r/WritingPrompts • u/katpoker666 Moderator • 4d ago
Off Topic [OT] SatChat: How do you achieve internal consistency when writing? (New here? Introduce yourself!)
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Suggested Topic
How do you achieve internal consistency when writing?
How important is internal consistency?
Do you actively work to achieve it?
Do you use tools (e.g., spreadsheet, documents, or Scrivener) or just try to keep a general awareness of it in your head?
Are there some genres where it’s more important than others?
Does lack of internal consistency bother you when reading others’ works? If so, what are some examples of offenders or ones who do it well?
Or maybe you don’t care about internal consistency. Tell us what that’s like and why. We'd love to hear!
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u/Helicopterdrifter /r/jtwrites 4d ago
I imagine that I'm over thinking this, but what do you mean by "internal consistency?"
The first thing that came to mind was world building. You could also be referring to the language of the narrative. Plot. Character. Or likely many other aspects.
Could you elaborate or use alternate terminology?
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u/mysteryrouge 4d ago
Internal consistency is more like not contradicting yourself in your writing. Keeping things consistent between one scene and another in they're set in the same story or timeline.
Take a scene of writing a first date and a second one. Internal consistency would have the second date not contradicting that first. If you describe the MC's eye color as green in that first scene, they stay green that second scene.
Or if you say souls work one way, that's how they work for the entire story.
Even if you decide that hacking is as inaccurate as it can be to real life, keeping it the same amount of inaccurate would make it consistent.
This is really a worldbuilding and timeline thing.
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u/Helicopterdrifter /r/jtwrites 4d ago
Color me old fashion, but that sounds like plain old consistency. That extra "Internal" made it sound like a proper noun. lol
Thank you for elaborating!
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u/FeigningProfundity 1d ago
The distinction between consistency and internal consistency is when the details are considered with respect to each other.
Say our story has a tundra people called the Korothi. We repeatedly visit the Korothi, and each time they're described as wearing furs and serving a hearty vegan stew.
If those details are always the same, they're consistent. But they are not internally consistent - it feels very odd that a people who we always see only eating vegan meals would wear animal skins. If they're regularly skinning animals, why not eat the meat? If they do not believe in eating meat, how do they rationalise the fur?
By adding a third detail, we can bring the details back into alignment - if the local animals are poisonous, the Korothi cannot safely eat them, but that doesn't stop them wearing the fur.
Readers will often appreciate when a detail like this appears and solves a mystery, but you might be busy telling your story, in which case it would be easier to merely say that the Korothi serve a hearty stew.
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u/katpoker666 Moderator 3d ago
Hey Heli. Thanks for asking. Scythe’s explanation is spot on, so I won’t elaborate further on that. Given you’ve done a good bit of long form, I’d love to hear how you handle it
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u/ZLErikson 4d ago
I achieve internal consistency while writing the same way I do when I'm not writing; plenty of fiber. I take metamucil 3x per day, and try to have something fibrous for breakfast (like oatmeal with flax) or lunch (can of beans) every day.
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u/katpoker666 Moderator 3d ago
Damn it, ZL! You made me laugh way too hard at that. So now you owe me a proper response as you write a lot of detailed long form. Think that’s fair
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u/Jay_Pederson r/JayPederson 3d ago
I edit as I go, mainly when I can't think of what happens next. I reread a bit and make some edits if writer's block is annoying.
I also have something called the 'GRAND CONTINUITY DOCUMENT' wherein I note everything major or minor that is a plot point or world building piece or anything that will come up later. While it is mostly for the story itself, a lot of my longer stories take place in a shared universe, so it will be noted.
For example, my first book in the series, '(just need to write the ending DAMMIT (and edit sh...))' originally had a scene where a character teleports. However, in Star Wars Episodes I-III, vs IV-VI, technology actually progresses, Clone-Wars era ships like the A-Wing need a separate ring device in order to use FTL. In IV-VI, X-Wings have FTL built-in and don't need a separate device (Tie Fighters don't but they mention they're designed to scout). So the scene was rewritten to remove the teleportation. Most FTL ships are incredibly rare, with major ships creating FTL for the smaller ships.
In the next story, FTL ships are more common, new technology appears allowing for small and smaller FTL drives. One of the main rifles, the M5A2, is replaced by the M5A3 which uses a smaller cartridge. Combat in early space is on empty, barren worlds with large environments using long-range rifles. As worlds become more developed, Frontier Rifles are being replaced by Battle and Assault rifles once more, no longer exclusively for special operations forces.
