Ignorance is a Two Way Street Excerpt 2

[cvoidlibrary]

This is something the protagonist reads during the story. It is not the complete text. This was orginally intended to be an introduction to the Cumulus Void Library. The CVL is a series this book is a part of.

Please ignore punctuation for the moment. I would like criticism on everything else.
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It has been discovered that the story “Ignorance is a Two Way Street” is deeply involved with the phenomenon known as Cumulus. Cumulus in the scientific sense is the system of soul transport through alternate dimensions. The original definition referring to a certain cloud formation is no longer the only definition this word has.


The following is from a scientific text I found somewhere. The insight it has concerning Cumulus is rather alarming to me.


When a person dies all of the data collected in the form of memory does not simply vanish. Data in a computer leaves traces of itself behind after being deleted. When a computer is destroyed these traces cease to exist. In a living organism information is received and converted into data which travels from sensory memory to short term memory to long term memory. Not all of the information makes it all the way to long term or even short term. Forgotten memories are like computer data that have been deleted. If the information is received by sensory memory and is forgotten the trace is smaller than if it reaches short term and is then forgotten. When a living organism dies the memory data does not simply cease to exist.


Scientists have discovered a molecular complex whose function fits the description of what is often called the soul. Upon confirming the existence of the soul it has been hypothesized that some of the data that reaches long term memory is sent to a fourth memory level called Soul Memory.


At the exact time a conscious being dies the soul is preprogrammed to be released from the living organism. The soul then travels around until it finds another living organism and attaches itself to the organism’s brain. This attachment can only occur at some point during the organism’s prenatal development. It is suggested that the passing on of the soul only occurs among the same species, but it is also suggested that the soul site it attaches to is the same in all species that have it.


The purpose of the soul is to pass on data that can not be passed on genetically. Those supporting the species specific theory of soul transport say that the soul aids biological evolution. Those that support the universal theory of soul transport say that the soul helps keep the balance of the natural world intact. Some have claimed that the majority of soul transport is species specific, but not always. Some of these theorists claim that due to the extinction of many species at the hands of humans, souls that would normally inhabit the soul of another species are forced to inhabit the organism responsible for their destruction. Some of these theorists suggest that inhuman souls are choosing to inhabit humans so that the destruction can be stopped. Many people are angered by this idea, but if you look at it objectively it becomes something more than just the ramblings of some fanatical environmentalist. This however is of small consequence as it stands now.


There are errors that can occur during the process of soul transport. The most dangerous error that could occur would be linked to the soul’s departure. This is because the soul and the organism have been fully synchronized. It is still debated as to when the synchronization is fully complete.


Violent and traumatic death has been proven to cause malfunctions in parts of the soul. It is not known exactly how this damage occurs, but it is known that traumatic memories reach long term memory faster than others. Many theorists say that the soul is able to directly receive and encode data from sensory memory at the time of death. Scientists have observed that the malfunctioning souls act as free radicals that damage surrounding molecular structures. The molecular world has ways of repairing itself over time. It has structures within in it that are able to deal with the free radicals.

 

[Blackrook]

This is a data dump. Putting a data dump in a "book" for the hero to "read" does not change the fact that it is a data dump.

 

[anthorn]

Yeah what. Blackrook said it's a DATA/INFO dump. Reads like a lets stop the "story" while i take a dump and reveal all the worlds inner workings.

 

[ctg]

Nope, I wouldn't say it's an info dump in negative terms, because clearly it's very interesting article (at least to me). Obviously there's going to be thoughts on that and I could do the same thing and post few 'articles' from my own work.

 

[The Judge]

Hello again cvl

By data dump or info dump, what we mean is where a great deal of information is put down on the page in a very obtrusive way. Such dumps serve to halt the action while we get to learn about what is happening. Sometimes they are necessary. Information needs to be given to the reader and there are only so many ways in which this can be done. Unfortunately they are very difficult things to handle, and I'm afraid to say that this is not done particularly well in this excerpt you have given us.

I can't comment on the science behind your idea, which is very intriguing, so I will leave that for others. What I can say is that although this is purportedly a verbatim account of a 'scientific text', it is simply not written in the technical way that such texts require. This is science as filtered through a layman's brain - and frankly delivered in a rather rambling way.

You have two options. Keep much the same language and make it part of the narrator's thoughts rather than a text. The great difficulty with this is if it is given in one solid lump like this it will remain virtually unreadable. The second option is to have the narrator read the text there and then** and then quote paragraphs from the journal/article. You would indent it on the page, perhaps italicise it or give it a different font, or use quotation marks around it. You would also have to write it in scientific jargon.

** 'from a scientific text I found somewhere' suggests that the narrator is remembering it. This doesn't ring true if the text is to be verbatim unless you are giving your narrator superhuman powers of memory.

Whichever way you go, you have to cut the whole thing down. It is simply far too long. I'm not sure how important this concept is to the whole of the book, but there must be a way of reducing it to its essentials. The standard way of giving information unobtrusively is to drip-feed it into the story, a hint here, a paragraph there. That I think might be one way of avoiding this. You can have him in the library getting a hint of this concept from one book, searching through others and getting another insight, then a third etc. Each snippet will then build up into the whole, but because we are discovering it piecemeal it won't feel like an info-dump and you will generate excitement in the search for the truth.

