I'd like to think that part of it is because I can write. Maybe I'm full of shit on that. If so, the market will tell me. There's another, deeper meaning to this trial for me.
Anyone who knows me - who really knows me - knows that Lean Thinking
is really important to me. Some have even called it my religion. The core principal in lean thinking, as far as I interpret it, is value. Understanding what value is to your customer is absolutely critical to the success of a product.A tool we use to zero in on value is market feedback and that's the first place that the structure of Sleight of Mind
series and lean thinking tie together: by releasing part of the story and getting feedback, I'll have a chance to improve the product before I release subsequent portions.Shaping the product this way also ties in with the flow and pull principles as well. I'm sure a particular friend will tell me that, if I think about it long enough, I'll be able to stretch the value stream and perfection principles over this idea as well.
That doesn't mean I'm a total douche bag - although it doesn't mean I am not either. I don't intend to let the market tell me how the story should go, who should live or die, who should win or lose, or which characters should change their nature. I'm already pretty confident in my abilities to make those decisions on my own.
What I do want to learn from the market is the weight it places on the following things:
- Descriptions of people
- Descriptions of scenery
- Unveiling of motivations
- Connecting the plot dots for you
- Making you connect the dots on your own
- Etc.
This is an experiment. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. It only costs my time for me to find out at this point.
