no title?

i like the theme of memory central to your story. the job interview could be a good way to build suspense and frame the story, but i found the prose and the dialogue to be a little stilted.

some comments:

Spoiler

the first sentence of your story is a bit wordy. the first clause can be made more active, and the eerie charm clause tells more than shows (the dark corridor conjures an eerie image for us). maybe something like: “Gemma Farley had taken the elevator at the end of the dark corridor only once or twice before and its eerie charm was not lost on her yet.”

i don’t know if you wanted to stick in the “once or twice” in here to set up early that Gemma may have forgotten something and this is part of her memory issues or if it is just a background detail. shouldn’t Gemma have never been down to the Department of Mysteries before this interview? you could revise to say “Gemma had never taken the elevator… yet she felt at home in the eery, dark corridor” to get the sense that she has been down more than once and can feel it intuitively even if she can’t remember.

also the phrase “but that made sense” is unnecessary since you give the explanation immediately after.

Often when you have Gemma’s thoughts in the story, they don’t really tell us anything new. also, you can get at what she’s thinking with her gestures, body language, posture, and response to her interviewer. this thought is redundant since she quotes what was said to her and her proof of being “up to snuff” is the conversation. what she says next should get this across instead.

Her first thought seems rather obvious. not sure if we need her direct thought here. also the “it seemed” sentence following is a bit long and awkward. you also go on to tell us how the brains work (“meaning…”), and the end “if anything” is a bit conversational.

the second thought explains what she just said to the employee, so i don’t think you need it.

parts of your dialogue that read a little stilted to me and slowed down the pace. “we do, yes” can be omitted since the employee can just nod or you can have him say “that’s how you control for…” straight away implying a yes answer to her question. “glad you asked” also seems unnecessary.

this is nice. it characterizes Gemma, who has been a fine job candidate up to this point, as someone is unsure of her identity. adds a bit of creepiness to the scene and sets up the ending.

i also didn’t mind Gemma’s thoughts here. since she doesn’t voice the question it adds something new and also shows how she is beginning to find something odd about the interview. why wouldn’t this be about her credentials? what is it about then?

why does Gemma have a “confused look” if he’s asking about knowledge of Legilimency, etc. seems like a reasonable question? also you could tell us she sat up straighter, quirked an eyebrow, more physical description of how she expresses her confusion.

long sentence makes it difficult to read, which you probably don’t want since the new regulations are important for the content of the story.

Ok, so employees stay in line because the Department knows about their families? the employee here seems interested and motivated in researching the Memory Charm without that over his head, and if they are “defenders of the common good” won’t they recognize what they’re doing is fine without the necessity for hostages? and the Hit Wizards example isn’t quite the same thing since they are holding dirt on their colleagues as a way to protect themselves.

this is a considerable non-reaction to the idea of hostage-taking. shouldn’t Gemma react a little? even if she’s fine with it? this “smile to herself” and the paragraph that follows is jarring when compared with with what precedes it because it seems more like she’s satisfied with how the interview is going.

i don’t think you need the thought and the speech here since they express similar ideas. just one is fine. if you want to make Gemma seem canny in this situation you could have her say “I suppose I should not expect to remember it” to the interviewer.

why wouldn’t they be discussing the Memory Charm? they haven’t really changed topics. i think it’s clear to the reader too that he’s testing her memory and he may have tampered with it.

Gemma “feigning uncertainty” and the interviewer saying “some other time” makes this thought unnecessary and overly explain-y.

i like that the story turns and Gemma becomes a prisoner/lab rat, but the explanation the interviewer gives Gemma ties things up really quickly though.

and the ending raises some questions for me… weren’t there new regulations saying the DoM could just mindwipe people and then send them via owl? why couldn’t they do that for Gemma? 7 days is a long time, but she would presumably not get anywhere asking questions about the Department of Mysteries, or they could lie to her and say she did some work for them but it was need-to-know so they Obliviated her.

i think it would be even cooler if she ended up being one of the brains (or did you mean to do that? i couldn't tell) since you spend so much time on that at the beginning of the story. she doesn’t realize she has had this conversation before and that she is without a body because of all the memories the interviewer has implanted in her.

thanks for your submission!