I use Scrivener for longer stuff but I have started just going back to Google Docs since
I'll be honest it's mainly because Docs is cloud-based, I started posting stuff on my subreddit and being able to just log back in is really nice. It's also because I decided to stop trying to write 200+ pages and shoot for 100 so Scrivener, while something I do use for my bigger stuff, is too big compared to Docs.
> Are there some genres where it’s more important than others?
Yesn't. The obvious Sci-Fi and Fantasy having more worldbuilding to deal with. I'd say less 'more important' and more 'more stuff to keep consistent'. Making a James Bond story, the background narrative of a war between say Hungary and Romania (I started a book like this), people are probably more interested in Bond, and the war isn't very important. If it's a multi-character thriller featuring Romanian and Hungarian agents alongside a surprise appearance from a later Russian character who wanted to invade Romania (kind of a thing in the story--Scott Chadmen 2014-2014-later this year when I resurrect his ass he was a good character), it's the same genre, but suddenly the world building is likely far more important. If it's bad in the former, at best some video essay about how it makes no sense will come out years later. If the central narrative is about this war and its filled with inconsistency that isn't even misdirection because it's a spy novel, but just some stupid shit like Hungary invaded Romania because they wanted a beach resort but it's otherwise 100% serious, that will drag down good characters. I feel like this is an attack towards something I read but I do not remember what.
An exception I'd argue when done right is Children's books. When done right, the author can kinda make OP magic that will do anything and instead of thinking "Why not x" the reader will think "THAT"S SO COOL I WANNA DO THAT". Writing for children is less about critical and deep plots--I remember being a kid--I thought Surf's Up was fucking boring because I didn't understand the fact it was a mockumentary.
I also thought Total Drama was an actual reality show they just animated for some reason because they said it was I was top of the class and I was still stupid children are fucking stupid source: I was one I will hear no counterarguments.
Anyways I think children's books can be forgiven with inconsistency with 'rule of cool' easier. Rule of Cool for adults can lead to "hey! What the fuck!? Why that?" Source...yeah Star Wars again I feel like 8-9 really tried to do Rule of Cool without thinking through the implications for the greater story (Force healing, Leia dying but then surviving for some reason (that one really pissed me off (like what the fuck just kill her or don't even do that or just say she's sick if you don't want her in the movie so glad she could reprise her role jsut to be asleep the entire movie) Luke using a fake to trick Kylo Ren, save the rebellion, survive just to fucking die anyways guess he forced too hard) but as a CHILD, rule of cool is what I wanted. I just wanted explosions. I wanted big cool explosions. A children's book that's not the best written but has a badass hero who's power is that his fists cause explosions is probably quite forgivable. It's part of why, as an adult, I read Wings of Fire and thoroughly enjoyed it. I approached as a children's book featuring dragons, loved it and, maybe it's the kid in me who refused to play as a Spartan and only played as an Elite but
man I really do not care about the Humans in that book. Can they fly? Breathe fire/ice? Claws? Immense strength and eat an entire cow? Create a dystopian society? No, No, No, No, and...yes actually Dragonslayer shows a pretty bleak Human society which I will admit I warmed up to halfway through since Sky is fun. I wrote a bit of fanfiction with a character, Comet who is an animus. Animus dragons are um--
fucking overpowered, they can say a thing, and it happens (as in if an animus said 'I want to kill literally all life on this planet' yeah that could happen--a lot of time is spent justifying why they can't just do it in the 2nd arc). To an amazing degree. And god do I love writing with it. Wings of Fire as I have seen does have inconsistencies but they don't both me personally, I think the book does a good job letting the reader think about the world and how cool stuff is if that makes sense.
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u/katpoker666 Moderator 3d ago
Thanks for the detailed reply, Jay! The most interesting point for me was your decision to use GDocs more as it’s cloud based and also bc you’re writing shorter pieces (100 vs 200) so Scrivener is less of a strong fit. It makes a lot of sense.
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u/Jay_Pederson r/JayPederson 3d ago edited 3d ago
I am probably going to eventually start using Obsidian or Wikidot (probably latter--same reason) for the universe stuff, and Scrivener when I eventually return to the larger books. Dante (teleport example story) is ~300 and still needs to be edited, but I will probably use Scrivener in the editing process. Just gotta...
...editing isn't even bad I actually find it fun for some reason I just haven't found the ability to sit down and do it.
