Internal Struggle Drives Plot
Basing my internal struggle study on MRK’s teachings and K.M. Weiland’s explanation of Ghosts, Wounds, and Lies, I’m going to try to systemize this a bit.
A “Trauma Anchor” is something that was threatened in the character’s past. They can be one of three things: Safety, Connection, or Empowerment. This event is a Ghost. It’s called a Ghost because it’s something that haunts them to this day. What caused this hurt? Being left alone (Scrooge), being taken away (Kane), being helpless and blaming yourself (Wayne). The Ghost is a terminology that John Truby uses. The effect of a Ghost is a Wound, which is the psychological pain. Wound is taken from Ackerman and Puglisi’s book, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus. And finally, because of how the Wound warps and shapes the character into who they are today, how they overreact (OVR) or self-deprivate (SDP) themselves of the trauma anchor, there’s the lie, the reaction to the wound. The lie is what they rely on as their source of power. They get really good at using this lie to get through life. It becomes a crutch. But the more you rely on it, the further away you get from what you actually NEED. This Lie is the wrongful belief that leads them to a compromised life. It is what keeps their homeostasis working, even though, deep down inside, they really want/need something else. The CDA of the story. OK, that’s the character’s journey. In story order then…
Externally the Ghost Event, which causes Interior Wound and Lie. They settle into a homeostasis STS, or (Denial in the DREAM model) driven and/or protected by the Lie. That is, until author throws them a disruption DSR. The character is forced to confront the DSR, which threatens their STS (Reluctance in DREAM model at first), but eventually thrown into the belly of the whale BWO (or Exploration in DREAM), leading to the MID (mirror moment - fake acceptance), LOW (real acceptance after getting tested), pushing into the CMX (Manifestation in DREAM).
GWL>STS>DSR>BWO>MID>LOW>CMX>DNM
The seed of all this starts with GWL.
The act of lying to yourself is either depriving yourself of X, saying you don’t need it, you’re not good at it, and you can do without it… or overcompensating for X but building your whole life around it and protecting it at all cost to the point where you lose sight of why you protect X.
- Self-Deprivation (SDP)
- Overcompensate (OVC)
Are there other ways people have bad relationships to traumatic events? Let’s keep testing this.
Assuming trauma anchors are formed when something close to you is threatened. Assuming those are primal things like your physical home, the people you love, and your own agency. This can provide us with six types of wounds. 3 types of ghost events times 2 types of reactions (SDP & OVC). There might be more. I’m leaving room for that.
- Home + SDP = The LIE: “I don’t need a place to settle down, I’d rather wander and move around. A place just ties you down into routine. I prefer to move around.” TRUTH: never stuck, but also no stability, can’t build anything lasting. Everything gets destroyed anyway, so why bother? Just move on. Keep moving. Start again anew somewhere else. Just keep running.
- Home + OVC = The LIE: “My home is my castle, I must defend it. I will build moats, walls, security systems, bunkers to protect it. It is how I protect my loved ones. It’s how I maintain my world.” TRUTH: The fear of being invaded, attacked, or being left homeless is so great, this lie ends up becoming a prison. So yes, perfect security, but shut out from the rest of the world. But the world always comes knocking. Is this the refugee, immigrant story?
- Tribe + SDP = The LIE: “I work by myself, I don’t work well with others, I’m a lone wolf. I don’t need anyone, they’re unreliable and slow me down.” TRUTH: They’re afraid of people betraying them, or as basic as dying on them. People are people after all, and unfortunately also have lifespans. These mavericks actually desperately want a family. The arc is for them to create a found family. Starlord. Buffy/Angel. House.
- Tribe + OVC = The LIE: “I need to trust in the people around me, I need to protect my family, and in return I expect loyalties.” TRUTH: they get into everyone’s business, they become depedent on them, manipulate them, power games, run themselves thin, sacrifice everything and then blame them, defends them from any and all attacks, has zero sense of boundaries, but at the end of the day loves and suffocates their tribe. Relationships end up being toxic around them. They are desperately afraid of being alone, but actually need to be alone and find their boundaries and/or freedom.
