Black Iron Prison v3 thread

[AFK]

But at some point isn't the BIP going to be the equivalent of Joan Rivers or Michael Jackson?  

[Cainad (dec.)]

 

That may be the best argument for taking ideas that have grown out of the BIP and putting them in a separate publication with a different title I've yet seen.

[LMNO]

I was thinking more like Doctor Who, but whatever.

[AFK]

Joah Rivers has a much higher horrormirth quotient.

[AFK]

Maybe that discussion is premature right now, as I think of it.  Maybe it's more:  Let's see what we have to throw into the thing, and then if we have enough for a NEW thing, we figure out what to call it. 

[Manta Obscura]

The first part of my critique, of the first section which you wrote, Rat:

Ok here is a draft of my "A Story In Five Parts". Initially I had thought of sticking it in the Great Googlie Mooglie Edition of the BiP (5 segments throughout it), but I think it might be better in the GSP. Please PLEASE critique, criticize, etc both content and form... If it sucks, please say that as well



A Story In Five Parts (Rough Draft)

Following two blasts from the siren, Bob woke up like he did every morning. He heard the other prisoners stirring in their cells and the loud metallic clunking sound as their guards opened the hall door and entered with trays of food. The routine was well known and comfortable, like a pair of old shoes. After breakfast and a tall latte, he wandered over to the corner of his cell where the walls were a strange beige and where he spent most of his day. Not that he actually accomplished much in this corner, usually he just sat there. Sometimes he would shuffle some papers or draw a few pictures, but this was just busy work that kept him from being terribly bored.

The siren sounded again and Bob's mouth began to salivate, "Lunchtime!" he said happily to no one in particular. The food was bland, lukewarm and the same every day, but it gave some break to sitting in the beige corner.

Later, the siren bleated again and the guard called out, as he did every evening, "Lights Out!" and the fillaments went dark. Bob crawled under the blankets and like every night since he could remember, fell asleep in his cell.

The siren let out five long "WHOOP" noises and Bob immediately woke up. The siren never made five noises in a row. Occasionally, when there were inspections it would be three times, but five? He looked around, the room was dark and still. No one else was awake. Bob laid back, assuming that the siren call had been in his head. Then once again, the siren called out: "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!" and Bob was immediately awake again. This time someone was obviously standing near the back wall... messing with something.

"Excuse me, " Bob ventured, assuming that the person was a prison employee, "why are you in my cell?"

The man turned around and looked at him for a moment, "Cell? What the heck are you talking about?" He then refocused on his odd task of fiddling with the wall.

"Cell," Bob said, "my prison cell. You are in my prison cell and I would like to know why."

The fellow scratched his head, looked at Bob curiously and sighed. "Oh, sorry, I hadn't realized you were still in the Black Iron Prison." Noting the confused look on Bob's face, he sighed, walked over and sat on a stool, which Bob was sure hadn't been there a moment ago. The man leaned forward and studied Bob closely for a moment then said, "Well, look... you're not in a Prison, per se. You have never really been in a prison. This whole thing, the prison, the guards, the other inmates, the food and even that annoying siren, its all in your head, its your prison that you made out of every decision and experience that you've had in your life."

Bob, at this point, decided someone was trying to make a fool of him. He stood up and walked to the cell door. "If this is in my head," he said, "then I should be able to walk right through it, yes?" Saying this, Bob stepped into the door and smacked his head on the bars.He staggered back, shook his noggin and then looked at the man. "See," he said, "they are real bars and this is a real prison."

The man rolled his eyes, stood up and walked right through the wall. He looked back through the bars and smiled, " I said you weren't in a Prison per se, not that you weren't trapped. See, its your bars and your prison. You made it, you maintain it, you keep yourself inside it, doing the same thing, thinking the same thoughts, exploring the same concepts." He paused and looked at Bob slyly, "When was the last time you had a brand new thought? When was the last time you had a brand new experience? When was the last time you cut loose and did something that you have never done before?"

Bob was taken aback slightly, mostly because the stranger had walked through a solid wall, but also because he was suddenly very uncomfortable with how comfortable the cell actually felt. "Lookit", the man continued, "can you tell me what crime you committed that got you put behind bars? Can you tell me how long you're here for, or how long you've been here?"

Bob strained to recall the arrest, the trial, the sentencing, but there was nothing there. He tried to remember how long he had been here, but that too seemed so far distant in his memory, no valuable information was forthcoming.

