Brainstorming Character in Shane and the Red Wedding

So this week it was Bob’s turn in the “explain this to me” brainstorming barrel, mostly about character, puzzling out how and why these people all came together and started shooting at each other (short answer: because Bob wrote it; if I’d written it, they’d all fall in love and have sex). Bob didn’t want anything deleted for spoilers, so the whole chat is below.

Brainstorming Anna’s Sprained Plot

Bob and I are both hitting plot snags.  Mine is coming down to no cohesion in the plot and subplots; I need to pull them together thematically or they’re just going to be all over the place. Since my main theme seems to be something to do with living inauthentic lives (“seems” being the key word) . . . well, here’s the chat about that.  (Names of the possible antagonists have been changed to Xs to protect from spoilers.)