have a better vision of what her mother was like? Does she have Evidence/Suspicion that her mother wasn’t as bad as she recalls? Is she upset at the Truth of her mother’s monstrousness, or does she have reason to believe some of her memories are Falsehoods? That seems more in line with your description.
Hi Diane, to me that encoding feels more like the conflict is coming from the Memories more than the subconscious desires. For Innermost Desires, you want to focus more on her deep subconscious drives and desires, like her grief that she lost her mother, her desperate longing to have a mother figure in her life, that sort of thing. (Not saying those would work with your story ideas, but maybe they will help.)
Actually hatred can also work really well. Maybe that’s more what you’re going for, she HATES her mother for being such a bitch when she was alive, and for dying before their relationship issues could be resolved.
EDIT: I kinda cross-posted with @actingpower, it’s interesting to see how making it more about the grief, longing or hatred fits so well with Closure/Denial/Hope/Dream. Someone who can’t let go of her hatred, maybe has recurring dreams of her mom, etc.
Well, If I chased this down the way the throughline sits in dramatica
DOMAIN: FA: Hates her mother
CONCERN: INNERMOST DESIRES: Doesn’t want to hate (it’s bad for the digestion, dontcha know).
ISSUE: CLOSURE: She needs to make peace with either who her mother was or to find a new way to view their relationship so that the wound of not having the mother she would have like to doesn’t fester and eat at her for the rest of her life. Both figuratively and literally she needs to put mother to rest.
Problem: Avoidance These two have been estranged for years. At the opening of the story she’s still dodging Mom by not going through her things.
The journey I have in mind for this woman requires she let got of her preconceived notions(Critical Flaw) of who she thought her mother was and be open to the interpretation that there was a good side to her upbringing.
And Signpost 1 is ALL about memories, to the point (and I’ve never seen this before) that the PSR is looking at the layer underneath Memory (Truth, Falsehood, Evidence, Suspicion)
This doesn’t sit right with me.
For one reason, if you ask 
…and this causes problems how? … then I don’t see answers here.
That’s what I was gonna say!
What’s the problem with wanting a great relationship with her mother?
Well @jhull , it’s kinda hard be build a great relationship with someone who’s dead. Or to get satisfactory explanations of their douche-baggery that might let you forgive them.
Sorry @MWollaeger, I didnt’ make that leap with you, answers to what?
I’m not sure what the flexed biceps emoji meant, but I think Jim and Mike would like you to literally answer that question, i.e. explain exactly how those things cause problems for Chloe. Not “Chloe is sad” but “Chloe’s depression makes her inefficient at work, she loses her job and she can no longer support her children”.
The MC Throughline Domain, Concern, Issue and Problem you have currently are the same as Jaime Foxx’s cab driver in Collateral, you could watch that and see if you get the same feeling of a totally stuck mindset, avoidance and lack of closure that cause personal problems. (Marlin in Finding Nemo and Becca in Pitch Perfect also have those same MC story points but I figure your story is more serious. If you’re going for more light-hearted or comedy you might want to try those instead.)
The flexed biceps emoji is a reference to this post:
In Dramathamatics, too much X means too little Y. Or in this case, too much Innermost Desire means too little Impulsive Response.
Assuming the story fits the form, and using the given information, wouldn’t desiring a good relationship with mom be problematic because it requires Chloe to stop impulsively thinking of her mom as having always been bitchy, which I’m assuming Chloe either doesn’t want to do or doesn’t think she can do? Or at least something along those lines?
And it sounds like giving up this preconceived notion of her moms behavior and seeing things from moms perspective, that she wasn’t trying to be bitchy, would end up solving that problem.
I believe they’re talking about the difference between an inequity and a problem (in Dramatica terms). [quote=“jhull, post:8, topic:379”]
the desire for a new car is not a problem. A car is not a problem. The space between the two is not a problem. It is seen by a human mind as an inequity. When you have an inequity you have two choices: resolve the inequity or justify it away…
But what if you don’t have the means for a car AND you can’t get rid of the desire? That’s when you start the justification process.
So what you first do is look to where you’re going to focus your attention. Let’s say you focus on the car. If you do that, then you “lock” the desire for the car away - you’re no longer going to consider losing that desire as an option. You’re attention is focused on the car.
With the desire locked away the car itself now becomes a PROBLEM.
[/quote]
So, in your story, she has a desire not to hate her mother. But she does not possess the means to A) personally reconcile with her (because she’s passed away), or B) dismiss her hatred due to the mother’s history. So which of these two does she lock away, and which one does she focus on - thus turning it into a problem?
I’m really enjoying seeing all the things you are gleaning from what I have said because great mounds of what I intend is showing up. And are things I’ve put down in my notes. What I’m still not getting is that if you all are getting what I’m getting (Brain) why isn’t the encoding adequate?
@actingpower and @mclucas It’s really not about her memories…she could lose all her memories in some sort of Amnesia accident and she’d still want a better (than none - because it’s all been wiped away) relationship with her mom. [quote=“Gregolas, post:10, topic:1200”]
wouldn’t desiring a good relationship with mom be problematic because it requires Chloe to stop impulsively thinking of her mom as having always been bitchy, which I’m assuming Chloe either doesn’t want to do or doesn’t think she can do? Or at least something along those lines?
And it sounds like giving up this preconceived notion of her moms behavior and seeing things from moms perspective, that she wasn’t trying to be bitchy, would end up solving that problem.
[/quote]
This is the plan. The IC focus is on openness, she has to open up to the idea that there might be another way to look at the stuff mom did to her to make her miserable.
Option B. is where I was headed. She doesn’t and really wouldn’t consider option A: and just walking up to mom’s grave site and saying “Gee, Mom, I know you were a queen bitch when you were alive, but now that you’re dead and buried, I’ve decided our past doesn’t matter and I’ll come and chat you up twice a month like we were best buds.” So the option of straight up forgiveness isn’t on the table.
But what I still don’t understand is WHAT is missing from my encoding of the Concern? What’s not there that should be? Examples would be super helpful, cuz trying to get me to figure out what’s missing doesn’t seem to be working.
I think if you take something else that Chloe cares about, and show how her attitude about her mom causes her difficulties there, I think you’ll be good. (Although I don’t have anything tattooed on my biceps, so take it with a grain of salt! 
)
This was my rather basic example, assuming Chloe cares about supporting her children, maybe she’s even a single mom:
It doesn’t have to involve other people … maybe she desperately wants to be a veterinarian but can’t focus on the online courses she’s taking…
All that’s missing is “what’s the next step?” i.e. what does she latch onto as a supposed solution to her supposed problem?
So because she locks away the reconcile-with-Mom option, she focuses on her natural-hatred-of-Mom as her problem and:
OR
OR
These options complete the encoding because they show how your character cannot immediately address the real trouble, how she has justifications / rationalizations to get through before finding peace.
A problem is a mask; it’s a reason not to deal with the inequity. It’s a substitute, symbol, or proxy for what actually ails.
I think what everyone is trying to get at is that “Hating your Mother” isn’t really a problem–until you actually make it a problem. We can extrapolate all kinds of examples of what that could be, but what really helps is if you tell us why hating her mother is an actual problem.
There are plenty of people in the world who are absolutely fine hating their mother.
(I wouldn’t be one of them, Mom–assuming you’re reading this!)