"I don't understand" Bob said, his voice shaking a little, "If I'm not in prison, then where am I and why do I think I'm in jail?"

The man smiled, "Ah, now that's a good question. It betrays the potential for independant thought! First, as I said, you are in a 'prison' of sorts. You are in what some smart people call "The Black Iron Prison". The prison of your own reality, well your own interpretation of Reality anyway. You're not alone in this either. Almost everyone starts out here and most people never leave. Some people don't even see the prison walls and bars... they just putter around follwing the sirens, sitting in their little beige boxes and shuffling papers. They don't see that they're trapped, because they can't, or don't see ANYTHING outside of their own little area, not even the walls or bars. It's very hard to escape a prison, if you don't even know that its there."
------------------------------------------------------

This first section is pretty good, and makes a nice narrative out of the BIP metaphor. However, a few things make it lose some strength, namely:

1) A semi-shortness of description and scene-setting. I think narratives benefit the most from having very detailed physical descriptions woven into them whenever a new scene is created. In this case, a more detailed description of the cell, Bob, the mysterious person or Bob's routine would add a lot to the texture of the piece.

2) A few grammatical or rhythm oddities. For instance, in the fourth-to-last paragraph of this section, you have the mysterious man repeat the same question twice. When I have a bit more time I can go through and diagnose all of the oddities personally, but until then you should probably do a readthrough just to check for clarity.

One last thing, mainly stylistic: I noticed that you like to use a lot of commas to join together ideas and sentences (e.g. "Occasionally, when there were inspections it would be three times, but five?"; "Bob strained to recall the arrest, the trial, the sentencing, but there was nothing there."). Again this is just personal preference and experience, but I've always thought that narrative works, especially the exposition parts, benefit the most from shorter, punchier sentences. A revised version of that sentence might be, "Occasionally, when there were inspections it would be three times. But five?"; or "Bob strained to recall the arrest, the trial, the sentencing. There was nothing there."

As I said, minor stylistic comment, but I think it helps readers to connect to the narrative more.

I shall edit this post to add critiques as I read the other sections.

Night in the prison had always been pitch black and fit only for dreaming. Now, Bob realized, he could see clearly, even without the lights. He thought about what the man had said. He certianly felt trapped, but maybe he was just losing his mind after years in prison. Though... what if this guy was right? What if he could escape this, (what did the guy call it?) "Black Iron Prison"."

"I'd like to get out", Bob said wistfully.

"There is no 'OUT'", the man shook his head smiling, "because you aren't really 'IN'."

As he spoke, Bob began to think that maybe Reality wasn't a prison after all, maybe it was simply an inescapable tarpit, holding everyone within its grasp, slowly dragging them further and further into the black abyss of death. The prison walls shifted, the bars were suddenly vines, the bricks faded into the trunks of trees and the floor, OH GODS, the floor had become a steaming, bubbling, stinking pool of thick tar; tar that had a strong hold on his feet, his ankles and to his horror, it was slowly sucking him down.

The man was standing on top of the tar, looking at him quizzically. "Well, I'm not sure I've seen anyone go from bad to worse, quite that quickly." he said with a smile.

"Help me, for God's Sake!" Bob screamed, "I'm being sucked in, I'll die!!"

"We all die, you dummy, you can't escape it, you can't stop it, so why worry about it?" He grinned, "Besides, the only thing sucking you down right now is, well, you."

Bob tried to clear his head as the tar touched his knees. He concentrated, "not a prison, not a tar pit... DAMNIT!" The tar had his knees now and the heat was beginning to make his balls sweat. "not a prison", he thought, "not a tar pit!" But what, what else could it be?

The man smiled and grabbed Bob's wrist. "Let me help you out where you need it. Come on, come with me," he said smiling at the poor schmuck.

In an instant, they found themselves in some sort of small room with lots of buttons and levers. "This is one of my favorites," the man said with pride. "This is my Yellow Submarine, its a lot like the Black Iron Prison, I can't go outside of it, I can't escape it while I'm here... but I can control where it goes, how it moves and what I can see." He pushed a button and a wall slid away to reveal a magnificant scene which Bob supposed was deep beneath the ocean. "In Reality," the Man said, "what you're looking at is deep under the seas of normal human consciousness. This is how I explore the hard to get to parts of my brain."

Bob was astounded, "But, if this, like my prison is just in your mind, why not go out there and explore freely?"

