The “brand” of the work in a marketing sense flows from this id element but cannot be cynically engineered. It has to come from an animating place of genuine fun-having. Authenticity if you will. Proof-of-fun. Costly signal that the author was in an abundant/extravagant mode.
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Genre fiction at least (if not literary) I think has to flow from a place of abundance for it to manifest escapist potential that sucks you in. This abundance is costly-signaled by essentially peacocking an element of the world-building to extremes.
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I think the secret to Star Wars is actually special effects. As Lucas going on to do ILM reveals. The story is bad, the characters are not fun, and plot relies on Campbell too much as a crutch. But special effects... amazing advance for its time.
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Replying to @kellydigges and @vgr
I'm having trouble with Star Wars, and wondering if you have to split it up by era in order to say anything coherent about it. The original trilogy is about cool spaceships, the prequel trilogy is mostly about politics, and the sequel trilogy gave up and is just about Star Wars.
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Nerd-outability as a reader filter. The right kind of reader will add to the source-abundance of the work rather than simply draw sustenance from it. I guess that’s the logic of fan-fiction/fandom. Splillover/surplus effect.
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Replying to @vgr
This is totally it. I feel like it's a filter. The author takes a risk - nerding out over something they're genuinely passionate about - and whoever sticks around through it will have buy-in. They'll be in-grouped. Value of appealing strongly to some vs trying to appeal to all.
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Non-basic id element “incluing”
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Replying to @vgr
It's also a kind of reading for world context the way you read a detective story for clues - Jo Walton called it "incluing" tor.com/2010/01/18/sf-
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A good diagnostic question, in the spirit of Alan Kay “waste transistors” principle of personal computing is “what is this story willing to waste?”
What is it willing to feature “too many” of?
Culture = clever names.
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More examples:
Futurama: Silly devices/gadgets/design fiction objects
Simpsons: Arguably the couch gags+intro mini-story that triggers the main story, like “they go to the fair and Homer buys 1 dumbbell”
South Park: “we learned something today” faux-morals
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Rick and Morty: inter-dimensional cable and quick-sketched useless parallel universes which don’t do anything for the plot, like the farting-asses universe.
Best example might be the brilliant pizza-universe set. There is NO good reason for this scene
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What to call this principle? Spice-note?
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Replying to @vgr
This is nifty and needs a name, like “spice note” or something: the fun flavor element which does a lot of the story work
Star Wars: spaceship design
Superheroes: costume design
aSoIaF: house banners & words
Agatha Christie: etiquette
Wuxia: special weapons & attacks twitter.com/vgr/status/133…
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Secret sauce is perhaps too broad. 🤔
This is a narrower animating thing.
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Tolkien’s secret sauce which he began doing even before he conceived of Middle Earth in 1917 while recovering from the Somme twitter.com/vgr/status/133…
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Big mood? Generator? Flywheel? Root chakra? Idiopathy?
Principle needs a clear statement too: “every successful genre story has an unnecessarily overbuilt world id-element.”
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The Rick and Morty example suggests an aspect. Every instance of the id-element suggests the gestalt of entire universe. All other world-elements have to vibe with that gestalt. You can get at this by asking: what is a nominally correct non-element if the set of id-elements?
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What’s a ship-name that does NOT fit the Culture universe?
Maybe USS Enterprise?
What’s a language that does NOT fit Middle Earth?
Minion language
What’s a universe that does NOT fit R&M multiverse?
A non-satirical universe maybe? This one is hard
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The flywheel aspect is important. One instance of the set should catalyze more instances. It should snowball into a gun game readers want to join in even if they lack the skill. Like ship names. Everybody has fun making up their own. Compound interest. Narrative network effect.
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The collectible cards test. Yep. Or can it spawn a fanpedia.
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Replying to @vgr
Basically can you create a commercially viable series of collectible cards — a la Pokémon, baseball cards, etc?
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Based on fiction I’ve written so far and enjoyed writing, I think my thing is “philosophy gadgets” — devices that embody an abstraction. Like my strategometer: a watch that indicates when you’re thinking strategically. I have such things in all my stories.
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More examples:
Psych: 80s references
Monk: OCD behaviors
Burn Notice: “When you’re a spy...” tips
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🤔
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Replying to @vgr
So I found this and immediately thought I should report this to you. These are 26 laws of magic collated from various pagan traditions.
users.aalto.fi/~saarit2/deoxy
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I think it’s “leitmotif”. And then you have to break it down into the leit and the motif. The motif is the theme that people notice: eh pratchett’s puns and historical references. The leit is the motivating force behind them.
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Are leitmotifs necessarily overbuilt though? To me the overbuilding is the key part. In your case I don’t think it is computer science concepts. It is wordplay (not just dad jokes). Whatever you have “too much” of for story needs in a sense.
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In my mind it is to world-building as loss leaders are to retail. Not worth the time invested in it directly, but it hints at a deep and intriguing principle in play that the viewer gets to learn more about if they just follow the characters for another chapter/episode.