- Agency + SDP = The LIE: “The game is rigged so I don’t play it. I do whatever I like outside the system. I’m free. I have autonomy. I don’t listen to anyone. I’d rather die than report to anyone, be accountable to anyone. I don’t trust authority.” TRUTH: These outsiders actually want purpose, something to fight for. The system, or tribe, or whoever disempowered them, marginalized them, pushed them out, mistreated or exploited them. They are rebels that may end up building their own empire from the ashes of what they destroy? Do they need to be integrated or socialized back into their group? Or just simply hear a word of acceptance. Or told it’s not their fault? Will Hunting?
- Agency + OVC = The LIE: “Power is the most important thing. I will do anything to get it, keep it, and defend it. Wealth, ownership, influence: these are things I can control.” TRUTH: I’ve been abandoned, or helpless in a situation where I had no control. Poverty, unloved, insecure and/or unstable situations. I promised myself to never let myself be trapped under these circumstances again. So now I’m going to climb and wield power. It will protect me. I’m never going to be a loser again.
Naming Conventions
- ROOTLESS: Afraid of being stuck in routine. Needs to keep moving, running. Values FREEDOM.
- PRISON: Afraid of having things taken away. Needs to build a castle to defend. Literal walls. Values SECURITY.
- LONE WOLF: Afraid of betrayal, losing people. Needs to keep everyone arm’s length. Trust issues. Values INDEPENDENCE.
- FAMIGLIA: Afraid of being alone. Needs to keep their people at any cost. Toxic and manipulative. Values LOYALTIES.
- OUTSIDER: Afraid of being enslaved, further disempowerment, following rules. Needs to be a rebel, play outside the system, breaks rules. Values AUTONOMY.
- POWER CLIMB: Afraid of being a loser, being left out. Needs to climb, wield power. Ambitious, controlling. Values WINNING.
Maslow’s Hierarchy
Does this track here too? I think it does.
We can ignore physiological needs and/or lump it in with safety needs under “home”. These are the most basic physical, bodily needs we require to live. Air, food, shelter, water, sleep, clothing, personal security, employment, resources, health, property. If this is threatened, you live day-to-day without a home, or you overcompensate with building a castle and moat. Growing up in a food insecure impoverished house will probably trigger this. Or being an army brat, or child of missionaries, or living through war torn times like being a refugee. The raw physical place needs to have been threatened, destroyed, and/or the character needs to be have been violently taken away. These people would probably lean heavily towards their connections. Their connections become their surrogate home. There’s a heavier dependence on them and what “home” means since there’s no actual physical place to get attached to. Third places. Places to escape to or hide. Places where you can explore yourself, your inner thoughts.
Next is “love and belonging” on the Maslow hierarchy. This one is your tribe. Friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection. The tribe was threatened, or the tribe betrayed you, or they’re chronically unreliable, or they abuse you in any of the ways that have control over you, or abandon you, or conditional love, or refuse or reject you. Or they just die. People are infinite in their ability to hurt others, especially the ones we love or are expected to love us. Tribe ranges from your parents all the way up to country perhaps, or religion? There are identifiers that we all have. Race, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality… that we want to be a part of. If we identify as X and that group of X rejects us, it hurts. Issues with parents are interesting because the moment you’re born, you depend on them and there is a clear expectation they take care of you and presumed connection. And over the course of 18 years, that can be affected in multiple ways. Rife with story. And that’s how we have OVC and SDP reactions or Wounds/Lies that lead to interesting characters.
Finally, we have “self-esteem”. That’s respect, status, recognition, strength, freedom. That’s agency. Your ability to do stuff rather than be helpless. This is about power. Or ntw. This is something you come into the world without any of. But very quickly, depending on the genetic lottery, you quickly acclimate to the class, wealth, and/or status of your family. Most people are told “no” their whole lives. The rarefied few born into nobility and rich don’t hear “no” as much or at all. They get to expereince an inclusivity and an othering immediately. The “others” are everyone beneath them. The ones with nothing quickly realize the game, the system is rigged against their favor. So you can SDP and not play the game. Be weird, Be creative. Be unique. That’s one way of seizing and regaining some sense of agency. You can leave the system and make a life elsewhere. Immigrants. You can also see the system for what it is and if given certain talents and abilities, leverage them to play the game. Most people on the planet do this. Play the game. Rely on your connections, intelligence, resourcefulness, creativity, sex, charm, wiliness, resilience, ability to work, energy, labor, whatever… to survive or climb the ladder.
