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Description
Kenny has a problem. He's missing yesterday. His memory is wiped clean of one day. He encounters a stranger who knows him, the cops on his tail, his mother harassing him to come home to Earth and the strange ability to recount facts at random. Yesterday may no longer be a memory, but today is going to be memorable.






Comments
There is a lot here. Taking Google, Apple etc is a good idea, though I’d seriously shorten Google Earth to GE just for ease of reading. The formatting makes this quite a dense read. I’d consider spacing out between paragraphs / dialogue. I like the idea of the lost day, and some of this has a kind of a Total Recall vibe, which is good. It just seems rushed though. It’s dialogue heavy and is a pacy read, and perhaps you could have taken a little time to flesh it out a bit. Set the scene a little better. What is Google Earth like? Why are these outer planets created by corporations? Why pick Ken for this incredibly important role after a chance meeting at a party? If that’s Shantara who left the message on the phone, why does she not know his memory of the day before has been wiped? I do like a story that leaves a lot for the reader to fill in, but there are just too many questions here. It strikes me as being a good concept, but needs more development to make it a good story. But there are some positive things here – the screens showing Youtube videos, the Google Electronics telemarketing, the idea of a human being made to store all knowledge.
Hey Adam,
Thanks for taking the time to read ths story, I really apprecuate your thoughts. It's definitely something I wanted to expand on. It does seem rushed. Probably because I was imagining Ken's frantic day while writing. But yeah, I'm fascinated with the idea of this world. Thanks again!
I stopped at "harrasing". I would have continued with "harassing". Words matter.
Thanks for letting me know about the spelling error. Sorry that it turned you off to the reading of the piece. But you're right. Words do matter.
SPOILERS
First, you want to increase the first line indent to about a 1/2 inch. Either that or add about a line of extra space between paragraphs.
Second, don't use tabs to do it. Using a hard tab like that makes things messy if you ever have to change your formatting. Look up Paragraph Styles online check into how to use them to setup your indentation/line spacing. It's much more flexible and let's you think about writing the story without having to worry so much about formatting.
Now, you have a very fast paced, information dense story here. One thing that might help deal with that information density would be to go through and restyle the search results that are appearing in you Ken's head. (Look up a character style to do that with. That way you can easily change the formatting of all of the results at one time ;) Setting them apart wold help to distinguish between what he is thinking naturally and search results that have been stuffed into his head.
Adam is definitely correct about Shantara not leaving some form of contact information on his answering machine. Even if she just dropped the name of a unique restaurant or street corner and said "I know what's going on inside your head, met me ..." it would work better. Not leaving any contact info, knowing that Ken is missing a day really makes her sound like she has no clue what's going on. I was thinking a girlfriend or something of that nature initially.
You have a cool concept here. One that I can see as a really nasty way to go. Having your memories and mind slowly eroded by the sum total of all human knowledge is a really terrifying concept.
Keep at it!
Thanks for reading the piece. And thanks for the help with the formatting. That's not my strongest suit, so your tips really help me out. Much appeciated. And yes, I agree with both you and Adam about the Shantara plot point. I totally missed that.
Thank you again!
Okay. The style is really busy. You may just want to bring it back a click or two. But, you have an odd way of using the first-person and kind of mixing the past/present tenses that, while unsettling, I like a lot. Something about that style's uniquity I find charming. Mixing the ultra-fast pace and the peculiar style are overwhelming, though. It has to be one or the other.
Yeah. At the end of the day it's just a very, very busy piece. I think you have a lot of potential, but you're going to have to remember that there will be other projects - you can fit everything you think is cool into them, spread it out a little. A lot of the information in the story just didn't feel as if it was adding anything to the experience. The store of information? Absolutely. But not the experience of the reader.
Over all, a strong effort.
Thanks for reading the short story. And thank you for the feedback. All of it is helping me shape the story into something stronger. Yeah, all the fast pace and frantic nature of the story does tend to bleed into the mechanics of the writing which, at times, can affect the reader and pull them out of the story. It's something I battled while writing it. Thanks again!
For me, this was a great and enjoyable story. Everything flowed smoothly, and any confusion was only because the main character was confused as well. You threw info at us left and right, but it served the main thrust of your story well. I had no difficulty understanding what was going on, and I would agree with the above comment about the style being "charming." But in my case, it all worked.
Your main character was relatable. Just you're average Joe trying to get through life while the whole world is trying to bring him down. You have a convenient plot point that allows us to accept that he made this choice without totally explaining why he made that choice (even though we can infer it).
Very well done. Keep this good work up.
I guess I might have read a later version than the professional copy editor above did, because I couldn't even find any variation of the word harassing in there...
Thanks Ethan! I've been mulling the story over and over in my head. I've always thought it could be expanded or even tell an entirely different story within that world. It's definitely a universe I want to re-visit. Thanks for the support.