[stylist] a novel idea

[Barbara Hammel]

Hey, novelists who are looking for an idea, I thought of a grand one and I’m not really a story writer because I always get to the point too quickly and just am not a good story teller – though I put myself to sleep quite frequently making them up.
Here’s the deal but first I need to explain what a panopticon is in case you don’t know.
The term panopticon was made famous by the 19th-century British philosopher Jeremy Bentham.  He originally thought it a great construct for prisons.  What you do is build a circular building with the guard tower in the middle.  All the cells are transparent so theoretically with even just one guard you can watch all the prisoners.  Lights are placed on the perimeter so the prisoners can’t see each other or see if they are being watched.  Okay, now broaden that out into the world we seem to be headed for where Orwell’s “Big Brother” concept is coming to fruition with the ways especially government can spy on us all through phone records and computer usage.  This is the kind of world the story would be set.  Now, in order to have a revolution to right the world back to a time when individualism is highly valued and people could truly be free to speak their minds without repercussions, we need a group of people who can circumvent the current system.  The obvious group to do this would be a group of blind folks because they can function in the dark and they have this special code called Braille.  It would be up to the writer to figure out just how the panopticon is gaining its information  -- maybe microchips in light bulbs or something – so there is a way that only blind people – and those sighted folks who can learn to perfection our adapted skills, can carry out a successful revolt.

Barbara

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.--Robert Frost