 Action/Adventure: May 02, 2012 Issue [#5025] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Memories, Good or Bad Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Memories
Character memories can be just like your own. A character isn't going to remember every minute detail about their past. Think of memory like a painted clapboard house. Recent memory is like fresh paint, gleaming in every detail and fresh in the memory. Every nook, cranny and even the gingerbread detail is remembered exactly. But as the memory/house ages, the paint begins to deteriorate, the paint cracks - not so fresh and vibrant as before. Small details are fuzzy and difficult to remember. "Was it April or May?"
Then time passes and larger chips fall to the ground. Most memory is retained but small parts are missing. Perhaps the unpleasant moment in an otherwise experience. Like a drop of wine on a party dress, you now remember the lovely restaurant, the engaging conversation, but not the stain. A friend might pick up the chip and remind your character. "Oh, I remember that yellow dress, a shame that stain never came out."
Perhaps the only thing retained is a bad experience, like a fire. The clapboard house carries the obvious scar that everyone remembers. No one looks at the house any longer, only seeing the blackened mark on the abandoned building. All the happy connection is broken and lost. Previous memories erased in one horrific moment. "Tsk, the Lee family, I wonder where they moved?"
More time passes and only bits of the old paint remains. The weathered clapboard house, bleached nearly white from the sun, standing tall against the elements. These are the fond memories - memories of things we remember from our childhood, no longer clear and beautiful, but looked at with respect for the ageless beauty it has become. Memories of swinging on the old tire swing with our bestest friend in first grade. Our first kiss. The moment our child is born. "You were so pink and screamed like a banshee! I fell in love with you right then."
Character memory should work the same. A character couldn't tell every detail of something that happened decades ago. Some things are lost, and best forgotten.
Write on!
This month's question: How do you use character memories as a tool? In flashbacks? How else?
Send in your reply below!  Editors love feedback!
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Excerpt: Frigid winds whipped needles of snow into Gulliemont's cheeks. He shivered and clutched at his bearskin coat with fingers turned numb from the cold Moscow winter. His breath fogged the air before his eyes and left a trail of frost on his collar which he didn't seem to notice. Cold sweat soaked the uniform he'd worn every day since the Grande Armee began the Russian campaign at the start of 1812.
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Excerpt: Everyone should have goals, and this was mine for summer vacation this year: wake up every day at 11:00am, eat a huge bowl of sugar with some cereal in it, then lie on the living room floor and play “Brain Burglars: Zombies of the Cul-de-Sac” until I fall asleep. Repeat until I beat the game or my mom sells the TV, then maybe take up fishing or something.
Excerpt: Lester turned his head away from the sheriff, looked toward the barn and grinned. That’s when Lester’s game began, the day he severed his mama’s head from her plump body and put a noose around his daddy’s fleshy neck and hung him from the barn’s rafters.
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#1236994 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: I am sending this to you, per your request for bad experiences at the movies. A conversation I had with my daughter, started me thinking about the night I stopped going to the movies. So when I read your ad, I had to write and tell you about my experience.
Excerpt: For many years, the scientific community had discussed how man uses only a small percentage of the brain’s total capacity. That, combined with the rapid advancements made in computer technology, led to the formation of the coalition known as SALEM.
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Excerpt: “When did you last see your wife and children?”
“This morning, around 7 o'clock. I was leaving for work, and she was getting the girls ready for school. Breakfast. Cereal.”
Excerpt: Mars Station was crammed. Ninety thousand immigrants and our close to fifty thousand newborns scheduled to go down to Mars as soon as possible with another colony ship inbound. Oh, and the brochure failed to mention that for the final leg of the trip we were to literally be kicked off the station.
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Excerpt: “Who will implant a cellular device in your teeth!” Marty beamed, showing a perfect set.
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This month's question: How do you use character memories as a tool? In flashbacks? How else?
Last month's question: What kind of transport do you like to give your characters?
~ Aqua ~  responds: About the question, it depends. I would prefer horse riding if old styled story and spaceships if it is a fantasy story.
believer10 replies: Transportation has always been nothing to me. My characters sail, fly, or walk. I don't even think about it.
sergeantc answers: I generally give my characters some sort of car. For most of what I write, that suits their needs the best. I will use other means when necessary, such as planes or trains, but overall, I go with the car.
BIG BAD WOLF is hopping  submits: Transportation depends on setting- sometimes its on foot, sometimes its with space ships.
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