Basically, I plan on setting up my opening scene in such a way that when my MC later thinks back to those moments, she doesn't remember if she dreamed it or if it really happened. BUT I do want her to recall exactly what she read, only out of order. How can I build her character profile and write her into the story in such a way that she has a photographic memory? Or even better, a disjointed photographic memory?
You don't have to always "show", you can also "tell" the reader that this character has an ability to memorize things very well and that would be enough of an explanation when the character starts to reconstruct the memory with a high degree of clarity. In movies they usually show you a whole scene where the character would demonstrate how they have a special ability and then in the crucial moment they will put that ability to good use, but in a book you don't have to have a full scene: "Jenny had the ability to remember long shopping lists without writing them down. It was her special party trick. Now the text of "Harry Potter Volume 12" she had seen in her dreams began to appear in front of her just as clearly. At first she could see just the first page, then the second one, but eventually she could read the whole book as if it was right in front of her. Now if she typed really fast, she could write that Goodreads review before anybody else."
If you have any questions about photographic memory, feel free to PM me. I have it, and it can be both a blessing and a curse. Blessing: in school I never had to study for tests, because I could "thumb through" the pages of the relevant chapter in my head and "look up" and "read" the answers from the the textbook in my head. Curse: In high school, I was falsely accused of cheating on a test because my high score on a test was too "out of the normal range for the rest of the class" and the teacher didn't believe I have photographic memory. Blessing: lots of wonderful memories, in vivid detail. Also a curse: you remember the bad as vividly as the good. It can cause friction in relationships with people who are in denial about something, because your memory refutes their belief that whatever it was didn't happen.
Hey, are you me? I remember telling my roommates in college that I could remember if a fact was at the top or bottom of the page, or if it was adjacent to a picture, and they looked at me like I was a loon. That was actually my first inkling that not everyone remembers things visually like I do.
Yeah, the looking at me like I was a loon when the subject of photographic memory came up sounded uncomfortably familiar!
I remember reading a book about a teen/preteen who solved mysteries using her photographic memory...when she took a 'picture', she said "Click!" Usually under her breath, but that was her trick for memorizing things. I thought it was so stinkin cool to have that power. Oh, posts are supposed to be constructive? Uh...yeah, i have nothing further to add. >_>
I don't know about photographic memory - put I do know that an above average memory can be a curse. I know a woman that remembers everyone's birthday, the date they were married and the year so and so met or this and that happened. She is mistrusted and widely disliked. People accuse her of, having a secret book were she writes everything down. I believe she just has an exceptional memory and that she is not a bad person at all; she is just misunderstood.
Based on what I know about photographic memory, it's not just remembering everything. It's like having an encyclopedia in your brain. You have to look through it and find what you want. I would write it that way. If a person is remembering something perfectly, have them think for a second, and then have a paragraph pop out that sounds like it was written for a dictionary, or an encyclopedia.
There are different forms of it. Some forms of photographic memory are more visual, some are word "trivia based," such as being able to pull up any given date in one's lifetime and knowing what one was doing on that date (the actress Marilu Henner has this type), some forms are remembering certain things such as textbooks or phone numbers. There are also many different things that can make the memory stick. It's not just one thing, and some people, like, me, have a combination of more than one. ETA: The form can also change over time. ETA: It can also be auditory--remembering in the form of hearing the information, as opposed to "reading" it or "seeing" it like a movie. ETA: Also, I feel it important to point out that you don't remember "everything." There may be someone out there who does, but most of the people I've talked with who have it have stronger memory in certain areas, just anyone else. My memory banks have always been lousy when it comes to sense of direction, for example. I'm not the person to ask where we parked the car, but I can tell you the name of the guy who sold it to us, what we all were wearing, and detail the complete conversation we had at the car lot and what the contract said, and if I've read the manual I can tell you what page the problem you're trying to look up is on.
