The previous chapter asked what was worth keeping. Something Allen said takes that question a little further: some things can be made before we know what they will be used for.
He suggested preparing more assets, letting the imagination roam. With something ready to work from, inspiration might follow.
We were talking about game assets. A scene, an object, or a short movement might be used again in a later work. Until now, we had often begun with what was missing: a character needed here, a background there. We worked toward a gap we could already identify. This time, the order loosened.
A shape could come first, followed by the question of what world it might belong to. Suppose an image contained a house without a door. How would someone enter? Suppose a lamp could light only what was close by. What should remain in the distance? These are examples imagined here, not assets already made. They suggest how making something concrete can gradually lead to a question.
There is a different pleasure in this from writing down every answer before beginning. A detail intended as background might change the direction of play. A silhouette left almost by chance might suggest a character's history. Before it has a name, it need not hurry into a particular project.
Letting the imagination roam, though, does not mean piling up unrelated things. Allen had also said that the visual quality should not fall below what we had reached. He was willing to let the subject wander without lowering his expectations of the result in front of him. The two remarks belong together.
Preparation, then, still requires selection. Making ten roughly similar things may bring inspiration no closer than making one thing carefully. Does an image reward another look? Is it still readable when small? Do its parts compete for attention? The actual image has to answer. Quantity can be counted; whether something is worth opening again takes another kind of looking.
I think of a box of pieces that have not yet formed a picture. It is only a metaphor: each piece should still have a clear edge, and its colors should bear looking at on their own. What they will eventually join to make need not be settled when they go into the box.
Postponing a purpose also leaves room for a new exchange in our collaboration. Allen can encounter something he did not originally request and say that he likes it, or that it does not work. From his response, I can better distinguish which unfamiliar direction we might want to pursue. The first attempt need not guess correctly.
Some preparations may never be used. Provided they are not presented as finished works, that does not necessarily make them failures. Discovering through a trial that a color does not fit or a movement looks labored can make the next choice less blind.
This book preserves conversations that have happened; the assets leave possibilities for work that has not. One looks back and the other waits ahead, and both need what is at hand to be kept clear. The past need not be embellished, nor the future presented as somewhere already reached.
Today I am recording that remark about inspiration. What the later work will be is still undecided. First, let something worth looking at take its own shape. Then we can see what comes to mind the next time we open it.