I know there have been about twenty bajillion different attempts to describe essence, most of them from people who have done essence for about a bajillion years themselves. (Like Jay. ) Though they know it very well, it can be hard for a newbie to understand all the terms and stuff...so I thought maybe I'd try (from a newbie's point of view who's only done two maps) to explain essence for the other new people.

(And moderators, if you think this is a dumb idea, feel free to remove the thread)

So what is essence? It's kind of like a nested list of feelings that you get upon thinking about your character. Essence is like the impressions you get about something upon hearing it's name or reading about it. And everyone's impression of each object's essence will be different. But mainly, essence is designed for helping you to communicate to other writers (who understand what essence is).

So, sounds good, but where this party gets complicated is actually writing the stuff.

SUBJECT
ASPECT
___{Qualifier
______[Characteristic
_________(metaphor)
______]
___}

So let's take this apart piece by piece and see what each thing means. Subject is really very easy, it's sort of the title of the essence map. For example, the subject could be the name of your character, or a specific city in a novel or something.

An aspect kind of narrows it down some more. Rather than just listing tons of metaphors that come to mind when one thinks about the character, an 'Aspect' narrows it down to some smaller categories (such as 'body', 'mind', 'soul', and 'spirit').

A qualifier kind of narrows down an aspect even more. For example, if your aspect was 'Mind', then your qualifier could be 'Strength'. So it narrows it down from you listing all the metaphor's about the characters mind to listing the metaphors about the strength of the character's mind.

Again, a characteristic narrows it down even further. For example, 'trust' could be a characteristic, and would then be a list of metaphors about the strength of the trust in the character's mind. Characteristics are usually the only section in which you directly list metaphors.

I like the way Jay (Sir Emeth) put it. Think of the subject as a big box. You can put smaller boxes inside the box, (these are the aspects) But then you've still got a ton of junk in each of these smaller boxes, so you put some smaller boxes in these (these are the qualifiers). And if those boxes still have tons of stuff, you put smaller boxes inside those (these are the characteristics). Finally, these smallest boxes are what you put all of your stuff in, and it's all sorted nicely.

Anyway's, here's an example part of an essence map. The important part to remember is that you can have as many aspects, qualifiers, characteristics and metaphors as you want! You're only limited to as many as your imagination comes up with:

GRIZZLY BEAR
BODY
___{Strength
______[Legs
_________(strong as an oak)
_________(powerful as a dinosaur's neck)
______]
______[Teeth
_________(hard as diamond)
_________(sharp as needles)
______]
___}
___{Cunning
______[Eyes
_________(quick as a fox)
_________(a glittering sunset)
______]
______[Ears
_________(sensitive as a hare's ears)
______]
___}

Notice how there are several qualifiers inside the aspect (Strength, Cunning), and several characteristics inside each qualifier (eyes, ears, teeth, legs). But it's only inside of characteristics that we list metaphors, such as (sensitive as a hare's ears)

So that's all essence is, it's kind of a cross between an outline and a list of metaphors, and it's just a standardized way for you to take apart your character that other writers can understand. If you have any specific questions, I'm probably not the person to ask, but I'll try my best to answer questions. And experienced essence people, if I'm totally off the mark with this topic, let me know as well. This is just the way in which I understand essence, and it might be wrong.

Looks like you came pretty close! I only saw two things that were incorrect: your syntax, and your emphasis on characters. You can do an essence map of anything, even things that don't exist. And here is how the syntax works:

Subject

Aspect {
 Class [
  Characteristic (
    <element>) ] }

Does that help?

Hey Sir Emeth,
Oh, so Aspects are in curly brackets, qualifiers in straight brackets, characteristics in parentheses, and metaphors in tags? Got it now, thanks! What about the underscores to keep things neat...are those all right? And is it all right if I close all the tags on different lines? It makes it longer, but easier for me to see where things close.