 

Spoiler

Did she get brain-in-a-jar'd? I think so, which is if nothing else an interesting idea. I think you could've gotten more out of it, though. There's a bit of stuff I realized on scrolling through it again, which I think you could've been more obvious about. Like the whole "Umbridge is the Supreme Undersecretary" thing - his interjection being "it would've been a few days ago now" - the end being about there "having been" some political tumult: this isn't a new interview, it's her retreading the old one.

The rest of the piece lacks something, I think. The idea of the Unspeakables making the whole family hostages is whatever, Hit Wizards all being "executed" criminals is IMO really, really stupid. If the idea is that Farley cheated her way in somehow (this time) then I think that could've been made clearer, too.

And, finally, if this is a retread of the old interview, why? What did the Unspeakable learn from this, other than to give her a parting shot she can't even really stew on?

On a technical level, it's serviceable. It's not super clean, but by the same metric I can't name any standouts immediately of where things went really wrong.

In summary, a pretty decent effort. 3/5.

 

Spoiler

5/5 for plot, climax, and prompt use.
2/5 for protagonist, antagonist, and characterization.

As Blorcyn recently said, a good story lives or dies by its characters, not its events.

You have a very good idea here, but I wish you'd made me care more about Gemma. If you had, I would've cared far more about the tragic end she meets. You hit us with way too much exposition about the project and not nearly enough about the lab (aka the setting) and the people in it.

For the most part, Gemma doesn't think very much about herself and her past. You do take some opportunities to sprinkle background and characterization here and there, but not a ton. I recognize that Gemma is in an addled state (unbeknownst to her), but that shouldn't prevent interesting thoughts from occurring to her as she's "interviewed." If anything, it's an opportunity for her thoughts to be a bit loopier and more dream-like. Don't be afraid to let your main character's mind wander a little bit. These thoughts don't need to be italicized, either.

If I'd gotten more details like that, I think I would've been more distracted from the inevitable twist ending we were hurtling toward.

 

Spoiler: A Quick one

Another brief attempt to share my opinion and any brief thoughts I have. I read this a few days ago now, and it's better to jot something down than just leave it hanging and not get around to it before the comp is over, I suppose.

So, I think this is the strongest opening for an entry. Your technical ability in writing is stronger than either of the other competitors and the promise of good characterisation is always the thing that most excites me in an opening. However, where I warmed to one, I cooled to you as we went along.

The essential problem is your dialogue.

While you establish a likeable character to start, who we are willing to get to know better, the potential is then squandered, in service to a twist that you telegraph too hard.

Further, there's no clear direction.

I think I could ramble on, but most of all I'd direct you resources that deal with Dialogue.

Chuck Palahniuk writes some essays on Disconnected Dialogue in his 36 nuts and bolts craft essays and this should be easily 'findable' though I can't link it as per rules of site.

Further, Savage Books is a youtuber who works as a book editor, of all the youtuber's I watch, his 'Dialogue Dives' are the best for this. He's got a few and they all cover different things, this one isn't chosen specifically for you, so have a look through his stuff.

Essentially good dialogue in this story should consist of her altering sense of power in the conversation which doesn't come across well, and in our altering understanding of the time period this is taking place which doesn't come across well - and so the twist at the end feels almost perfunctory.

Her goal is 'get the job'. Sure, great, this is reasonable. But did it all have to be a seated interview? Did it all have to be her interviewer discussing this or that in obvious exposition?

I don't think so.

I think you should analyse the beats of the scene, see what's exposition, what's goal reevaluation and new action, and then when you realise there's not much, slash the words and alter the story. Throw something in other than walking to the interview and walking to the back office.

If this twist is all that you want it to be, then you might as well chop it in half, cus it's long for what it is.

 

Spoiler

I'm conflicted on this. There's lots of touches I like, but I'm not sure it all adds up to something the sum of its parts...yet I also kind of feel like it might be my favourite of the three?

Overall, I thought it was decently written; not anything special, but nicely done, and while the twist isn't exactly a shock, I didn't think it was outrageously obvious either; the final scene strikes an effectively chilling note. As I write this, I'm reminded a little of the Black Mirror Christmas special from a few years ago - White Christmas? - particularly the framing device for it. Anyway. As I kind of said, it's the little things that stand out for me. Quill twiddler as an equivilent to pen pusher, the origins of the brains (both the literal origins and the reason for them being in the DoM), the idea of spells being constantly refined and improved rather than created and the results varying based on individual talent.

