 Drama: June 15, 2016 Issue [#7693] |
  Drama
This week: Memory Lane Edited by: lizco252
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Many, many moons ago, when I was working as a new accounts representative at a bank, our bank was robbed. It was a fairly quiet affair; the man walked up to the teller window, showed his gun, and passed the teller a note demanding all of the money in her cash drawer. None of us knew what was happening until the man left and the teller rounded the corner of the teller line, sobbing that she had just been robbed. Because of our security training, the bank went on lock-down, we all grabbed our robbery packets, and proceeded to isolate ourselves from our co-workers, which was standard operating procedure. Preparing for the arrival of the police and the FBI, we all began filling out the forms in the robbery packets. The packets contained questions asking us what we saw, how did the perpetrator behave, what did he look like, did he have any strange mannerisms, any markings, what did his voice sound like, etc. It might seem strange that the isolation of each employee was demanded, but in the event of a robbery, said isolation is imperative so that law enforcement can get an accurate description of the event from each witness, before what they remember becomes clouded or tainted by the recollections of the other witnesses.
In the same vein, having recently served on a jury for a murder trial, I was struck, as a juror, by how many witnesses ~ from family and friends, to investigators, coroners, crime scene technicians and first responders ~ needed to have their memories "refreshed" by their statements made immediately after the event. In my mind, an event, such as a murder, should have been etched and carved into a person's memory, but as time marches on, memories become less and less clear, and they are subject to perception ~ even in the eyes of the witnesses ~ who aren't necessarily lying, but whose perception of events has become muddied by third parties, friends, family members, outside influences, etc.
Memory can be a fun thing to play with in your writing and an interesting way to explore how your characters perceive events (but beware, it can become an over-used trope or plot device, and even you, as the writer, can lose your way trying to keep them straight). If you have two characters who witness the same event, do they remember and agree on how the event unfolded, or do they have a completely different perception of the same event? Why would their perception(s) be different? Does that difference make one of them right and the other wrong? Maybe they're both right and no one's wrong, but is that possible?
That question can be hard to answer, especially when writing about friends and family. How many of us have had conversations with a family member that started off with, "Remember when..." only to have them blurt out, "That's not what happened! What are you talking about?"
Of course, that's when uncertainty can creep in, perhaps causing your character(s) to start questioning their own memories. Did they really see what they thought they saw? Is their memory flawed? Is it even correct?
Answering these questions can take your story in a whole new direction, so go with the flow and see where it takes you!
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