EDIT: and I add comments on sections I think need refining just did that now. I was writing the part two when I get my reddit notification and decided I probably needed to get back to writing (I did finish the chapter before I wrote that so I consider it a win in fairness)
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u/Jay_Pederson r/JayPederson 3d ago edited 3d ago
PART 2: I got up after writing this an my brain made some good points and I'm still mad at it for this.
I started writing a book 'Father From Home' (inspired by a prompt fun fact) about how Earth is dying and a crew with FTL is looking for a new planet. So, I ended up doing a lot of research on real exoplanets, star systems etc. so I could describe to the reader crazy planets. As an example, the first planet has an incredibly thick atmosphere with large amounts of methane and water vapor. However, they scan and find the surface is 54% liquid water. And still, it is 323 degrees Fahrenheit (like 150C? no one is living here all you need to know is 'way too fucking hot' and above 212F/100C). This is actually possible. (as a sidenote I think I did use Celsius in the book but I just remember it as 323F then calculate it back over every. Single. Time.)
Strangely enough, the only thing keeping water from evaporating on Earth is basically the atmosphere's pressure. This can be seen in a vacuum, where water will immediately evaporate, or Mars, where water will go from its solid state, and sublimate directly to vapor when hot enough. And I do a lot of research. It's fun but exhausting.
Because this book is not geared for adults, but kids. I want a science adventure for kids who love space stuff and want to imagine and see what those worlds could be like. So, if I made an incorrect world that is impossible, I'd be feeding bad information.
The main thing in Wings of Fire that's contradictory is Peril's fire scales; they can melt metal but not things that should logically be melted. It's fine. It's logically not, but I think it's a fun trait and honestly I just let it slide. The main genre consistency is important is likely Mystery--have the clues build up so that way it's satisfying.
The last thing is inconsistency can be intentionally used to improve a narrative, but it has to be done well. Best example is Ghetsis from Pokemon Black/White where he talks about wanting peace for Pokemon but the cracks gradually grow, and you can see inside he's just a pure evil monster. Even in the early parts, Ghetsis keeps slipping what he says where he says Team Plasma I MEAN ALL OF US will live in a better future.
Sidenote: I love pure evil villains. I generally don't like sympathetic villains. I find the latter tends to make me think, especially if they're kind of...right? And the story never acknowledge it. The Batman comics I later learned (I have never read I will note) did actually address this; Batman took former henchmen the Joker had and rehabilitated them, giving them jobs. Batman 2022 having the Riddler make great points, expose corruption, everyone is on his side...then just flood the city (I do delivery, I just want it known that generally, the lower the elevation, the poorer it gets) feels like the writers admitting they have no clue how to actually resolve it so they just make him do a universal fucked thing so that way you can't root for him anymore. I think there's a lot of fun in the former; having an evil guy be evil to be evil, though it does require the writer to execute more on the characterization, such as solid presence and intimidation (Darth Vader).
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u/mysteryrouge 4d ago
For me, internal consistency is interesting.
In my multiverse, you'll find a lot of my decisions to be contradictory in general. Souls work one way in one universe, and a different way in another. Yet someone from universe one can mess with souls in their own way while in that second universe.
It's very confusing, people have pointed out the contradiction in things such as souls, minds, and identities.
So, overall, I suppose the worlds themselves aren't consistent. Part of the Multiverse's "anything can happen" vibe is that's how it's supposed to be.
I prefer to keep my consistency in my character's timelines and in more individual worlds. Blood Magic in one world will always work the same way for the residents of that world unless some outside context problem (such as M or a collective of multiverse conquering health inspectors interfere).
I think consistency is far more important in realistic works and those with hard magic/sci-fi systems, which I don't use.
And I suppose, consistency only becomes a problem in other people's stuff when I notice it.
Last, I'm working on notes sheets to keep better consistency (in obsidian, Google docs, and sometimes spreadsheets), but, eh it's a lot. It's mostly for minor non-oneshot characters since I can usually keep the big characters and events straight in my head (though there's still a lot of big characters).
There's also the fact I pants half my worldbuilding. (Yes even during campfires, Orizuru weather war crimes were completely created for said campfire, then implemented into the rest of that series)
Anyways, I made a second ftf for last week as a PI post.
And, my spreadsheet for my prompts, which is more of an archive than something I actively use to reference, especially for my big series.
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u/katpoker666 Moderator 3d ago
Thanks for replying, Scythe! And also for defining for Heli. I think that’s an interesting point re your multiverse having inconsistencies. I like the concept of that’s how it’s supposed to be given it’s such a big undertaking.