It's perhaps a little rushed? Maybe in a longer piece, or without the deadline pressure, this could be refined, with the tension of the end more effectively strung throughout rather than loaded at one end. Still, an enjoyable read.

3/5.

 

Spoiler

The biggest takeaway I have after reading this is that it just doesn't feel like there's a story. It's a bit too disjointed for my liking. I don't think I can fault you too much for it though, I had the same issue myself with a story I wrote for a previous competition. The story starts off pretty strongly and just fizzles out towards the end.

Which is fine, if there's a promise for something more afterwards. But I think the twist at the end should have some sort of build-up, either some foreshadowing or misleading, both of which don't really seem to be present in your story.

Another thing I would like to see is just more of Gemma. She's there the whole time, sure, but I don't think there's enough there that allowed me to be really attached to her character. I think the reader just needs to know more about who she is or about her own character. She's just a bit too blank for me to really be interested.

It's still nicely done. I can feel something bigger than the core of the story working in the background, which create nice layers to your world. I just think it might be a bit better to focus on the surface a bit more, because that's the part that we get more attached to.

 

Spoiler

I liked the premise but like others, I think that Gemma isn't someone relatable because you haven't made her a character we feel all that sympathetic for, or attached to at all. If you had her arrogant and miss even more of the creepy atmosphere at least she'd have more personality. I did like how we get to see how she acts after she's told she's going to be a brain in a jar, but its a bit of a plothole for why they're keeping her when they could just mindwipe a week of her life and leave a letter.

I think that you could also expand a bit more on the character of the Unspeakable, have him have a glint in his eye, sadistically amused, or even just chillingly calm and apathetic, instead, we just see - in a normal fic I wouldn't care but if it's a short I don't think going bland with characterization is a good idea.

One thing I do have to give you props for is the uneasy atmosphere. That was good for sure. I'd give this a 3.5/5 overall though.

 

Spoiler

Once again I find myself enjoying the initial premise - what the unspeakables get up to, from the perspective of a new recruit - and I find it fits the prompt beautifully. I got even more excited when you started to inject some creepiness into it , as I am not only a fan of the genre but I feel there is plenty of potential for it in the HP universe, memory manipulation being just one example. Unfortunately I was slightly confused as to what exactly was happening throughout and even more so at the end, where I didn’t even ‘get’ what the twist was at all, even with a second and then a third, reading. I think that if you wanted to suggest that Gemma was about to become a brain there were clearer ways to do so, though I don’t think that particular twist even made any sense at all (more on this later). Was she a brain already and that is what you were getting at? Is she to become a generic ‘lab rat’ and that’s it? I’m afraid I just don’t have a clue, which sort of detracts from the whole experience.

Anyway, some thoughts as I went through:

Spoiler

I don't like it - elevator shaft is not a path but a ride.

You call it eerie, but you don't have a single descriptor - you even call the door nondescript for chrissakes. Naughty, naughty.

Odd phrasing an odd sentiment. Ever since making prefect she’s been ruling her emotions? I didn't realise school prefects had such a large responsibility (?) Overall rather weak opening I must say.

Again, odd sentiment. I get Gemma is an odd cookie but this logic is kind of confusing - does she mean that only the ministry is worthy, only the department of mysteries and if so why? Is it a patrician sentiment a nerdy one (ala only the researchers should have the product of their research). So many interpretations, none that add anything other than slight confusion.

Huh? An inspector¿ Don't the department of mysteries sort of do their own thing?

Yeah, exactly. This exposition seems to contradict what the unspeakable just said. Also the thought seems unnecessary, also this whole thing seems unnecessary. Later on you will tell us how the department has hostages and shit, so why is the decree of reasonable secrecy relevant to their independence - it seems they have the means to guarantee it already.

Is this the wizarding equivalent of human resources? Because I hate it, thanks.

