Anxiety also transmits family sins. If a parent did not feel safe as a child and became distrusting of others, fearful of simple behaviors such as flying or driving, or unable to relax or sleep properly, her child is probably susceptible to this same anxiety. One woman, a highly successful screenwriter from Chicago, had so internalized her anxious

Do you think you are the only person with this kind of difficulty? • Have you ever known or heard of anyone who had an issue they could not seem to resolve? Is your problem worse than theirs? • If you had a friend in this situation, what would you advise?

When designing a character, it’s often useful to think of them in terms of their theory of control. How have they learned to control the world? When unexpected change strikes, what’s their automatic go-to tactic for wrestling with the chaos? What’s their default, flawed response? The answer, as we’ve just seen, comes from that character’s core beli