Is it realistic for someone to forget this?

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by kburns421, Sep 18, 2013.

  1. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    Oh my! I didn't think I was gone for long, and now so many replies! I'm going to cover them all as best as I can. First I need to say that I must have worded things badly in my first post because I never intended her to completely forget the experience. I was thinking it might become super vague, but most of the answers have pointed out she would likely still remember even if she doubts. I can work with that.

    If I can just make her doubting and pushing it to the back of her mind believable, that would work. It too was thinking not having any proof that it happened would help, and, once the portal closes, she will have no proof, no mark, nothing, and it won't open even when she goes back.
     
  2. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    This is a valid point. Younger does make it more plausible, and I am considering making her maybe eight, but I cannot make her any younger than that, and that might even be pushing it. But I'm not going to make her forget. Even though she knows the difference between dreams and reality, something that fantastical might make you doubt whether it happened. I personally have very vivid dreams when I sleep, and though they're usually crazy, there have been times when I wasn't sure if I dreamed something or if it really happened.
     
  3. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    In response to all three of these, I am in my early twenties, the same age as my MC will be for the majority of the book. Age five is the earliest I have memories, and I have about seven distinct memories... one of them involves trying to eat grass from the yard because I thought it was a vegetable, and one of them involves a kid's backpack that I think other kids were smelling because it smelled "like a rotten egg." Maybe. That's about as detailed as that memory gets. However, my MC is going to be about ten, and I do remember a lot from that age. The thing is, again, I don't want her to forget, just to doubt. And while I remember things from age ten, all the memories are not crisp and clear.
     
  4. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    This, however, concerns me. For one thing, one of the few memories I have from age five is of the boy I had a crush on, and my MC knows this boy is special even after spending a couple hours with him. He's not special in any supernatural way, but he's special to her. She wouldn't forget him, but, is it plausible she'd doubt his existence ten years later? Now I'm a little more concerned.
     
  5. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    This is the other thing I'm taking into account and working on. Her parents are a big influence on her growing up. As I said, they do suppress the dreamer/believer part of her (for lack of a better word), so they would definitely tell her that there was no portal and continue to push her toward practical, logical, no risk-taking type thinking and living. It DOES get to her, and she does start to think and live more like that as she grows up, and this is important to the story because it leads to conflict. So that at least meshes with the idea that she might doubt her experiences. Maybe she herself could be the one to eventually try and convince herself it didn't happen. I think someone may have said that, but I can't find it.
     
  6. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    I'm sorry if anything I said didn't make sense or came off as rude. I was trying to comprehend all the different messages and put the ones about similar things together in my mind to make more sense of them, and my brain started overloading.
     
  7. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I wouldn't be concerned. If anything the thread replies indicate you can write the story the way you want to, and one way or another, it's workable.

    As for rude, :confused: I read nothing of the kind in any of your posts.

    I think it's cute at least 3 of us remember our childhood crushes. :)
     
  8. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    I didn't think I did come off as rude, but after responding to everything in bits and pieces, my brain was hurting, and I didn't really read it all over.

    And it does seem like I'll be able to make this work in my story, but I have more insight now to make sure it seems more believable.
     
  9. Hagi

    Hagi Member

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    4 words, You are the Writer. You decide if she remembers or not, not anyone else, if you belive that or want her to forget, just make it happen.
     
  10. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    Thank you. I do agree, but to an extent. Something like a portal is not realistic, but it is part of the premise. If I write it as real, it is real. But my characters are normal human being characters, and I want them to have plausible human being reactions. In that way, I think being the writer gives me leeway, especially because people are different and react to things differently, but not complete control if I want it to actually be believable.
     
  11. Hagi

    Hagi Member

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    I can promise you as a normal human beign, if that thing would happen to me, I would belive it was an hillucination or a dream, barely beliving it was a dimensional portal due to the fact I was young back there and it haven't been fully prooven to exist.
     
  12. B93

    B93 Active Member

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    I think you can make it very believable that she comes to doubt the experience. For a bigger challenge, make the readers believe it despite the fact that she has an artifact from the encounter (the boy gave her some small gift?) that she can't explain away despite not really believing that it occurred.
     