OK - so Maslow works here too. We can skip self-idealization, because purpose seems to be something added later, after the trauma, and in fact, might come from it as you move up the pyramid, (or experienced the pyramid long enough to get a sense of purpose, and then have the pyramid taken away from you). Or in the case of some religious folk, you’re told to serve that higher purpose even if you can barely survive.
But when you threaten that purpose, does it create trauma? Or just doubt? Makes you stronger and more resilient, or makes you reconsider everything? That’s Pop Squad type stories.
Ghost, Wound, & Lie Redux
So to summarize GWL again.
- GHOST: This is the event that causes the trauma. There can be different events that causes different trauma. Based on life stages, we have at least one when we’re children (ages 5-12), an event where we realize that our parents/tribe’s love for us is not perfect and they are human too. One when we’ve hit puberty, and this is based on how we’re accepted or rejected as teenagers, finding our clique, first love, lots of wonderful points where you can have micro or big trauma. And one when we hit adulthood and get our first job, first house, first child, whatever. And then there are the dramatic life-changing events writ larger like death, instability, whatever.
- WOUND: This is the trauma. How we interpret the above event. Some of them are closely releated to one of the three anchors: safety/home, tribe/connections, and agency/power. Some of them are a little less clear, but we attach it to one of them. I also think that both GHOST and WOUNDS can get lost in our memory. We end up doing what we do and leaning into our strengths or LIES but forget why we do. Uncovering it is the foundation of a lot of Freudian psychology isn’t it?
- LIE: I worry about the word “lie”. We lean into the Lie as if our life depended on it, and we believe that it is what makes us, us. It becomes our identity and our strength, but it also keeps us away from what we actually need. But is it actually a “lie”? Or is it just a “misguided strength” we lean on? Or a value that no longer serves us?
Whare are some of these lies though? I think this is where MRK’s ARRS for character breakdown really helps. How do people identify themselves?
- Abilities: Craft, knowledge, art, skills, intelligence, humor, peformance, combat, logistics, operations, all the things that people can do really, really well. The hyper-competent. At the heart of this one is feeling useful and valuable… or in some cases, just feeling good they’re good at something. To the point where you lean on it and it can consume you or becomes an obsession. These are all neutral knives
- Roles: Our job, position, office at work, in society. Tradition, rituals, rites, faith. It isn’t so much power but maintaining the rules, integrity, and honor of this role. You do it because it’s the law, or tradition, or there’s a time-honored respectability to it. Many others before you have held this role, and others after you will as well. And this is where the LIE can occur. Are you holding on to this role to the point where it no longer makes sense to? Has society or the situation changed, and you’re choosing to ignore the context and “spirit of the law” and upholding the duties regardless? Why do you?
- Loyalties: I changed this because “responsibility” was just too confusing. This is ultimately about who we defend even if they’re wrong, even if we disagree with them, even if we hate them. There are certain relationships where you just have to defend them no matter what. They’re under your protection or you’re sworn allegiance to them or whatever. Some are default like family. Some are client relationships. Some are vassal-noble. But you respect and honor that relatoinship. You owe it to them. Or maybe you don’t and that’s just expected of you in this culture.
- Status: My wheelhouse. This is about aspiration, greed, might, power. It’s climbing and wielding power. It’s about how self-destructive it is, but it can also be about how getting and maintaining it, while has several negative externalities and costs, you do end up with said power and you can do stuff with it. The issue is when chasing wealth and power becomes all consuming and you’re not doing it for the right reasons anymore? Some would argue that chasing wealth and power is never right. The opposite of this is to constantly question it and try to take it down. That’s change, fairness, retribution, redemption, fighting the system instead of winning it. The Lie there is realizing that you can’t not have power. Power lets you do stuff.
OK – I think I’ve typed enough over the last few days.