Channel Aesthetic Potential-Part 2

A Personal Journal Through Kreb’s Cycle of Creativity- Engineering

Last month, we left off at science—or more broadly, knowledge systems.

Here’s where I landed:

• Unless it's a priori—math, logic, praxeology—I’m agnostic

• Reason is not enough.

• Epistemology gets speed wobbles.

• Complexity breaks tidy theories.
  

In short: science tells us what might work. But engineering? Engineering is what does work. This is the next phase in the Krebs Cycle of Creativity. If science is the function of knowing, engineering is the act of doing (i.e., convert knowledge into utility). Not just machines and bridges—this is where blueprints become drafts, and ideas become sequences.

For the purposes of this entry, we’ll move through the classic engineering functions—Research, Design, Development, Construction, Production, Operations, and Management—and see how they map onto the creative act of writing stories. We'll lean heavily on Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics, Volume 1 as our field manual.

Theory vs. Practice: The Split

Steve Patterson's Substack

draws a clean line between theorists and engineers. Sometimes, theory hands you a perfect schematic. This is the I, Pencil moment—theory-to-reality, uninterrupted. The Manhattan Project is the go-to here: physics laid out the blueprint, and engineers built the bomb.

But other times, theory just shrugs.

Take Large Language Models: no clean theory of emergence, no Grand Blueprint. Just brute force. A firehose of data. Compute. Iteration. Serendipity. Maybe a whisper of demons. Sometimes the build doesn’t follow the design—it transcends or circumvents it entirely.

Which is why we need to understand engineering not as perfect execution of knowns, but as the messy, adaptive work of trying to make it real anyway.

Or, put simply:

“The function of the scientist is to know, while that of the engineer is to do.”

The Official Definition (Which We’ll Immediately Hijack)

Engineering bros, don’t @ me—I needed a starting point.

According to ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), engineering is:

“The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes... to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions—all as respects an intended function, economics of operation, and safety to life and property.”

Great. Now let’s steal the frame and wire it into something creative.

Here are the standard engineering functions across disciplines:

• Research

• Development

• Design

• Construction

• Production

• Operations

• Management

Let’s Moore-ify each one.

Research

“Tuning your perceptions to notice little quirks of circumstance that might otherwise slip by unnoticed…” (Moore, 8)

This is the observation phase—where you tune your dials to pick up weird signals. Moore gives a fantastic example with Etrigan the Demon: he describes becoming the character. Walking hunched. Dwelling on a rooftop. Probably muttering in rhyme. It’s not just character design; it’s performance anthropology.

Design

This is where you ask the “why” behind your work. Not just what happens, but what it’s about.

“The idea is what the story is about; not the plot or the story... but what the story is essentially about.” (Moore, 10)

Hence why The Dark Knight Rises is just okay—it’s all plot, no core idea.

A few more Moore bangers:

• “The ‘average reader’ is completely arse backwards… it creates a reader that doesn’t necessarily exist.” (Moore, 11)

• “If the work has enough integrity, it will find an audience.” (Moore, 11)

• “You should be pursuing the denominator of basic humanity.” (Moore, 14)

• “If you want to write a horror story, think about what horrifies you. Analyze your own fears, and you might uncover the broad mass of human anxiety.” (Moore, 13)

This is empathy, clarity, self-honesty. Design as psychic excavation.

Development

This is the “how.” Once your idea has teeth, development gives it structure.

Moore recommends starting with the ending. Backward design—same as in instructional design or curriculum building. Design the outcome first, and everything else starts lining up.

“A basic elliptical plot structure, where elements at the beginning mirror events at the end, acting as bookends to give the story unity.” (Moore, 15)

From there, worldbuilding begins—across three key domains:

• Characterization: Empathy is non-negotiable.

• Environment: Where are your people living? What’s the air like? Who runs the place?

• Plot: Which happens after the other two. (Marvel gets this backwards.)

Construction

This is the nuts and bolts—the act of building panels, scenes, sequences.

“All that is required is that one should think about the technique that one is using… and know where they are applicable.” (Moore, 19)

Some tactical advice, Moore-style:

Transitions: Layer dialogue over images that clash or contrast. Create tension between what’s seen and what’s said.

Pacing:

• 35 words of dialogue per panel.

• 7–8 seconds to read a graphic with text.

• 3–4 seconds for image-only.

Deepening: Layer in motifs, symbols, mirrored subplots—Moore treats comics like architecture. Every window frame and floor tile is doing something. These aren't flourishes—they’re supports.

Production / Operations / Management

This one’s thin, I admit. But if you’re going independent, get real with timelines. They’re longer than you think. Build in margin. Account for life.

This is also where networking enters the chat. And yeah, I know. Business bros. But some of them know how to ship.

If the creative act is sacred, this part is still crucial. No one cares about your perfect idea if it’s still locked in a hard drive two years from now.

Final Thoughts

Making stories isn’t just about inspiration. It’s about process—iterative, structured, at times demonic process. Alan Moore knew that. Engineers know that. The artist-as-engineer is a compelling frame for creativity, because it makes the chaos legible.

The next entry might need to co-pilot the rest: production and distribution, the marketing and shipping of a soul’s blueprint. But that’ll dovetail neatly with design with more stupendous graphics.

Until then—build something.