  13. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I do think there is always cause for concern when a character 'forgets' something major in their lives. It's plausible if they are clinically blocking, but if they're simply hiding it from the reader in order to provide a twist at the end, it can cause dissatisfaction when it eventually comes to light.

    I've just read a book by an wonderfully talented and award-winning writer (a favourite of mine) who pulled this one, and for me the story lost credibility. To make it worse, he wrote it from a first-person point of view, and referred to the incident in question several times during the book. Then at the end, he suddenly 'remembers' a very vital part of that incident.

    While it's an issue he is reluctant to face, and certainly one he's not told any other character about, I do feel cheated that, as a reader, I was misled. I assumed, from the way the rest of the book was written, that he was a reliable narrator. There is no indication anywhere in the book that he's literally 'forgotten' the incident because he's mentally blocking it, or that he was too young at the time to properly remember it. He remembers and relates lots of detail of things that happened to him long before this particular incident.

    In fact, it would have been a stronger story if the reader had been aware of the personal demon he was wrestling with throughout the story. To have it pop up at the end ...oh, he's been withdrawn and irritable all through the book because X happened way back when ...just didn't quite work, coming from a first-person, otherwise-reliable POV.

    So it is tricky. If your character is young enough, this 'forgetting' explanation will work. But I do think they'd have to be pretty young. Think back to your own memories. How far back do you trust them? Especially if what you're remembering really had impact at the time? That's where to start, I reckon.
     
  14. Umbra

    Umbra New Member

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    It is very realistic, many childhood memories are viewed from a dreamlike haze. I myself wonder if some situations i vaugely remember were true.
     
  15. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    I find it interesting that the focus is on whether something experienced at the age of ten could in later life be doubted as true, while there is no question about a portal to another dimension. That's probably because the concept is a staple of sci fi, and so readers have no difficulty suspending disbelief. I'll get back to that in a minute.

    In 1963, I was 10 years old and went on a trip to Ireland with my parents. We stayed in Dublin for a week at the home of Rose, a childhood friend of my grandmother's. Rose had a 9-year-old granddaughter, Mary, the prettiest little blonde I had ever seen and who was my companion that week for a good part of the time. Ten year old American boys at that time were militantly averse to having anything to do with girls, but she gently teased me the whole time and I was completely smitten. And, as you can see, I have never forgotten her, even at 60 (I think of her every time I hear the Irish song, "Tell My Ma When I Get Home").

    But since people reading the story will have no problem suspending disbelief about portals to other dimensions, why not make it so that passing through such a portal affects the memory function of the brain. You could show this in a number of ways, including the girl having difficulty remembering certain things about her life when she passes through the first time, or some difficulty she experiences in her return.

    Other considerations could be some kind of trauma that occurs later in her life that also impairs memory - an accident, for example.

    Good luck.
     
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  16. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    I don't think I need a bigger challenge, haha. In terms of the plot though and the way the two dimensions work, bringing back an artifact probably isn't best for the story

    Kind of interesting, right? But I think it's also because the portal is the premise of the story. When something is the premise, people accept it. When something unbelievable happens within that premise, however, it becomes a problem. Even though the premise involves a portal, my characters are just average human beings. If their reactions are abnormal, it's bothersome.

    I appreciate the suggestion, but I can't have the portal itself affect her memory. The description I've given in the post is really only a small part of the story, and that wouldn't mesh with the plot and the rest of the story. An accident of some sort might be useful though for the memory thing and for the plot, especially because I'm still unsure of certain plot areas.

    I've been thinking more and more about this since I posted this question, and I do also have memories that I'm not sure if they actually happened or not. And since a portal is such a strange thing, I guess it could go either way that a person might think it was a dream or that he/she might hold onto the idea that it's real. But, since it could go either way, I'm thinking it should work that my MC would think maybe it was her imagination.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2013
  17. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    I never planned on hiding it from the reader that the portal was real. I'm writing in third person. I thought it was really important that the readers clearly know the reason for the opening of the portal, but now I'm wondering if I should just let the reader speculate and put pieces together as the story goes on. However, even if I keep the POV more limited, I don't think what you described would be a problem. As for forgetting, I'm still working on finding the balance of just her doubting whether it happened and kind of pushing it to the back of her mind vs. actually forgetting what happened.
     
