Writing Exercise Evaluation of Recollection 498201 and March’s Writing Prompt

Jordan Gravewyck
Mar 4, 2024
2 min read

This is an evaluation of my short story Recollection 498201, published on February 19th.

The image illustrates a humanoid figure seemingly overwhelmed by a vast sea of intense blue light waves. The figure is centrally located, appearing to be submerged and engulfed by the undulating digital waves, conveying a sense of drowning or being consumed by the surrounding data-like environment. The intricate network of bright lines and patterns that envelop the figure enhances the impression of a complex and possibly overpowering digital or virtual space. The overall effect is one of a struggle or overstimulation within the expanse of a digital ocean.

The prompt was an attempt to capture that vague feeling one gets when one's perception shifts to an earlier version of oneself and is surprised by one's surroundings.

As I began to jot down ideas for a story, I decided to supplement my list with suggestions from using a large language model. In principle, this is not much different from a technique I used of writing out several lists and then rolling dice to see if anything was interesting. During this process, I imagined a senile old person who had used this technology to achieve success in their career, the idea that automated thinking could continue after the mind failed. I considered the trope of them not being sure where their “natural” identity ended and which of their ideas or thoughts were the result of the tools. This line of thought led to me musing about how much of our identity is defined by our flawed memories, closing the loop with the senility.

I think the story works at slowly building the horror of Andy’s situation; the idea that one’s memories are owned by a company has certainly been done before, but, as far as I know, the idea of not being sure what memories are natural to one’s own brain versus those from a service is original.

I feel much better about this story than A Cursed Pet.

The first thing criticism I have is that I could have done a better job on ElysiaGen’s voice. In general, the intrusive “thoughts” generated by ElysiaGen were distinct from Andy’s narration and internal monolog, but when I started directly tagging the memories recalled by ElysiaGen with time stamps, ElysiaGen lost its voice.

I think it would have worked better if I just wrote those memories and timestamps in the second person, reinforcing Andy’s fugue state and alienation from the entity providing information. I could have even included the time information as part of that, as though ElysiaGen was providing details to a lucid Andy after a fugue state.

The pacing was an issue beyond what I noted above. My fun little world-building details didn’t add much to the story. That and ElysiaGen’s wordy responses really slow the narrative. Several rounds of edits would have done this story some good.