pennyrow
1 · What I want to see here
Pennyrow is one street and it is all selling. It runs east to west, wide enough for two carts to pass, and the shops stand along its north side shoulder to shoulder with their fronts on the roadway: the teal one with the bowl on its sign, the long green one with the lanterns, ordinary houses between them that have put a banner out and become shops for the day. On market day the south side of the street fills with trestles, so that what was one wide road is a lane between shop doors and stall backs. Tubs, crates and barrels stand wherever a gap was left. Halfway along, the street swells into a small place round the well, and the grandest front, the red-roofed one, looks down onto it. Behind the shops and behind the stalls there is only grass and a few trees. The town is one building deep.
2 · How to show it
- A street: the earth is a band from one edge of the map to the other and everything else is hung on it.
- All selling: both sides of the band are occupied without a break - fronts on the north, trestles on the south - and the space between the buildings is filled with goods rather than left as grass.
- Market day: the trestles stand ON the road, and banners are out.
- A centre: the road is two rows wider for ten squares in the middle, the well is there, and the one red roof is set back above it.
- One building deep: trees start immediately behind the roofs.
3 · What it needs
- shop fronts, more than one kind
- lived-in houses to stand between them
- trestle stalls
- banners
- goods: tubs of fish, greens and fruit, crates, barrels
- a well
- a road of bare earth, wide
- tarpaulined heaps
- trees behind, both sides
- Not in the pack: A second side to the street. Every building in the pack has its face on its bottom edge and no other, so a house on the south side would turn its back on the road. The south side is therefore stalls, which have no back, and the street is one-sided on purpose.
- Not in the pack: People. A market with nobody at it is the largest gap between the paragraph and the picture; the stalls and the goods have to say "busy" between them.
- Not in the pack: Paving. The pack has paved floors on sheets that are not catalogued; the street is bare earth like a country road.
- Not in the pack: Awnings over the shop doors, hanging signs, lamps, a cart.
4 · The arrangement
A ribbon. One straight road; buildings in a single unbroken row on the north side, all facing it; stalls in a looser row along the south edge of the road, on the earth; one widening in the middle with the well in it and the most important front above it. Nothing is more than one object away from the road.
5 · What that means in (x, y)
44 x 24 squares, landscape, because a street is long. The road is rows 10-15, six squares, full width; between cols 16 and 27 it takes in row 9 and row 16 as well, which is the place. Buildings stand with their door row on row 9 - on row 8 above the place, so the red house and its two neighbours are set back - and are packed with at most a square between them, alternating kinds so that no two the same touch. Stalls are three squares wide and stand on rows 14 to 16, leaving rows 11 to 13 clear as the lane; each has its goods within a square of it. Banners are one square each and stand on row 10, hard against a shop front, where they overlap the wall behind.
7 · What it looks like
Read this against the paragraph at the top. That comparison is the only check that catches a map which is perfectly valid and is of nowhere.
6 · What was actually written
The same two grids as flat colour — earth, grass, and a block for every footprint. Anything in the render that is not here, the translation invented.
......kk................kk.................. ...................tt...............tt...... ..NNNN........................NNNN.......... ........YYYY..NNNN.......YYYY.............tt tt....................................NNNN.. ............................................ .................SSSRRRRLLLL................ .SSSGGGG.OOOOLLLLSSSRRRRLLLLggggsss.OOOOLLLL .SSSGGGG.OOOOLLLLSSSRRRRLLLLggggsss.OOOOLLLL .SSSGGGG.OOOOLLLLb..........ggggsss.OOOOLLLL 2.......1....2....b......cc1.......1....2... .........................cc................. .....................WW..................... ............................................ ..EEEf..q.....a.............v....b..eeea.... .f....b..eeev..EEEz...q......EEEf..z.....b.. .......................eeea................. ............................................ ...kk.................................kk.... ............tt..............tt.............. YYYY..............................NNNN...... ......NNNN..........YYYY.................... ...............tt.........kk............YYYY ............................................
What is in it
| 7 | tree_small | tree living small |
| 6 | tree_pine | tree living conifer large |
| 5 | tree_small_dark | tree living small conifer |
| 5 | tree_green | tree living broadleaf large |
| 5 | barrel | prop goods barrel |
| 3 | shop_teal | structure intact shop doorway |
| 3 | house_plain | building intact plain |
| 3 | banner_red | prop banner market |
| 3 | banner_cream | prop banner market |
| 3 | stall | prop stall market |
| 3 | basket_fish | prop goods market fish |
| 3 | basket_apples | prop goods market fruit |
| 3 | stall_brown | prop stall market |
| 2 | shop_green | structure intact shop doorway |
| 2 | house_orange | building intact window doorway |
| 2 | crate_berries | prop goods market fruit |
| 2 | basket_greens | prop goods market |
| 2 | crate_bread | prop goods market |
| 1 | house_red | building intact grand doorway |
| 1 | goods_covered | prop goods covered |
| 1 | well | prop well stone landmark |