So my female mc is the crown princess. She escapes her pursuers, jumps from a cliff, and then ends in a coma for a year. When she wakes up she only remembers a part of her name and the male MCs name. Her enemies find her and she escapes to the place-subconsciously-where the male MC is located. How do i go about telling the story from her perspective while she doesn't remmeber the people around her? She does have flashbacks but she's pretty much amnesiac until the climax.
sensitivity: amnesia as a plot device could be problematic if it detracts from the real-world condition. It occurs to me that when amnesia follows a brain injury it's likely to be accompanied by other symptoms, and to be complicated or narratively-messy. Possible research might be amnesia charities or there are first-hand stories by people who live with the condition. https://www.brainline.org/article/post-traumatic-amnesia-after-brain-injury. Personally I'd take the view that her perspective is probably more valuable than whatever the intended story was, and to tell an extremely honest story of the character's injury.
My mom has retrograde amnesia from a car accident. She only remembers what happened just before that, so she cannot remember the moment they crashed. And there are "flashes" of pictures and impressions. Like, my dad calling her name (which he did right after the accident, because she didn't move). Or the EMTs cutting her clothes off in the ambulance. Between those "flashes" there are gaps. Her memory then resumes at the point when she woke up in the hospital hours after the accident. As far as I know, she still cannot remember the parts inbetween.
When she meets someone whom she's supposed to know but can't remember, she has to describe them like she would when meeting a stranger. At some point they would probably tell her who they are, try to make her remember by telling her something from their common past and such. If it's in 1st-person POV, it can get tricky but it's still quite makeable. If your POV is 3rd-person, I fail to see how it should be difficult. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your question. Can you describe in more detail one scene that feels difficult to write?
When writing character-related stuff I've learned to think deeply into my own experiences that are similar to what they're going through, and also other people's experiences that I've witnessed, preferably people I knew well and who shared their thought processes with me. In that way you see the processes from inside and from outside. Think about what it's like when you wake up partially remembering a powerful dream, but most of it is lost. Or any old memories you may have that are partial, and you can't remember big chunks of them. If you're young and have a good memory this might not be a reality to you (yet). Also think about when you've heard other people struggling to remember something, like when telling a story or trying to remember the name of an actor in a movie or something. There are tricks that sometimes work. My mind will give me what seem like false clues at first. Let me just tell a little story to get this across: Let's say I'm struggling to remember an actor's name who was in a movie (the name of which I also can't recall). I might say, with frustration in my voice "You know, he was in all those Biblical movies from the 50's... like Ben Hur. No, I think that was Charlton Heston, wasn't it? That's not who I'm trying to think of, but he reminds me of him in certain ways. He had the famous big chin with a huge dimple at the end of it. Oh, he has a son who's also an actor. What movies was he in? Geez, I can't think of any right now, but he was really popular in the 80's. The Wolf of Wall Street? No, that was more recent, and had Leo DiCaprio in it. But it was the same kind of movie, he was a Wall Street guy and mega-rich and powerful. Oh, he had an alliterative name. Something like Johnny January. Was the movie actually called Wall Street? I think maybe it was. Michael Keaton? No. Not Keaton, but Michael is right. Douglas!! Michael Douglas, and his dad was Kirk Douglas! Yeah, that's who I was trying to think of." (I actually went through this convoluted exercise just recently trying to remember his name.) So you can see how the mind is able to provide roundabout clues that need to be puzzled through before you arrive at the answer. You wouldn't want to get as detailed as I did here in a story, what would be overkill, but be aware of the tortuous paths the mind takes to patch through missing memories, and the various ways it circles around the the answers. You might have a character unable to get more than some of these wrong roundabout clues for part of the story, until they start to think more deeply into them and new answers start to surface that could still be roundabout but much closer, and then suddenly the answer is there.
I have a character that has amnesia. When she was 5, the villain hits her over the head with a rock and leaves her to die. She doesnt remember what happened and she has memories of just before but doesnt remember who the people are in the memories (for example, she remembers 2 little boys fighting and wrestling, but doesnt recognize the 2 men in front of her as the brothers from before.... So she cant pinpoint who had hit her with the rock). She also remembers sensations... The comforting feeling when one of the men put his arm around her was familiar, and when this woman squeezed her hand, it pulls up the feeling of terror and she starts to figure out that that person isnt a good person compared to the guy. (The woman, as a child, had dragged the MC by the hand into a cave and hit her repeatedly with the rock to kill her... And the MC remembers the fear associated with the person) My grandpa had dementia, not amnesia, but he still lost his memories. However, certain things made him remember feeling associated with it. He'd start smiling for no apparent reason and when you'd ask him, he'd just say "im happy" When he my uncle brought home his new baby, my grandpa held him and started crying. So for my character, i focused on situations that would have her remembering certain emotions rather than memories. She does have flashes of memories, but she has visions too and doesnt really know what shes seeing half the time
After the fmc finds the mc she wakes up in his bed. She was injured and he healed her. He feels familiar to her but she doesnt know if she could trust him as the last person she met she felt familiar with but he is the antagonist and was the reason she was injured. Im trying to write the scene from 3rd pov without saying that she knows him or his nuances. Does that help?
I assume when she wakes up, they talk about something. Is this awakening the moment when she first realizes she has lost her memory? How healthy or ill does she feel? Probably she asks him what happened to her. Does he want anything from her? What does she want to do?
After the cliff when she wakes up, thats when she knows she doesnt remember anything but half of her name. Shes pretty weak but after a year she recovers physically.
My advice, write them like you would any other character. Just bear in mind that their 'new' personality and their 'old' one can (and in my opinion) and should differ from eachother. Even if they wind up acting the same or making similar decisions, as it stands they are not who they were originally. They should have inklings of their old life/memories buried deep below, but keep that stuff on a subconscious level.