Also interesting was your keeping track of minor characters in notes sheets vs the biggies. Imagine that does make life easier. Do you ever find you forget details like appearance though or backstories for the big characters? Or does that stay more in your head?
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u/mysteryrouge 3d ago
Appearance for big characters does get away from me a lot since appearance is less important to me than role, though admittedly, I don't tend to mention character appearance as much, since in general, I'm bad at descriptions.
(You can't contradict what isn't there, lol)
It's still why I want to make big sheets for the main cast, but, eh... I'm a bit lazy on that front.
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u/Tomorrow_Is_Today1 /r/TomorrowIsTodayWrites 4d ago
Honestly as a system I have no idea how we manage to write stories in a consistent style. We do a lot of rereading, or write a lot in short bursts. I think we're very aware of the stylistic guidelines each of our stories have, though some are plainer and easier to describe and others are more broad. Like, for some examples:
We have a WIP tentatively titled Leaf in the Purple Winds, which is a novel written entirely in poetic form with an unusual structure. We use no periods, no quotation marks (dialogue is set off by three spaces), minimal punctuation, and generally keep line length very short. It is not rhyming poetry. The story is continuous, so every time a day passes we must state the new day (ex: friday; we specify days of the week, but not of the month or year, though we can state what month or time of year it is) and follow that day (in varying levels of detail; not every single banal thing) to its end. We initially also had a rule to never use character names, but that eventually shifted, so names are being slowly introduced in lowercase. The main character is to be referred to with she/her unless otherwise specified.
The structure of that story is very particular and intentionally disorienting. If/when we forget a detail, we can find out by rereading and imitating the structure and style as we continue to write. This is also helpful in remembering character relationships and themes.
We picked that example cause the rules are weird, but stylistic guidelines exist for other stories, as well. Our Serial Sunday over on r/shortstories called Drifting has shifted in style over the course of the writing. It's been in present tense third person limited following a rotating cast of six POVs throughout, but the narrative distance has over time gotten much closer to the POV characters' heads and doesn't zoom out anymore. The narration reflects the characters' thoughts, with sentence length/structure often playing a purpose (ex: increasingly long sentences can reflect panic; a series of short fragments can reflect when a character is in pain and can't really think). It's realistic fiction slice-of-life, and much less time-specific than Leaf in the Purple Winds; the characters can be on slightly different timelines, and details like the day of the week are often excluded, with the exception of when character timelines intersect, in which case they must be chronological.
We often reread chapters to catch up on where a particular POV character is at and to catch details that will be relevant to the narration. Sometimes we miss details because we have no idea where to find them, like what color Caleb's sunglasses are for the visual description. Since we've been writing this over the course of three years so far with multiple hiatuses, we've also reread the serial in its entirety a couple of times.
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u/katpoker666 Moderator 3d ago
Thanks for replying, Toms! Fascinating take. I can imagine it’s much more difficult as a system. One thing that surprised me was your mention of stylistic guidelines as I hadn’t thought of it in terms of the stylized way you write in some cases. More POV and the like. So i really appreciate you bringing that up. Out of curiosity, when do you set up your stylistic guidelines relative to world, plot, and character building?
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u/DoorMouseHouse 3d ago
Hey I’m definitely new if I’m considering my “writer self” I’ve decided I want to be a writer since my head has been full of stories since I was a kid. Realizing I’m the only one that can make them come true but as a dyslexic non reader I find it tough to really get a full story finished or even the idea of a script out.
I’ve learned the concept of a writer vault. So I have them hovering in my void of stories that need to be. Not sure where I’m going with this just know that I love Writing prompts and always have. It’s one of the first places I learned I can go off on a story and just get lost in the writing.
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u/katpoker666 Moderator 3d ago
Hey DoorMouseHouse, great to hear from you and really glad you’re enjoying Writing Prompts! Wishing you good words!
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u/Jay_Pederson r/JayPederson 1d ago
This was originally going to be a reply, but it's not how I do things, and it's small little write-up for how some TV shows do things so I decided to make it its own comment.
Small sidenote but Parks and Rec took inspiration from the Simpsons and Spongebob (I don't think the latter but I know this is a thing they did) wherein they had a larger cast of recurring characters outside the main characters to make the town feel like a town.
Parks and Rec off the top of my head has Jeremy Jam, Jean Ralphio, the news characters, some Eagleton residents reappear, the guy who shouts 'you suck' at volleyball later getting pissed that Leslie is oppressing Ben, Paunch Burger has some recurring characters, Dante (can't remember what he renamed himself), Tammy 1/2, etc.
