Face-Lift 1566

Guess the Plot

The Memory Incubator

1. Since people are happier when they have happy memories, Velma invents a machine that will, over time, convert bad memories into good ones. Unfortunately, after a bad breakup, her ex gets hold of it. Can she recover it before he uses it to convince her she's the target of a serial killer?

2. Berkely just discovered that her husband has been using his memory machine to replace her real memories with fake memories. Now the effects are wearing off, and she knows her husband isn't her husband! And she murdered a woman once, or maybe not. So confusing.

3. Can't find the TV remote control? Just place the memory incubator on your head, wait 5 to 10 minutes, and you'll remember where you put it last. Which, as Alice finds out, doesn't help if your husband was the one who last had it.

Original Version

Dear [AGENT],

Berkeley Babbitt’s perfectly curated life is falling apart. [That sounds too much like Ashley Babbitt. Readers will wonder if that was intentional. As they would if you named a character Ronald Trump.] She’s always worn the right clothes, said the right things, and maintained the perfect marriage. Lately, though, she’s been getting nosebleeds, headaches, even losing time. [I don't know what "losing time" means, but headaches and nosebleeds have little to do with what one wears or says. Nor are they good examples of a life falling apart.] It all started the day she remembered pushing a woman in front of a train. [I would be more intrigued if that last sentence were the only sentence in the paragraph.]

Her husband, Tom, insists it never happened and schedules her for a Smoothing session. Canopus, Tom’s company, [That sounds a lot like cannabis. Is that intentional?] invented Smoothing to bury the unpleasant parts of life. But some memories refuse to stay buried—especially the image of a little girl, long gone. A daughter Tom claims never existed.

[Berkeley: I just remembered something. I once pushed a woman in front of a train. Also, don't we have a daughter?

Tom: Have you been dipping into the Canopus again?]

Desperate for answers, Berkeley risks an underground procedure to unlock her neural implant. What she learns breaks her world apart. Her marriage to Tom is a sham, and Canopus has been using her mind to cultivate [filling her mind with?] artificial memories realistic enough to replace the truth. For years, those false memories have been used to whitewash crimes, cover up atrocities, and rewrite history. [Were these crimes and atrocities committed by Berkeley? Or were they national news stories that were depressing her?]

She finds allies. A conspiracy vlogger searching for his missing friend and a guilt ridden Canopus engineer watching buried crimes bleed back into the world. Berkeley discovers she wasn’t the one who pushed that woman in front of a train years ago. [My guess is that Tom did it.] [I was expecting something about what these allies are doing to help. Her discovery about the train only belongs in this paragraph if you tie it to the alliance. She wouldn't need allies to Google "woman pushed in front of train" and find out some guy did it.]

But she was there.

Now Berkeley must recover the life they stole from her and expose Canopus before Tom schedules her for permanent Smoothing. [Why didn't they permanently Smooth her in the first place? Wait, is temporary Smoothing cheaper?] If she fails, she won’t just lose her mind. She’ll lose the last proof she ever existed. [I assume proof that she existed will exist somewhere.]

THE MEMORY INCUBATOR is an adult psychological thriller with near-future speculative elements, complete at 70,000 words. It combines the domestic dread of Sarah Gailey’s The Echo Wife with the multi-POV memory manipulation of Jo Harkin’s Tell Me an Ending, in a propulsive style that will appeal to readers of Blake Crouch’s Recursion.

I hold degrees in Cinema and Creative Writing from [REDACTED]. As a film and video editor for over twenty years, I have spent my career manipulating timelines and curating reality. It's a skillset that directly inspired the memory-editing mechanics in THE MEMORY INCUBATOR. [Instead of "mechanics," did you consider using a chemical compound that Tom mixes with fruit and yogurt in a blender? Not sure what you'd call such a concoction.]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

When someone schedules you for permanent Smoothing, do you have to show up for the appointment?

Perhaps some specific information about how Berkeley and her allies plan to take down Canopus could be worked in.

Apparently Berkeley never volunteered for Smoothing, but was kidnapped and used as a Guinea pig? But taking away her memories of crimes and atrocities doesn't mean they didn't happen, so what is Canopus gaining? And can't she find out they happened with Google?

Was erasing her memory of her daughter supposed to be favor to her?