  18. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, I think 'doubting' would be an excellent way to go, as will pushing it to the back of her mind, as long as the reader is aware that there IS something being pushed to the back of her mind. This doesn't spring anything as an irritating surprise later on.

    Writing in third person eliminates a lot of what bothered me about the story I just read. When you're in third person, you're not necessarily revealing everything that goes on in the characters' heads, it's just that you tell the story from their perspective. When you switch to 'I' mode and tell about an incident, while leaving a significant part of it out, however, then I think the reader can feel cheated.
     
  19. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    No matter how I write it, since it's in third person, it's going to say that she does go into a portal. The reader is going to know it really happened, so I shouldn't have the problem of surprising the reader unfairly. I'm more concerned with the reader thinking it's ridiculous or unrealistic that the MC would doubt whether it happened or push it to the back of her mind. General consensus seems to be that it should work though.
     
  20. MrWisp

    MrWisp Member

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    I'm late to this discussion, but I had to weigh in because I was just talking about this in "real life." When I was, oh, thirteen or so (many years ago), I had a rare sleepless night. I remember watching a film at 3am that freaked me out. It was one of the most bizarre films I had ever seen, and it was really unnerving. Whenever I would think back to that night and describe the movie to people, they would laugh at the description and say that I must have been half asleep or having a very strange dream. No one had heard of it, I never saw it aired or mentioned anywhere again, and so I pretty much began convincing myself that it didn't exist and was a result of one too many swigs of NyQuil.

    Bored at work one day about three years ago, the movie popped into my head again. I started Googling plot points, and there it was. It did exist...you just can't buy a DVD formatted for American DVD players for some reason. It's pretty obscure. But it was real.

    Long story short, it happens, and while it may be a risk to have a character forget a major event, I think that the stranger the event and the more people discount it, the more likely it is that the character will doubt her own memory.
     
  21. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    Better late than never! I haven't started writing that part anyway. I like the personal anecdote. I've been thinking about this a lot and do have some experiences that I doubt whether they really happened or not, too. I have one random memory from fourth or fifth grade that involved an entire class of students, but no one else I've talked to who was in that class ever remembered it happening. It's not as fantastical as a portal, but either my mind made it up or everyone else I talked to forgot... Anyway, I'm feeling more confident that it's plausible for my MC to doubt this happening when people discount her, especially given all the other circumstances in the story.
     
  22. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    Keep in mind that MrWisp's example, if reported accurately, includes three potential causal factors - 1) he was suffering a "rare sleepless night" and therefore not in a normal receptive state; 2) he saw a strange film, probably made worse by the sleepless state; 3) he may have ingested alcohol-based medication (NyQuil) - none of which seem to pertain to your MC. In addition, he was able to recall it. As for your 4th grade example, it is very likely that your random memory was of an event too minor for someone to recall.

    In the end, it's your decision. But it seem to me that if you want to make it that she is uncertain of the reality of it, there needs to be some logical cause for that, be it illness, medication or trauma.
     
  23. MrWisp

    MrWisp Member

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    While what Ed said was true, you could easily include some circumstances that might lead your character to question her reality. Maybe she is sleep deprived when she finds the portal, or maybe she has a history of sleepwalking or intensely vivid dreams. Bottom line, there are plenty of ways to make it happen. I meant to include that in my original post. That would have helped my story make more sense. lol
     
  24. DeathandGrim

    DeathandGrim Senior Member

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    I'd say since it was a little girl that both are plausible because they don't particularly know much. Unless she's really really hooked on the idea.
     
  25. kburns421

    kburns421 Member

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    Between the combination of people discounting her story, her parents spending the next ten years influencing her to focus on practicality (not imagination and implausible things), and the location of the portal being somewhere hot and easy to fall asleep, I think it'll be ok. I now feel like this can be written in a way that readers will accept it. I can add or change things as I see fit if it's not coming off as believable. I'm trying not to plan exactly how she'll act when the experience is over, exactly who she'll tell, etc. because I want it to flow naturally with the story. I appreciate all the input I've gotten because it's been really helpful and given me a lot of ideas to work with and made me realize some things I should include that I would've otherwise left out.
     
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