A Piece Of My Heart

Delving into the Backstory

Thanks to this cool forum, "Devil's Advocate" , I’ve been fleshing out the background of my story "More than a Memory"  and getting motivation to write more! It’s really helpful to have an outside mind ask questions so I can put my own thoughts in order enough to be understandable Below, I’ve pasted my thoughts in response to the questions I was given.


What are the origins of the plague?
This is really important, isn't it? And yet, I haven't given it much thought. I imagine it would have something to do with overpopulation and pollution and the rapid spread of air-borne disease that wipes out vast cities in an extremely short period of time. This would result in the need for walls and isolation, which causes cities to be completely self-contained and expand vertically rather than outward into the perceived danger of the wastes (the dead zones between cities).

Why do Jonathan and his wife choose to be preserved?
In the beginning, I played with the idea of them wanting to be preserved because of some financial benefit. Either, they were paid to do it, or their lives in 2018 were so poor, that they had nothing to lose in doing it. Right now, I'm liking the idea that they were paid to be preserved because that adds to the sinister plans of ALTO. ALTO had been planning this for a long time, and perhaps ... OH! Perhaps! ALTO caused the plague in the first place in order to necessitate their business model of selling memories of Returners. Their goal is to instill fear in the populous and monopolize the business of "experience" so that the only way people can acquire experiences/memories of the outside world is to go through ALTO.

What do people do with the memories and how does ALTO get them?
Once the memories are taken, they are given to whoever paid for them, resulting in the original holder of the memory completely without that memory (perhaps left with a void or knowledge of something missing), and the memory is complete for the person who received it. They can talk about their "trip to Egypt" in full detail because they were there in the memory, even though their body did not have that experience. The reason people purchase memories from Returners specifically is because those people carry with them all their memories of the world before the Plague, which makes them valuable. ALTO acquires the memories from unwitting Returners. Perhaps the motivation again is money. Perhaps they are promised something in return, but the memory of that promise is removed as well so they are completely scammed out of their memories.

What is the state of the government after all this time? or is ALTO a black-market operation?
ALTO is not black-market. Rather, I think they are funded by the government, if they aren't completely run by the government itself. I imagine the whole economy is driven by this corporation, whether people know it or not. This is one aspect I'll have to think more on. I do know they have to be mega powerful, but in a behind-the-scenes kind of way.

What does the technology in this era look like?
I want the technology to be ever so slightly more advanced, but in subtle ways that aren't super "in your face." For example, the second chapter contains a scene with Jon interacting with a smart holographic TV and a clone/drone woman, but he notes that most everything else is similar to how he remembered it from the past. I'm also thinking about the city itself. I describe the city a tiny bit in chapter one. The sides of the buildings are green and blue and there seem to be no motorized vehicles of any kind. I want the buildings' electricity to be powered by algae and solar and the lack of cars to be a result of the over pollution of the past. The city has a very small footprint, but is extremely tall. All the buildings are skyscrapers and there are sky bridges connecting everything. This makes it easy to walk everywhere. Anyway, long story short, the technology is advanced, but only in certain things, so not incredibly intrusive in the story. I want the characters to live what we would call "normal" lives, but simply have some tech that is highly advanced to spice up the experience for my Returners.

What is keeping Jonathan going?
His need to find his wife, though I think I'm going to give him a secondary motivation as well to deepen his character. The current idea is that finding his wife is the initial driver of the story, but then through his search, he comes to uncover the nefarious actions of the ALTO Corporation and their memory stealing operation. As his hopes of finding his wife dwindle because he seems to be getting no closer to her, his focus shifts to protecting other "Returners" like himself from having their old lives stolen by ALTO. In the end, Jon is able to prove that the fears people have of the wastes between cities being contaminated by the plague are unfounded. This means that the residents of the city will be able to freely roam the world again and make their own memories, thus toppling any power held by ALTO. The conclusion of the story will be people rebuilding the land between cities (re-establishing the wilderness) and Jon finally finding Val (though I'm not completely clear on how this will happen just yet). She'll be older than him (I'm imagining he is 25 and she'll be 65 by the time they meet again), but this won't matter and they'll live happily together outside of the city.

It’s coming together!
-Emily