Noice, but Gemma has only remarked on the lighting so far - remove the first mention so that the second is more impactful?

a bit inelegant - not clear whether the glass itself was green or was tinted so by whatever liquid was inside - an example that makes it a bit clearer I feel

Why capitalise ‘Room’?

Try as I might i don't understand what you mean to say here. Erase all the redundant info and we are left with this; Originally we were studying illusions. We'd been able to manage with simple memory charms up until then (huh? how does this follow?), but the gaps we were leaving in people's brains were just about worse than what we were taking out. (????? so you erase memories and somehow you leave larger ‘gaps’? huh? what? also what timeline are you talking here, centuries? just yesterday?)

no cap for ‘The’.

as he is indeed about to summon something to the forefront, this observation is unnecessary

Impossible I should add, though I’m no neurosurgeon.

Lmao is the unspeakable a pirate or from newcastle?

A very poor way of conveying what you wish to convey. Basically, unless I have it wrong, before the more refined memory charm the ministry had no recourse but to throw those muggles who witnessed magic in prison, to protect the statute of secrecy. So why not say that? This is a clear example of the curse of knowledge, you know what you mean and thus you assume we know it also, but we don’t, and the ‘couldn't tell how much they knew’ is mighty confusing - makes it sound like there were muggle spies or something.

Ex: It started with a couple of muggles in the early nineteenth century. Those too nosy or unfortunate to witness magic before the ministry could do anything other than throw them into Azkaban, or give them to us.

Still not 100% clear maybe, but clearer.

Remove ‘somewhat’. You don't walk around something somewhat, what a weird thing to say.

The unspeakable explains how they got brains in the past, but not how they do so now - despite it making it look like he does. Even if you intended this, it seems something Genna would pick up on, particularly since he admits they get new brains once in a while. (so the reasonable follow up is, ‘from where? Mr. Fronkonstin’)

Why? The standard answer of ‘for science’ (or I guess ‘for magic’) is not really satisfactory, and it seems something Genna should ask about.

Read the The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven pinker to rid yourself of this nonsense way of thinking, you heretic.

Again, I sort of see what you want to say and sort of don't. You mean to say that if you inject someone’s else's memories into your brain, will the brain remember it the same or will it remember it differently? This has obvious relevance to the memory charm itself, or more accurately, its efficacy. But you don't say that at all, and the last line is confusing as heck.

Why is she making this point via her personal experience, rather than saying something like - even during sleep the human brain takes in some information, so it would be more accurate to say that those brains were comatose, though she didn't say this out loud.

I’m still not sold on these brains being aware - human-like agents. Like put yourself in their place, suddenly waking in absolute darkness with no sense of hearing, smell or touch, no senses at all, only aware of your own consciousness and an everlasting nothing. You would surely go insane - the human brain is not designed to work in that environment, I mean, ever heard of the effects of extreme sensory deprivation? yeah magic, I know.

Legilimency, also, surely - after all legilimency has nothing to do with what was previously discussed.

This does not show her answering after a pause, but rather trailing off or pausing after answering.

"Gemma Farley," she answered, after a pause.

Ham fisted reference to main character is ham fisted. Also, if he was wondering, why didn't he follow up on it?

Why do we need to know this? Is this setting up her school records being altered? And if so, why? There’s just been a civil war, I don't think it would be too hard to fudge a few documents, even if your momma wasn't a big ministry name.

As with most of her others, this train of thought leaves me confused. Yes, these are personal questions that you should be able to answer, why remark upon this at all? (and out of story reasons like giving hints that her memory has been altered do not count)

required to read it surely? Again, a very confusing way of speaking/thinking. Such a strange strange lady.

Inform people of what? That you modified their memories? Surely it would be worth to say this clearly so you don’t make it harder to understand for the reader.

