Creative Direction

Purpose and ownership

Keep the project recognizably itself across works and media.

Audience promise, emotional experience, themes, prioritized pillars, trade-off filters, scope and exclusions. Named protagonists and plot beats are Content.

Questions

What should readers or players experience? What makes this project distinctive? Which attractive ideas do not belong? Which pillar wins when priorities conflict?

Inputs and outputs

Inputs: Creator intent, audience, accessibility and production constraints, references, observations.

Outputs: A compact audience promise, choice filters, emotional range, priorities and non-goals.

Prerequisites

No other Core prerequisite. Evidence from any medium can challenge the direction.

Stability and evolution

Keep stable: Identity-defining promise, priorities and exclusions relied on by other domains.

Can evolve: Wording, examples and delivery methods within the promise. A changed priority requires impact review.

Reusable rules

Phrase pillars as decision filters, not flattering adjectives. Separate desired experience from a particular UI, plot or mechanic. Record a meaningful exclusion and difficult trade-off.

Acceptance test

Can competing content pitches be judged without turning either pitch into the shared rule?