Three Dollar Quill

Got about two stanzas written. I've just got to fill up the outline, and then that's the draft done. Just a little bit each day.

I don't remember if I explained what the hook is, so I'm going to do that now.

The first thing I wrote for the setting document for Korín, Sorín, and Arín was a very high-level description of its ridiculous cosmology. It was very boring.

After some discussion, I decided that the thing to lead with was some in-universe art, that highlighted some of the setting details. Part of the reason there is that, of all of the things unique to this setting, I think art is the most obviously interesting thing to show other people. The various implications of the magic system are interesting and all, but a description of them is itself a kind of art, just more dry and technical than I'd personally like to put out. What's going on there is, to engage with such material, you kind of have to accept some hypotheticals that remove it from your experience. Thinking about the implications of magic for agriculture doesn't relate in any way to your life, but if you're consuming a song, poem, book, painting, etc, then you are actually consuming that art in your own life.

The fact that this is more engaging, I think, than basically an atlas of a place you can't actually visit, has me hopeful that it'll be a better introduction to the setting.

So, what it actually is, is a song about two brothers. One of them becomes evil, and the other one has to kill him, for the good of everyone around them. Lots of dramatic proclamations, and battles, and crying. And gods, and dragons.

One thing I'm liking about it so far is that the combination of in-universe narrator and metrical constraints basically forbids me from over-explaining things. So I'm all like "Well, I can write up a detailed explanation of what dragons look like, and do, in this setting, but everyone in the notional audience knows that and it would translate into very quantifiable bloat, as the number of stanzas grows for no good reason." I don't think I could handle doing anything really longform in verse, but I think it really helps where it makes sense.

Anyway, I spent a good amount of time writing this up, and now I'm tired.

Good night.