This doesn't make any sense. If there was a shadowy organisation erasing people’s memories, them telling you about it would only make you more paranoid/concerned, even if it were for menial reasons. Especially for menial reasons I would think, because that implies that the DoM is for some reason involved or interested in your menial everyday life. Whatever way you try to twist it this don’t work boyo, shadowy mind erasing organisations are creepy nor two ways about it, no sirree

A bit of a hurdle. Saying that you have hostages implies that you are willing and able to hurt them should the people you are threatening step out of line, which somehow means you either control/are able to stop auror investigations and in truth the whole ministry apparatus, which implies some sort of hold of society as a whole. So… how can you control a whole government and yet one snakey boi can wreck your whole society and you are impotent to do anything about it? And also, why? This is like the mad scientist stereotype but like driven to an absurd degree. If you just want to do messed up research there are easier and more believable ways to cover for it, such as simple memory charms - which is, after all, the ‘topic’ of the story. As I said, there is a lot of potential for creepiness with the premise you set forth, but the way you go about implementing it doesn't jive to well with me, unfortunately.

I don’t understand this sentence and I don’t see how it follows the previous one. Also, just how many people do hit-wizards kill? You are hurtling straight past creepy into dystopian, not in itself a bad thing but it doesn't really fit with the context. Harry just won, the ministry is in disarray - I just don’t really buy it at this particular point in time.

bit of a leap but ok

So erasing her memory for a few days is too much for them but [whatever it is they are going to do with her] is not? Does this unspeakable imagine that her parents will not care if she doesn't it show for a couple of months/shows up complete mind-addled?. Also Hermione erased her entire existence from her parents’ memories when she was eighteen. Gilderoy Lockhart erased entire feats of magic worthy of the best songs (or bestselling books) and he was a complete moron. You would think the mighty unspeakables would be able to erase a week’s worth of memories.

Some tentative suggestions/comments - tentative because I didn’t really understood your ending so take it with a grain of salt.

1)Set up what you are talking about earlier. Gemma hasn’t come for a standard position in the DoM, but rather has been offered a position in regards to memory research (a bit of dramatic irony there too. Thus the talk about the brains comes across far smoother, and you don't have to explain anything other than how the brains are relevant to their research.

2)Gemma is a bit of an odd cookie - this in itself is not a problem but I am constantly confused by the way her logic works, how she ties up thoughts/observations together which at a first glance makes no sense. I don't know if this is intentional but if so you need to find a way to showcase her oddness in a way that it doesn't confuse the reader as well. She might very well be confounded (though this is not particularly clear from the story itself) and I understand the hardships of showing a confused pov without confusing the reader too but you need to somehow figure it out. As it is right now I stumbled again and again on the narrative, sapping all the potential flow it might have had.

3)Also placing it in a singular point and time (after the war to be precise) retracts from the eeriness of it all. Also brings to mind questions like, if the DoM is this all-powerful shadowy entity, why didn't they do anything during Voldemort’s reign? Better leave it ambiguos I feel.

I probably shouldn’t rate it but I want to be clever so I give it two and a half olives out of an olive branch. Interesting idea - the execution however, I feel was some ways off the mark.

 

Thanks, all. I had some sense that posting a shorter story would be better for people's ability to enjoy it, but it seems I couldn't cut corners with the characters. The Unspeakable is supposed to be anonymous, as he doesn't have a name, and what I was trying to convey with that was that it doesn't matter who he is, because he's a successfully integrated cog in the machine. Gemma was basically supposed to be exactly what it says on the tin, she's self-important, she's a ladder climber, and she's not as clever as she thinks she is. I really should have gone into her past more, or had some other opportunity to flesh out her personality, because, let's face it, that's all she has left.
Gemma is already a brain in a vat. She has been for years, and unless they decide to move her memories to another brain, she'll probably just die in there. I suppose it would have been no skin off their noses to obliviate a week's worth of memories, but there's a chance they don't want people getting the idea they do extensive changes and they wouldn't be getting a brain out of it. They use her for research/training most of the time. This particular conversation is about how the brain fills in gaps in understanding, as evidenced by walking over to the back office and seeing what she expected to see. It takes place inside of a pensieve, and if you were there for the pensieve thread you've probably realized that serves as the inspiration for some of the more technical aspects of the story.
I wrote this before watching the first season of Psycho-Pass, but if it helps, that's basically how things work in this story. It's a semi-dystopian story in which the Department doesn't really have total control over the population, but can manage its own employees. Since everyone seemed to have a different opinion on the twist ending, like it was too easy and you totally saw it coming or it was too hard and you still can't be sure what's going on, I really wouldn't know how to improve on that, but I'll look into examples of twist endings that worked.