"you're still not satisfied with the trigger/hook that makes Emmy realize XYZ and take (heroic) action ABC"
you can think of a million things
but they're all additions
ADDITIONS ARE BAD
you want one perfect thing that threads through
so you have this idea for the 'sound' of the apsu -- that's a thing in this story, sounds and apsus (lol)
and it relates to other stiff with what you're calling the 'diegetic lore' element of the story
which winds up being, in a sense, the element of the story (or rather: the element that leads Emmy, Stang and the reader to the thing of the story)
so it's good and you're playing with this but it's fussy
and it still feels a tiny bit additive
cuz you have all these sounds, already!
in fact, you have sounds generally and particularly linked to this same thing: the specific instances ("Instances" -- ha!) where there is elision between Akkad and what you are calling EIRL, which is an acronym that will be familiar to many readers here (the "E" is for "Emmy") and that translates to "emmy's ('real') world"
so you had this idea for a sound -- a very specific idea, you knew what it sounded and felt like
and that felt kept nudging at you
for like "felt" deep "in your heart you know this is right for the story just follow your heart" type of reasons
and also very practical reasons (it is dumb to add things. not Aristotelian. you are doing bad plotting.)
these things are, doubtless and as always, connected
so now we get to the real 'action' of this story, which unfortunately has to be either be so long and detailed that it will lose meaning
or so short it loses all granularity
we go for the latter:
you wrote this note in these files that you keep
"cAction" files
there is one for each column, organized by chapter
and they are specific actionable things you are doing as you go through to make this story the best thing you can possibly do
so you wrote this story in column 1, chapter 2, which is Emmy's first encounter with the game and everything associated with it
how to handle the sound, through c1 and c2?
it might relate to the onomatopoeia in an unexpected way
look at Plot for original ideas for descriptions
there are so many sounds in this story
what if this one, you don't write
for instance, in prose: it was awkward to capture
you can think of a million things
but they're all additions
ADDITIONS ARE BAD
you want one perfect thing that threads through
so you have this idea for the 'sound' of the apsu -- that's a thing in this story, sounds and apsus (lol)
and it relates to other stiff with what you're calling the 'diegetic lore' element of the story
which winds up being, in a sense, the element of the story (or rather: the element that leads Emmy, Stang and the reader to the thing of the story)
so it's good and you're playing with this but it's fussy
and it still feels a tiny bit additive
cuz you have all these sounds, already!
in fact, you have sounds generally and particularly linked to this same thing: the specific instances ("Instances" -- ha!) where there is elision between Akkad and what you are calling EIRL, which is an acronym that will be familiar to many readers here (the "E" is for "Emmy") and that translates to "emmy's ('real') world"
so you had this idea for a sound -- a very specific idea, you knew what it sounded and felt like
and that felt kept nudging at you
for like "felt" deep "in your heart you know this is right for the story just follow your heart" type of reasons
and also very practical reasons (it is dumb to add things. not Aristotelian. you are doing bad plotting.)
these things are, doubtless and as always, connected
so now we get to the real 'action' of this story, which unfortunately has to be either be so long and detailed that it will lose meaning
or so short it loses all granularity
we go for the latter:
you wrote this note in these files that you keep
"cAction" files
there is one for each column, organized by chapter
and they are specific actionable things you are doing as you go through to make this story the best thing you can possibly do
so you wrote this story in column 1, chapter 2, which is Emmy's first encounter with the game and everything associated with it
how to handle the sound, through c1 and c2?
it might relate to the onomatopoeia in an unexpected way
look at Plot for original ideas for descriptions
there are so many sounds in this story
what if this one, you don't write
for instance, in prose: it was awkward to capture
then, you worked on other parts of the story (column 2, chapter 4)
and looped back to do high-level structure work in the files that you keep for that purpose
for about...five weeks?
you made progress. a lot of high-level structure stuff got changed, iteratingly, bit-by-bit
and at some point while working out you had a good idea
you came back and from around 4:30 - 7:30am on a sunday morning [this sunday morning]
locked some of those structural ideas into the high-level structure files
and then flowed them through into the cAction files
and one of the first things you found was that question
and it was, indeed, like: oh, yup. sorted. sweet.
game on.