Writing Exercise 11: Re-Writing Memories

The latest and most accepted theory about long-term memories in the brain is that every time we remember a memory, we re-write it in our brains. Usually as almost identical. These different versions, all stored together, combine to for the memory you will conjure up the next time, which will have another copy, slightly different, saved.

It's a bit of a concept to wrap your head around. Surely the memories you hold dear haven't changed in your mind. In essence probably not, though they have been updated with newer versions of the same thing.

Anyway, to the exercise.

1) Write a 200-250 word scene.
2) re-write it without looking at the first story you wrote. Just using memory.
3) Do this again, based on your latest version until you have three or four variations of the same scene.
What do they have in common?
What changed?
If it doesn't teach you about your writing style, it'll still help you realise the essence of your ideas which run through your stories and hopefully make editing less painful, knowing there are hundreds of ways to get your same essence across.


The Essence of Evil by *BlackMysticA on deviantART