Simpsons I am less familiar but Principal Skinner, Dr Nick, Apu, Chief Wiggum, Mr Burns and his sidekick, Ned Flanders, Comic Book guy, Grandpa, the kids at Bart's school like I'm in Danger and Millhouse, you get the point, all show back up.
Spongebob is a show I do not watch (his laugh irritates me even as a kid I refused. Last time I tried my internet went out so I took that as a sign) but there is a massive documentation on all incidentals, background characters https://spongebob.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_incidental_characters . And they have pages, you can click on them and see all the episodes they were in.
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u/FeigningProfundity 1d ago edited 1d ago
I will explain my perspective by ranting like I know what I'm talking about. This is in no way the only approach to this, but it is broadly what mine is.
I value internal consistency (IC) in my worlds and stories very highly.
But that is more because it supports some of the things I like about writing than because it is important. In a lot of cases, you just need to broadly maintain coherency - Geoff's name should stay Geoff and not sometimes be Greg or Jeff, and his hotheaded personality should mean he's impulsive and prone to outburst. In many stories, readers will not notice or worry about subtle implications of one fact on another, they'll just read the story and enjoy the stuff it says and the core subtext of that.
Something I appreciate though, is that writing can conjure worlds and characters quite unlike our own, and the strength of that illusion is largely rooted in the details of the story and internal consistency amongst supporting elements, like worldbuilding.
There are two primary tools for preserve IC, planning¬es and research&reality.
For a short story, notes aren't all that necessary, the story itself is the note, even if it is your second 800 word story about the same characters or world. Once I write something that will be a few thousand words, I'll create a separate note document listing character names and any details that might come up again, like locations or descriptions. Should a project threaten to be tens of thousand of words, like a full novel or series, it will get a folder of files where the notes are broken down by topics - perhaps one for character names, another for how magic works, another for locations and geography. The longer the work the more of these files start to appear, like separate write-ups for major characters and multiple types of culture document (religion, politics, linguistics, etc).
The more notes I need, the more I'll have to frontload the work of writing them; so I don't create something in the middle of one part that I needed to know earlier. The correct notes can be invaluable in finding challenges and details as you write - if our characters go somewhere and have a meal with an important figure to get aid to continue their story, we can simply look up what food they'll eat and who will be interested in that meeting and perhaps move to stop it. This is dangerous territory, however, as one can write hundreds of thousands of words and never even begin to tell the story, or discover that the notes don't cover the situations and details that the story ends up being about. You don't need to know the political struggles between the crafting guilds if the entire story is your protagonist lost in the forest trying to break the curse that turned them into a troll.
Reality itself is consistent, conveniently, so if you don't want to make stuff up, you can look it up - research will solve all these issues. Of course you'll end up with notes from your research, and even a fantastic story filled with original elements can often end up with a great deal of research supporting the decisions made, your scene where a magic sword is forged might be more interesting if you've seen a blacksmith forge a sword, so you have details to include in it.
The big consequence of not doing this work, and this work is not always worth doing, is not that the writing becomes inconsistent, but that it becomes generic. Without knowing how a character or a world solves some problem, or the problems they even face, the writer is forced to just answer on the fly, and they'll inevitably choose something that is just the modern, common knowledge version of a solution, either closest to how we do things, or a solution that trivialises the problem. So pseudo-medieval characters will carry magic devices that act as phones so the author doesn't need to track how they communicate and who knows what, or characters teleport around so the author doesn't need to worry about where everyone is, how far those places are from each other and how fast they can move. These elements are fine, but they're also common, so stories that use them struggle to distinguish themselves.
IC is the thing that lets your details have consequences. If you establish that there is no way to teleport or easily communicate over distance, your characters need to send messengers, who can be intercepted, or delayed or turn traitor. Your characters not only face challenges that reflect the specific situation of the story, but the reader can anticipate those challenges, which makes the fiction feel more immersive and real.
You can use this in the opposite way - if teleportation is cheap and easy, IC lets it transform society, and the reader gets to see you explore how things work without a problem we face in real life, changing the context in which your characters solve problems, and the problems themselves. If our heroes can easily escape from danger, that solves many problems, but if the villain can too, then a whole new challenge arrives - even if you can prove who the killer is, how do you catch them? Does everyone now live under permanent threat of ambush? And so on and so forth.