The man looked serious for a moment and tapped the window, "Out there, Bob, is Everything that Exists, Existed or will Exist... every frequency of light and sound, every smell, every taste, all of it at the same time. Out there, I would be crushed in an instant, the pressure alone would utterly destroy me. However, I can still explore a lot of it, one port window at a time, from the safety of my submarine."

Bob thought about this, the guy was still trapped, kind of, but this was at least a nicer prison than the one he had.

-----------------------------------------

Same critique as for section I. Some new specifics:

1) I was surprised when the mysterious guy just started talking. I think you should add a physical description of what he is doing in this scene, just so there will be a figure to put the words to.

2) The mysterious guy's dialogue on the Yellow Submarine seems particularly long, and was hard to follow in one "mental breath."

More to come.

"Of course," the man continued, "this isn't the only vehicle I have." He caressed the control panel of his little submarine. "She's just one of an infinite number of possible vehicles."

Bob, nodded, still concerned that he was, perhaps, insane. The man shrugged and moved his hand across Bob's field of vision. They were immediately somewhere else.

"This is my Silver Spaceship." The man looked quite proud as he said this, "it's one of my newest."

Bob walked over to the portal and peeked out. Planets zoomed by, stars, astroids and moons tumbled past him at a frigthful speed, so close, it was surely not real. "These planets have to be light years apart, what sort of nonsense is this?!" he exclaimed.

The man shook his head, "It's metaphor man, that's not real Outer Space. Out there, is the Outer Space of Possibility. See that planet over there?" Almost immediately, the ship changed course and hovered close to the surface of a beautiful forested planet, with pristine lakes and gentle rolling hills.

Bob gasped, as he caught sight of a... well it can't be a... "Is, err, is that a, a, um, a Unicorn?" Bob finally stammered.

"Of course," the man said, "what else would a white horse with a horn in the middle of its head be?"

"But, they don't exist." Bob said.

"Well, they exist on that planet in the Outer Space of Possibility. They may not exist anywhere else though, I don't know." he turned the ship and coasted toward a large planet, "That planet over there is full of Pookahs. I don't think they ever leave that planet, but sometimes, people claim to see them on Earth."

Bob was startled as a teapot floated by and he could read the small silver nameplate attached to the delicate china, "B. Russell".

---------------------------------------------

I really like this whole scene. It reminds me of something by Douglas Adams, and is generally fun to read. Not much needs tightened up in this section, aside from, IMO, the exposition immediately preceding Bob inquiring about the unicorn.

More to come.

"Reality," the man continued, "exists. It just doesn't exist in the same sense that most people think."

Bob was far too stunned at this point to argue.

"See, we all have limitations. But, often, a lot of the limitations that we THINK we have, may be artificial. You thought that your prison of scheduled alarms, lattes and that beige corner were inescapable, didn't you?"

Bob nodded silently.

"Exactly. Those weren't real limitations, they were just the places that you stopped exploring what might be out there. It became comfortable and safe, predictable and stable, right?" He looked at poor Bob, who seemed about to explode under the complexity.

"So I'm free, but I'm not really free?" Bob finally asked. "I can pretend to get out of Prison, but NEVER ever really get OUT?"

The man paused and studied him, "Well yeah Bob, you can do several things. You can go back to your comfortable prison and shuffle papers, eat when the bell rings and behave like a Pavlovian pooch, or you can break free of that tiny corner of reality and live in a much bigger cell, maybe seeing every constraint, every limitation and everything that you cannot do, as bricks, morter and bars of a much bigger prison that you have some control over."

Bob smiled, "Well, a bigger cell is surely better."

The man grinned, "Yep, it is. But, thats not your only option." He paused and studied Bob, "What do you think about the trip so far?"

Bob grinned, "It's amazing, mindblowing, I can't believe how free I feel. Now that I know that I don't have to go back to that cell, back to those alarms and that crappy food. And at least I'll be in control of the decorations now. No more beige, ever again!"

-----------------------------------------------------------

I liked this entire section as-is. Unless I have some sort of editorial blind spot at the moment, I can't see anything that I'd change.

Last section to follow.

Driving down a dirt road, the Muddy Brown Humvee bounced through pot holes and skidded across mudflats. Bob hung on to the "OSHI" bar for dear life and the man was laughing, mad as a hatter, behind the wheel.

"Wheehoo! Now this is the life, eh Bob?!" he shouted over the thudding sub-woofer and the roar of the engine.