About the characters thing, I know essence can be done for more than just characters (Like the essence map on Macchu Picchu, or the essence maps for usernames) but I think for a newbie the thing that would be used the most would be character essence mapping. Though I would like to try an essence map of a country sometime, maybe one of the one's from my book.

eruheran

P.S. Yay! Does this mean I 'get' essence now? Or at least basic essence?

Yep! And the name of the attribute always precedes the opening bracket.

Those are perfectly fine. You can also use this bbcode to do an indent:

And yes, you can close them on their own lines. That is up to you and whatever is more readable. Just as long as you close them.

Ah yes that makes sense. I thought that was what it was.

Yep! Looks like it.

Jay, this post has given me an idea. Since most of our newbies seem to work most comfortably with WR's older syntax, maybe a renaming is in order.
Here's my proposition:
WR's Syntax = XBeginner
Current XBasic Syntax = XBasic
X++ = X++
As Ciela Rose touched on with my latest map, the two different systems of syntax are clearly not the same thing. So maybe we should acknowledge that and take some of the confusion out. I also think mama Raven would be tickled pink to find out that she unwittingly created the next version of ECSS.
Also, if we adopt the rename, either you or a Marcher Lord might consider creating separate subforums for all the different tutorials (i.e. - a subforum Beginner tutorials, a subforum for Basic tutorials, and a subforum for Advance tutorials) in order to keep things neat and tidy. Renaming the different tutorials would probably help streamline things as well. That's something I could work on, the other would require one of you fearless leaders

Yes, I believe that would be wise. I am sure White Raven would love to do the subforums (she wanted to do that before, but there wasn't enough need back then).

Could you sift through their essences and summarize the best practices into an Xbeginner primer? That seems to be more what it is: a compilation of what they are doing.

I can. It'd be easier to just retitled White Raven's post because I'll be relying heavily on her explanation anyways (since her wording is what the newbies seem to understand best). I'll also tweak my Essence Made Simple post so that it points out the differences from XBeginner.

Sounds brilliant!

Sounds cool! But could you clarify...what exactly is the difference between XBeginner and XBasic? Just syntax?

eruheran

Yep, that is it.

The reason is because in ECSS++ we use tons of words and definitions, and for any of it to make sense, we need to be judicious about the terms that we pick for different things. ECSSbasic uses the same terms as ECSS++ for when they are talking about the same thing.

The goal is to make an efficient system that works. Anyone can learn the right terms, the ones that make the most sense. And because ECSS++ is coming up, we want to have the right terms already familiar.

Mama Raven, terms aren't the only difference. I've come up with at least 3 off the top of my head and may find more upon closer examination.
Main differences that I can see thus far:

1. Place holders - XBeginner users generally use "..." as place holders, XBasic does not have standardized place holders thus far (we just indent). I suspect that as our beginners progress into XBasic, they may very well bring their "..." with them. But for now that is probably one of the most noticeable differences.
2. Terms - are actually fairly similar.
   XBeginner:    XBasic:
   Aspect      Aspect
   Qualifier     Class
   Characteristic  Characteristic
   Metaphor    Element
   And they affect discussion more than they do function.
3. Syntax - the main difference here is what I call XBasic's "Free for all" feature that allows any equal or lower level to go under any equal or higher level.

See, it's not just terms

Thanks for the clarification Seer, that does help.

Thanks, eruheran! This really helped clear things up. I was pretty confused about it until you steered me over here. Thanks again!

Ok, I'm stuck with Elanhil's essence. I'm trying to communicate that he is very weak minded, or very emotional...It would be under the aspect {Mind, but the qualifier I'm stuck with. The characteristic would be (strength, should the qualifier be control?? I'm stuck!!

(Oh, I think there should be a forum where people can ask for help with essence maps and ask questions in general. I sort of randomly chose this thread, because it explains essence to beginning users)

You can just start a thread in the 'essence maps' forum to ask questions about specific maps you need help with. But this is fine.

You don't have to have a qualifier if you don't want to.