Take a job whose whole work is the list. In January 2000 Lucasfilm hired one person, Leland Chee, to build a database of every fact in Star Wars. By 2012 it held over 55,000 entries, including more than 19,000 characters. His job was to keep it and check new stories against it.
A new draft→The keeper checks the list→A broken promise is found→Fixed before release
This course calls that job the keeper: the person who holds the written record of what is true so far. A keeper holds the list, reads each draft against it, and says when a draft breaks a promise. After Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012 a new team, the Story Group, took over, and the keeper joined it.
A careful writerremembers what they can
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A keeperholds the whole list
What does a keeper do that a careful writer does not?
Holds the whole list, not just what one head remembers, and reads every draft against it.
Right. Lesson 4's arithmetic again: past a few hundred facts no head holds the pairs. A keeper is the list made into a job, so the checking is done by the list and not by luck.
Decides what readers will like.
Not yet. That is the owner's and the writers' call. The keeper's question is narrower: does this draft agree with what has already been shown?
Writes better stories.
Not yet. A keeper does not write the story; a keeper checks it. The best writer in the world still cannot remember 55,000 entries.
Mariosince 1981
↓→
A troupe of actorsdifferent roles each game
There is another way out, and it is the opposite: have no list. Mario has appeared in games since 1981 and Nintendo has never published a timeline for him. Shigeru Miyamoto has described the cast as a troupe of actors who take different roles in different games. No promises, so no tangle. And no long story, either.
Each card is a franchise. Does it keep a list, or does it refuse to have one?
One card at a time. Tap the pile it belongs to.
Card 1 of 4
Star Wars: a database since 2000 and a team that reads every draft
Mario: the cast described by its maker as actors playing parts
Zelda: an official timeline Nintendo published in 2011 and still updates
A yearly sports game where last year's results are simply replaced
Star Wars: a database since 2000 and a team that reads every draft → Keeps a list
Not yet. Keeps a list, with a keeper. Every new film, show and book is checked against the Holocron before it ships.
Mario: the cast described by its maker as actors playing parts → No list
Not yet. No list. If the characters are actors, no game is a promise to the next, and nothing has to agree with anything.
Zelda: an official timeline Nintendo published in 2011 and still updates → Keeps a list
Not yet. Keeps a list. The chart is the list made public, and every new game is placed on it, even if the placing takes years.
A yearly sports game where last year's results are simply replaced → No list
Not yet. No list. Each year's game stands alone and nothing carries over, so there is no story to keep straight.
2Keeps a list
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2No list
Right. Two keep a list, two refuse one. Both work. A franchise that wants a long story needs a list. One that does not can do without.
A keeper1 what readers lose, made up
A branch2 what readers lose, made up
A retcon5 what readers lose, made up
A shelf20 what readers lose, made up
A reboot30 what readers lose, made up
What a keeper costs: a salary, a slower draft, and the word no, said to writers who had a better scene. What a keeper saves: the retcon, the reboot and the shelf, which cost readers' trust, and the branch, which costs them a map. A keeper is cheap next to any of the four, and invisible when it works.
Picture a series at part ten with 600 promises. Move what the owner put in place and watch how many promises part ten breaks. Made up to show the shape.
Promises broken30 of 600, made up
Promises kept570 of 600, made up
What the owner put in place: Nothing written down
Nothing written down: thirty broken. Each writer keeps what they remember.
Promises broken15 of 600, made up
Promises kept585 of 600, made up
What the owner put in place: A written list
A written list: fifteen. The list exists; nobody is paid to read drafts against it.
Promises broken5 of 600, made up
Promises kept595 of 600, made up
What the owner put in place: A list and a keeper who reads drafts
A list and a keeper who reads drafts: five. The keeper catches what the writers missed.
Promises broken1 of 600, made up
Promises kept599 of 600, made up
What the owner put in place: A keeper who can say no
A keeper who can say no: one. A caught promise is fixed, not argued over.
Why is a list on its own only half the fix?
Because lists are always out of date.
Not yet. A list can be kept current, and this one is. The frame with a list and no keeper still breaks fifteen, because nobody is reading drafts against it.
Because nobody is paid to check drafts against it, so it is checked only when somebody remembers. Forgetting was the problem.
Right. The list halved the breaks; the keeper cut them again. A list is memory on paper. A keeper is the act of checking, made into a job.
Because writers ignore lists on purpose.
Not yet. Nothing in the frames needs bad faith. A writer with a 600-entry list and a deadline checks the entries they think of, which is the same gap as no list, only narrower.
Move the control.
The keepercan say no to a draft
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The salethe keeper cannot refuse
A keeper has one limit. A keeper can say no to a writer. A keeper cannot say no to the sale. When an owner wants a dead villain back on the poster, the keeper does not stop it; the keeper's job becomes writing down how he returned, so that at least the new promise is kept.
The keepersread every draft
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The ownerwanted the villain
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No explanation
A franchise has a full written list, kept current, and a team that reads every draft against it. A new film still brings a dead villain back with no explanation. What most likely happened?
The owner wanted the villain and the keepers were not asked whether, only how. The sale outranks the list.
Right. A keeper is a check on writers, not on owners. The one promise a keeper cannot protect is the one the owner has decided to break for the poster.
The keepers missed it.
Not yet. A dead villain on the poster is not a detail that slips past a team reading for exactly that. It was seen; it was not theirs to stop.
The list was out of date.
Not yet. The villain's death is one of the best-known facts on any list. The list knew; the decision came from above the list.
Lesson complete
A keeper holds the list and checks each draft against it. The other way out is no list.