Where’s This in My Storyform

writing
#1

I want to integrate Plutchik’s Emotion Wheel into my script project. The plot premise involves a guy secretly falling in love with a celebrity, but both characters denying their attraction.

So, he feels sexual and intellectual lust. She’s world famous. What’s this an illustration of in my storyform?

The storyform tells me she’s a Be-er — her celebrity-hood — conscious of a conflict over Results (direction), impulsively worrying.

I’m suspecting her celebrity-hood induces this lust in him.

However, the storyform tells me their relationship is conflicted over Desire. The underlying conflict is over Test. Perhaps this is where that hunger in him dwells.

Also, the RS problem and Solution are labeled as Condition and Adjustment, which makes me wonder this is a holistic throughline, counterbalancing the linear objective story, the same way he’s a linear character against her as a holistic.

Also, how would my holistic impact character express what she’s going through? I know my story has a linear mindset, but I would think the celebrity impact character would express her struggle in terms of addressing her Worry by trying to balance her focus and direction. We’d see the struggle from a linear thinker’s point of view. I say “focus” and “direction” because she’s a changed character, so she’s unaware of her true problem.

#2

Explain what keeps her from being in “Universe” because of her status

#3

For a long while, I had her in Universe. Then, I realized her impact on the main character is that she is a celebrity. It’s her Being a celebrity that’s an influence on him. Her ability to manipulate those around her simply by her presence awes him. It makes him question the status that he is stuck in (Universe).

#4

This doesn’t have enough detail to convince me that you’re thinking about this the right way.

I’m also unclear how you could have her in Psychology if he’s in Universe. She’s not the IC?

#5

No, no. He’s struggling with being stuck in a servile position, not having progressed.

He observes her having this “pushing the envelope” attitude, an attention-seeker, despite the fact she’s concerned about being taken seriously as an artist. She’s manipulative. He sees the stunts she does getting negative reactions, despite her knowing better. (Preconscious-Worry-Focus of Non-Accurate).

He compares her life right now to how little progress he’s made in his. (Progress-Threat with focus on Determination). Yet, he firmly believes that if you’re in touch with the forces guiding you, a higher power, that you will reach success. He’s focused on seeing patterns in the story’s events guiding him towards a divine plan.

Her confident attitude, knowing the world the story is set in better than he does, weakens his belief sometimes that what he’s doing will prove fruitful. He’s not as experienced in the music industry.

Together, they see themselves as celebrity and blu-collar. Both feel conflicted over desire for each other, but each would rather test whether the other is really speaking truthfully, rather than trust and open up. Determining whether one’s destined to become famous or whether any of us has the ability.

Towards the end of the story, she realizes how she’s pushed the envelope too far and becomes more calculating in how she goes about getting attention.

#6

So who is the IC? What is the actual thing that forces his maturation?

#7

It’s difficult and usually frustrating for all involved to address a question like “here’s what happens in my story, what storyform setting is that?”

This is because there is a lot of stuff going on in a story, but a storyform really only looks at one thing—source of conflict. But without additional context, there’s no way to know whether the story event you described is a source of conflict, a problem/inequity, or an attempt to address the problem/inequity.

For instance, if I say “my story is about a guy who runs a race and that race leaves him with PTSD, and he responds to that by telling himself his fear is all in his head”, and then ask what the storyform is for that, its going to be a lot easier to answer than if I ask “my story is about a guy who gets PTSD, what is the storyform for that?”

And it’s easier to address because we can see how things line up. Racing leads to PTSD and is addressed with the attitude that fear is just in the head. And that would be a different story altogether than if I had said “my story is about a guy whose PTSD has him insisting that his fears are just in his head and his way of addressing that is to enter an extremely dangerous race.” Now we have PTSD leads to the attitude that fear is just in the mind and is addressed by entering a dangerous race.

One of those is likely to be a Physics story, the other a Psychology story.

So to get help in finding what your storyform already is, we really need to know a lot more about what’s going on in the story…particularly what the relationships are between this part of your story and other parts of it.

This post wasn’t mean to criticize anyone, either. This same method is how I’ve typically approached discussions, so it should be aimed at me as much as anyone.

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#8

So, that said…

We really need to know whether something like this is meant to be a source of conflict, the problem, or a response to a problem. And then it would also be helpful to fill in the other two gaps as well.

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#9

I think this is why I assumed (and still can’t shake the idea) that she must be the IC.

#10

I think geoff suggested the character would fulfill the IC role in the first post.

Just a further suggestion, while it’s difficult to impossible to analyze a partially formed story thats missing context, it’s much easier to suggest how to have a story say something.

“How do I make a story with zombies a psychological thriller?”

“How do I put this story about a killer on the loose into Conditioning?”

“How do I use this story about a kid who can fly to discuss the idea that if you keep pursuing your dreams, you will end in failure when you try to save the day?”

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