Bob held on and didn't speak. It dawned on him that outside the window... Correction: outside the window, in between the huge splotches of mud, was some part of reality. "So, how's come the best I can do is a bigger cell, and you can go mudrunning?" he looked at the man, who stopped laughing for a moment.

"My friend, no one said that a bigger cell was the best you could do." the man waved his hand to indicate the Humvee, "this is a constraint, a container, a set of limits and controls. It a thing that prevents me from ever being 100% free." He paused and sighed, with thelong exhale, things went fuzzy and suddenly they were back in Bob's prison cell. Of coure, it wasn't the old cell, it was new and huge and furnished with the most interesting things.

"See Bob, we can be here, if this is where you want to be..." a flash and they were flying through Outer Space, "or here..." Bob looked out the window and saw a planet suddenly turn into a puffer fish, "or here, in my submarine."

Bob smiled as he suddenly got it. "You mean, the constraints are only a prison, if I see them as a prison?"

The man smiled, "Exactly! You see Bob, no matter where you think you are..."  he reached toward Bob's forehead and pulled from the center of it a round glowing yellow ball of energy, "you are always and forever here, in the Golden Sphere of Possibility."

The sphere began to expand and grow both in size and intensity, surrounding Bob with brilliant walls of this amazing sphere expanding and expanding... all under his control, all following his command and his thoughts.

Somewhere outside of this beautiful and brilliant new place, he heard his hosts voice one last time, though this time it was at a higher pitch, an almost a female voice with a lilting laugh...

"Remeber Bob, You have built for yourselves Black Iron Prisons, but even so... I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free... in some sense."

I like this section a lot. Very nice ending.

There are a few oddities. Paragraph three, sentence two read a little choppy to me, paragraph four has the word "thelong" instead of "the long," and the penultimate paragraph has "an almost a" instead of just "an almost." Otherwise, quite good.

Overall, great read, Rat. Thanks for sharing! I hope this makes it into the BIP, or some future project stemming from it.

[Manta Obscura]

Maybe that discussion is premature right now, as I think of it.  Maybe it's more:  Let's see what we have to throw into the thing, and then if we have enough for a NEW thing, we figure out what to call it. 

My premature vote for a hypothetical new publication related to the BIP would be called "The Cell Key," or "The Key to the Door," or something along those lines.

I would love to be part of an updated BIP that addressed issues beyond identifying the prison, which is what I felt the BIP was mostly about. I'd like to see some material about what to do next, sort of like the section in the Wiki.

[Golden Applesauce]

Another way to do the BIP/GSP split would be to have the GSP focused on providing ideas for solutions, with the BIP more on identifying the problem.

[LMNO]

Or, you could tell the GSP twunts to get a life, write their own goddamn book, and stop trying to horn in on ours.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The first part of my critique, of the first section which you wrote, Rat:

Thanks Manta!! This is precisely what I was looking for! New edit to follow

[Cramulus]

Or, you could tell the GSP twunts to get a life, write their own goddamn book,

wasn't that the point of this thread?

the push to reconceptualize the BIP booklet hasn't been so that we can work in this great new metaphor,
it's to reframe the metaphor to address the people who focus on the darkness and negativity and hopelessness

is that a good use of energy?

At this moment, I'm of the opinion that we should start from the beginning and write a companion booklet to the BIP rather than a new edition.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Or, you could tell the GSP twunts to get a life, write their own goddamn book,

wasn't that the point of this thread?

the push to reconceptualize the BIP booklet hasn't been so that we can work in this great new metaphor,
it's to reframe the metaphor to address the people who focus on the darkness and negativity and hopelessness

is that a good use of energy?

At this moment, I'm of the opinion that we should start from the beginning and write a companion booklet to the BIP rather than a new edition.

I agree... I had thought we were talking about a 'latest edit' of the BiP (with Cain's changes to his content etc) AND published with it a companion GSP which would have new stuff with a different twist.

I don't even think it should be positive vs negative....

[Triple Zero]

Actually, the reason we don't have a "Lollercaust" is because we haven't written anything independently funny.  Most of the funny resides in knowing who we are, and how we interact.

and puns.

[LMNO]

And vocoders.

[Cramulus]

Actually, the reason we don't have a "Lollercaust" is because we haven't written anything independently funny.  Most of the funny resides in knowing who we are, and how we interact.

and puns.

disagree: we have much LAIL contained here: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=15295.msg484962#msg484962 and here: http://www.blackironprison.com/index.php?title=Lollercaust
it's just that nobody's arranged it into a distributable document yet