I have a story that I’m working on and something about it intrigues me yet confuses me.
My main protagonist has been cursed by someone or something. Because of the curse, she has lost her names and her memories of the past. She wanders around looking for clues to who she once was and she ends up traveling far. But there is another thing that the curse does, whenever she meets a person she loses memory of who that person was and gains a new name. The new name does not last as she gains a new name with each person she meets. She does not know what her true name was, but she does have many names.
My only gripe for this story is that she loses her memories of the people she meets, but keeps the name until she meets a new person and gains a new name.
This is all the curse’s doing and for some reason this makes me intrigued yet confused in a way. I guess I am confused about how she forgets the person yet still keeps the name.
What do you think?
NOTE: The character will be called “Nameless” as she doesn’t have her true name. This is hard for me because I never wrote a character without a name. She gains names from others, but they aren’t her true name.
The latin word Nemo means “no one”. “Nemona” would be a fitting alias, because explaining herself every time she gets a new name would be exhausting.
It may also be fitting to research memory conditions, as well. There are some forms of amnesia that make you unable to form new memories.
Whatever you choose, as long as you stay consistent in it, will be believed. It’s the inconsistency–not the understanding–that is important to most readers.
But as far as mechanics go, you can look at it on that level: 3rd person, omniscient (so YOU the writer know things she doesn’t):
The first thing to go was the smell. Haran she met on a battlefield, and the smell of offal tore through the decaying carcasses as a fresh shit smell. It wasn’t the best way to remember the man, but by the time the dead smelled of rot, all memory of Haran was gone. Then, for a time, she was known a Hara. She knew it was the namesake of someone who meant much to her, but damned if she knew what was missing from the name. There was no pause when she broke down the guts of prey, to boil them for stews.
For Theponie, it was the sight of poppies. The cheerful crimson flowers bobbed on the wind that took her curly brown hair on the same swaying dance. Then, she was known as Theonie, with no rememberance of the one who put perpetual delight on her face. And poppies were just flowers she crushed on the trails.
Something small and simple, like that, then becomes thematic in how you introduce each new person and remove them, as you’ve established the pattern.
So, you note things that correspond to meeting the new person and how those affect her memory.
I was oddly thinking that having her gain a new name but losing the memories of each person she meets was too much, even for me. This changes the story a bit.
It could also be a mix, like the conclusion is broken off from the first person at the end of each chapter, but you’d have to seperate it with a ~~~ OR do it as notes at the end of the page, like Terry Pratchett did.
To keep it 1st person–she KNOWS she has the condition, so have her desperately looking for the markers that make this person unique, and STILL lose them.
Bright idea of a journal with names and things from one who desperately wants her to remember. Have her manage to circumvent the curse for a while, until she leave the book somewhere, one day, and gets lost?
Like the curse only works when she meets one person or two (mainly one person). My guess is that when she is in a crowd it doesn’t work the same as when she meets a single person.