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.

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.

Naming Conventions

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.

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?

OK – I think I’ve typed enough over the last few days.