Description
This method exists to prevent apocrypha from becoming warning labels, lessons, or mythology. Apocrypha fragments document what became visible only after a failure mode occurred.
If a fragment teaches, it has failed.
Required Properties
Apocrypha fragments must:
- speak in system-first-person
- feel recovered, not authored
- preserve ambiguity
- resist closure
- avoid causality
- avoid prescription
They should feel incomplete. That incompleteness is protective.
Structural Constraints
Fragments must not:
- explain why something happened
- describe how to avoid it
- end with a lesson or summary
- tell the reader what to do
If the final line feels satisfying, remove it.
Tone Smells
Stop and revise if the fragment feels:
- cinematic
- persuasive
- emotionally resolved
- explanatory
- comforting
Apocrypha should unsettle without directing.
Ending Rule
Fragments end without interpretation.
No final diagnosis.
No moral.
No warning.
They stop where explanation would begin.