FifthView
Vala
Consider this: SETTING
How can you Make it Worse?
Think of the movie The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson. When Mel's band of rebels is on the lamb from the redcoats, where do they hide?
They hide in a swamp.
Now, that setting could've been written any number of ways, but a swamp is a worsening for the characters. It's bleak. It's damp (which wreaks havoc on a soldier's body and equipment. I know that from personal experience). It's difficult to even build a fire to cook food. Hell, it's hard to even maintain food supplies. Dangerous reptiles abound. And the bugs...don't even get me started on insects. I once saw a bug in a South Carolina swamp that was so large it actually had smaller bug on it! No joke.
Point being, they aren't hiding out in a dry, cozy barn at the edge of town. They're in a setting that makes things worse.
I've been thinking about various ways to M.I.W. via M.I.C.E., both at the macro level of a story and at the micro level.
I'm reasonably sure how I might go about doing that with milieu, character, event....But idea? That one stumps me. Withholding information from characters? Using religious, moral quandaries (but how would that be distinguished from M.I.W. at "c" —characters?)
Edit: Well I may have answered my own question. Idea stories are typically mysteries of one sort or another. Probably lack of information, conflicting information, and misinformation are ways to M.I.W. via "I."
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