A strawberry obsessed college student runs away to seek fame after suffering from physical and emotional abuse in 1960s San Diego.

“strawberry obsessed college student” = protagonist

“traumatic childhood” = inciting incident

“growing up” = goal

“1960s San Diego” = setting

Could be a good story sketch, but overall too vague.

Lets start with the kooky ‘strawberry’ obsession. What underlying character flaw might this be revealing? Greed (over eating) or ambition (to be a strawberry farm). As it stands, this is more a distinguishing mark of character, rather than a character trait.

traumatic childhood sounds nasty, but be specific. Head trauma, rape trauma, verbal abuse trauma … Sighting the source of trauma would reveal the drama’s villain too.

Growing up is a good goal, but could it be more specific? Getting out of a bad relationship is specific, and maybe this story is about living with an abusive parent … just riffing here. The point is trauma must come from some where, causing character to do something, to attempt to be somewhere else
– like wishing they were in the middle of a strawberry farm, eating an endless supply of strawberries.