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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31792
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31792
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Arena driven story: A man crashes his airplane in the desert, breaking his leg. His radio doesn't work. If he stays there he will die. He splints his leg, takes all the water he can carry, and tries to walk out. Or make it a man and woman, in the arctic. Make it Tom Hanks in Castaway; he is stranded alone on an island and wants to return to civilization.

Or make it a crew that is the first to visit an alien space station that seems to be abandoned, but its automatic defenses will try to kill them.

Or make it some guys struggling to make their business idea work and all the failures that go with it: They have no antagonist but they do need to make payroll, fix broken equipment, find customers and so on. Don't even worry about competition, there is nobody striving to make them fail, but they tried to start with too little capital and by inexperience chose a bad location and now they may lose their homes. Their spouses **_want_** them to succeed, but are very worried and unhappy that they are failing.

The key to an arena-story is that there is no intelligent or conscious villain, nobody is out in the world that the hero is working against, no villain is trying to make them fail. **_CIRCUMSTANCES_** and reality are what they struggle against (as most of us must do from time to time).

Often this requires the MC to find clever solutions, or take brave risks, in order to prevail over the circumstances. They don't fight anybody, they have to think their way out of their dilemma.

Original score: 18