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u/katpoker666 Moderator 1d ago
Thanks so much for the comprehensive reply, Feigning! I love your practical points about front loading your work and leveraging reality where needed. My favorite points though are around using IC to keep your writing from being generic and also making it possible for details to have consequences
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u/Helicopterdrifter /r/jtwrites 3d ago
“If we look at the world, we see arts for sale. Men use equipment to sell their own selves. As if with the nut and the flower, the nut has become less than the flower.” —Miyamoto Musashi
After reading Scythe’s take on “internal consistency,” I had to take a breath; I needed to tease apart my own understanding in order to see the clockwork within… The method to the madness, if you will. And I think such self examinations are one of the very few universal constants that all writers must undertake in order to improve their work.
The short answer is, yes, consistency is important to me.
The very first story that I aimed to write was the same one that is presently furthest from completion—Duality. It’s the entire reason I started writing to begin with. I needed to tell that story. And the title alone speaks volumes of what storytelling shapes my stories assume. Because when I hear ‘consistency,’ I think “parallel.” Synonym. And a “synonym” itself is its own parallel.
Do you know what else runs in parallels? The framework of a house. And ultimately, that’s what storytelling is. We writers are architects. We design places for others to inhabit. Those “others” don’t care about the lumber grade comprising our wall studs. They don’t care about the relationship between the air compressor and the air handler. And they certainly don’t care about how many more thousands of individual floor tiles that we procured, which we ultimately left out of the floor plan. All the others want is to move in, to get comfortable, and to not worry about things breaking.
A similar framework emerges within the opening of Miyamoto Musashi’s A Book of Five Rings. He outlines the book with an association to house construction. The foreman/architect lays out all of the plans, chooses the material, the work force, and the many things focusing on the finished product when the project has yet to even break ground.
Below the architect, he introduces the carpenter—a skilled craftsman, who ensures that the architect’s vision takes shape. And while Musahi didn’t denote another level, I think our societal progression can now include laymen—those who handle unskilled tasks to offset the carpenter’s work load. Just as Musahi illustrated how a carpenter could advance to an architect, he must first be a laymen.
Now, I’ve never considered myself a “writer.” According to Webster, that’s defined as “one who writes.” And I’ve always had a problem with definitions that utilized its root within its own definition. So, for me, “writer” was never a shoe that fit. But “storyteller” doesn’t really do it for me either. No, for me, I think “architect” is closer to the mark. At least, that’s something that a lowly layman, such as myself, can work towards.
When I read Musahi’s book for the 2nd or 4th time, I had something of an advantage. Previously, I had taken an interest in learning Japanese. While I didn’t learn the language, I became familiar enough to know that the same statements can have different levels of formality.
For example, “Thank you” can be written as such:
“Arigatou gozaimasu.” This is more formal and would be used with people you don’t know.
“Arigatou” or “domo.” This is more casual and would only be used with close friends or family.
Each time that I’ve subsequently read A Book of Five rings, I’ve kept this language in mind. Whenever certain words were used like “the way,” “strategy,” “spirit,” I mentally tied in synonyms.
‘The way’ became “the path.”
‘Strategy’ became “discipline.”
‘Spirit’ became “focus/attention.”
This pulls on another thread, another advantage. You see, language translations aren’t one to one. There is nuance. Formality. Context. Even gender, such as the case within Spanish. This is something that Shakespeare hinted at, and yet it went so far over my head as to leave my hair unruffled. And it wasn’t for anther 2+ decades before I circled back and understood what the following line meant:
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
All of this language speak is akin to an architect shopping for bricks. And as I said, the would-be homeowner doesn’t really care about that. The bricks can be whatever. They aren’t the framework. They’re the facing. The curb appeal. They’re what invites a reader inside.
Consistency is the frame. It has to be. Time changes. Language changes. People change. But as the world moves on outside of the story, what is within must continue standing on its own. Perhaps a new owner decides to remodel. They tear out the floors, replace the insulation, the shingles, even the brick. But you know what they can’t change? The frame. They can’t change the bones. And those bones are the parallel uprights that make a story what it is.
Do I actively work to achieve consistency? Well, it’s the carpenter’s job to make sure that the cuts are even, that the joints meet as they should, and that the overall shape echo’s the plan’s design. The carpenter’s concern is that of parallels. Of consistency. But the carpenter still has room to grow in order to become an architect.
So, yes, I strive to become an architect.
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u/katpoker666 Moderator 3d ago
Beautifully answered, Heli! I love the imagery here both with the Book of Five Rings as a base and also your carpenter aspiring to be an architect. I think you’ll get there as you’re very dedicated. Good words!
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