Story Idea 2: Mind Wipe

Okay, so I've been reading The Devil's Eye by Jack McDevitt, and one of the devices he uses in this particular universe is the mind wipe, which is a socially instituted way for criminals and others who want a new stab at life to move on. They're housed in a facility for a few weeks until they relearn how to read, walk, communicate, be a person etc, and are given a fake history and family, then sent off to a distant part of the known worlds as a completely new person. No record exists to correlate between the old persona and the new--the person has effectively died. Memorial services are held, yadda yadda. In many ways, this notion is similar to suicide (which McDevitt always manages to touch on).

That's all McDevitt, and it's a relatively minor part of his universe structure.

Now, here's my spin and where a story comes out of it; what if someone who wanted a mind wipe to escape some past was so famous that other people knew who he used to be? But he doesn't know who he used to be, because... he's a completely different person. He notices that people follow him around and ask him strange questions. The key to tying this story together would be that the mind wipe procedure would be kept off the page for as long as possible. There can't be some lost lover who surfaces to tell him all of the things he was--that kills suspense, and it takes emphasis away from the main character, who is personality 2 and not personality 1.

The story would be driven by his own attempts to discover who he was, and more importantly, why he chose to undergo the procedure. It has nothing to do with some military amnesia or whatever--I'm not interested in that. That's been done.

Is he maybe still a little himself? (p1)? Or is he just a random guy (p2) looking into the history of some gone and dead celebrity?

It would take a lot of handwaving, but that's why it's showing up in Skeleton Plots.

Story Idea

So a lot of times I come up with skeleton story ideas and they fall to the wayside; I usually don't give them any attention because they're so fleeting and, well, I have a million (3) other stories I'm developing at the moment.

Nevertheless, there is probably some value in cataloging these story ideas. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Even if someone stole the idea, it would be getting more light than I ever intend to shed on it.

Enough with exposition: on with the show.

So a character encounters a meteorite, but it doesn't give him any special powers or anything--he just takes it as a sign that something fantastic is happening in his life and he begins looking for signs everywhere, thinking that his state in life will improve, his relationships with women, whatever.

And basically, it doesn't. The people close to him think he's being crazy and unreasonable, and in the end the message is that you have to do things for yourself, and no meteorite, mystically empowered or otherwise, can change that.





I told you it was skeletal.