I hope this helps.

J

 

[cvoidlibrary]

A character leaves this behind for the protagonist to read. The protagonist is injured and decides to read it because he wants something else to focus on. It is convenient to dump this data on the protagonist at the time in which it is dumped.

Of course that does not mean it is convenient for the reader...

 

[ctg]

If it's not convenient for the reader then do as Mrs 'I-AM-THE-LAW' says and cut it in pieces. Use thoughts in between.

 

[cvoidlibrary]

This is the rest of the document.
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Since the beginning of time life has been constantly growing in size and complexity. Upon the arrival of intelligence greater than or equal to that of humans things such as genocide and war came with it. The resulting damage of just one instance of war or genocide caused devastating irreversible damage. It has even been theorized that the damage would have destroyed the very fabric of existence. There is no evidence to suggest that such damage has ever been seen on earth. Whether it was out of foresight or because of the damage done in some far off recesses of the universe, some unknown force found a solution.


This unknown force reduced souls to subatomic structures that were too small to cause damage to larger molecular particles. Now the problem was that they were too small to function the way they were supposed to. In fact the only size in which they could function was the size that they already were. The unknown force somehow found a way to make it so all of the fragments of a complete soul are connected in some way no matter how far apart they are from each other. This connection causes them to be drawn towards each other. Most of the fragments would reassemble before they had a chance to attach to an organism. In fact if no other steps were taken then damage may have been caused to the organism due to this connection. The soul fragment may be ripped out of the organism in the presence of another soul fragment from the same soul.


The unknown force then created alternate dimensions to create enough space between the fragments to prevent them from reassembling back into a size that was dangerous. A complex system of soul transport resulted out of this. Soul fragments travel between dimensions and are even allowed to occasionally join together. Only soul fragments of the same soul will join together. Soul fragments are not allowed to come and go between dimensions as they please. They first have to pass a checkpoint located in a space between dimensions. The checkpoints will not allow a soul fragment to enter into a dimension containing a soul fragment of the same soul attached to a living organism. There is also some kind of structure that breaks soul fragments apart into smaller pieces. Nothing is known about this structure except that it exists. This complex system of soul transport has been working for a long time now without any problems. Unfortunately, if that were still the case it would have still been left undiscovered.


As time goes on the tolls of war and genocide increase as populations grow. The number of dimensions has been increasing exponentially due to humanity’s crimes alone. Genetically identical versions of the same organism can be found in many different dimensions. Whether this was deliberate to increase stability or the result of probability combined with the exceedingly astronomical amount of dimensions existing today, nobody knows. What is known is that soul fragments of the same soul have a tendency to attach themselves to genetically identical organisms. In other words an identical organism in one dimension and an identical organism in another dimension typically have soul fragments from the same soul.


The current problem started with the fact that one human and an uncountable amount of his alternates keep dying, for reasons unknown. The checkpoints apparently were not designed for this problem and the resulting soul traffic has proven to be devastating, devastating to the point of destroying entire dimensions. The unknown force has already changed the checkpoints to account for this and the damage done can be healed. Theoretically things should be returning to normal, but they have not. There is an anomaly that was created before the unknown force changed the checkpoints. This anomaly is one that the unknown force has not been able to remedy.

The majority of all of this is purely theoretical and all we truly know for certain is that the system of soul transport through alternate dimensions does in fact exist.

 

[The Judge]

Good grief. You mean that your first excerpt wasn't all of it?

I'm afraid this is simply far too long. No. I'm wrong. The first half was far too long. All of it together is far, far, far too long - in the order of several miles too long. You cannot dump all this in the middle of the story and expect people to read it. If you want to be read, you make things convenient for the reader, not more difficult.

The only other suggestion I can make is to turn this into a prologue. Write it as the scientific text itself - ie with a proper title, foot notes if need be, and in proper scientific language (which this is not), and in a different font from the rest of your work. Then when you come to the scene when the hero finds it, all you need do is refer to his reaction as he reads it. The advantage of this is that you are not dumping the information in the text. And some people don't bother reading the prologue anyway.

J

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

cvoidlibrary:

Why all the complex stuff?

If that (and I think I got the gist but like J. I had to struggle) is your background to the plot we don't need all these Unknown forces and presumably unknown methods.

All it seems to do to me is create the impression that you can't explain the reasoning behind your world but feel the need to. Why the need to resort to genocide and genetics and the rest. It's your world make a statement that we can just accept and then get on with the tale.

Old H. G.Wells didn't explain the inner workings of his machine. He just said there were dials and stuff and when you did to this and that to them, stuff whizzed by and the next thing was his man arrived at a different time. No scientific gobble-de-gook. You're not here to tell us how thing work, just give us the the premise and we can fill in the detail we need to to make the storey work.

So something like the following.

"To a soul, there are no boundaries; in this dimension or the next"

or some such.

The call the book

"High Planes Drifter"

and away you go.

Drop the thesis, get to the fiction.

 

[cvoidlibrary]

cvoidlibrary:

All it seems to do to me is create the impression that you can't explain the reasoning behind your world but feel the need to.

The characters in the story do this. They try to find a rational explanation for the events that are occuring around them. No matter how hard they try they will never find a perfect answer.