: Re: Compelling story with the world as a villain My main character is up against the world, or, rather, the world and reality are up against her. A good story is in some ways defined by its

@Berumen699

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The frame challenge of the day is whether the world is the villain, or is perceived to be the villain by the MC.
Other answers have already covered the case in which the world being a villain is an objective fact. I will address the frame challenge in which the MC attributes such a nature to the world as a subjective perception.
In this case, we are dealing with a delusional character. This state is a mental condition such that the character is unable to discern what is real from what is imagined. The imagined bit does not need to be hallucinatory in nature, but could simple be small nuances in everyday events. As an exaggeration, dropping a pencil could happen to anyone, but perceiving such event as driven by the evil and adversarial nature of the world is likely the result of a delusion.

Delusional disorder involves delusions that aren’t bizarre, having to do with situations that could happen in real life, like being followed, poisoned, deceived, conspired against, or loved from a distance. These delusions usually involve mistaken perceptions or experiences. But in reality, the situations are either not true at all or highly exaggerated.
(See www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/delusional-disorder#1)
Such a twist is not uncommon. There are famous movies loosely based on this concept (apologies for the spoilers). A beautiful mind, the Machinist and Fight Club are the first that come to mind.
Just like in these movies, you can make it compelling by embracing the delusion and feed the reader with cues that the twisted perception, albeit at odds with our daily experience, may have reasons to be true. A very rational character may provide a good smoke screen for the reader to believe their subjective perceptions, even when the delusions gradually grow into the bizarre. The imagined world of delusions becomes then increasingly compelling as the main character feels that there is increasingly more at stake, and that their chances of resolving the issues, fighting back, or even surviving, decrease as the story progresses.

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