Memory Alternation (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

So i was reading a news article about memories and thought of a novel about the future in which people can take a pill to get rid of painful memories and the issues that come up with. But when I was talking it over with my creative writing teacher she said "sounds good, just make sure it isn't a copy of 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'.

So i come to you Nano group with questions:

1) For anyone who has seen the movie, what should i make sure to avoid to make it so the story isn't a complete copy or might be viewed as a copy by the masses.

2) For those who HAVENT or have seen the film...I want the book to be a level deeper than just "oh, I have a bad life, lemme erase my memories to have a better one, but then I discover my life is better before...lesson learned!". What type of things do you think I should include in it, or moral/ethical/political issues, that could help make the story a level deeper than what is assumed it would be?

The story is still very much in its rough stages. I'm not sure if its gonna be focused on romance, a sci fi action story, just a slice-of-life story or what. thanks so much to everything you say. I'll try to respond to as many people as I can to keep a dialogue going.

Do you know your genre approach yet? Thriller, pure sci fi, literary fiction?

One thing you could do to seperate it from the film is having characters who've undergone partial memory erasure unwillingly - perhaps a son or daughter witnesses something horrific, like a car accident or something - and the parents, hoping to save their child some grief, has the memory erased. This could result in several unintended consequences: just because the memory's erased, doesn't mean that the grief or emotional response is erased. It's still there, only without a logical reason for the response's existence. Or, say the emotional response is erased - then the child is left without due fear. For example, say a child touches a hot stove. The child burns his/her hand. It's traumatic, so the protective parents have the memory removed. The child no longer has a fear of this stove, and could possibly burn his/her hand again.

Painful memories help us grow, teach us to become who we are. Remove those, and we lose not only fear and sadness, but empathy and sympathy for those who are facing a similar situation. Society would become a good deal colder as 'nothing ever bad happens'. Also, this could create an addiction of sorts. Painful situations teach us coping responses/mechanisms for surviving the world. They do a great deal of teaching. Say, it starts - like in the movie - with erasing a romance gone wrong. Well, all of the learning that went into that relationship would be out the window, so it's possible that the next one would go just as bad - another erasure. Coping mechanisms, as well as learning curves would be gone. It could lead to a certain addiction - erase all of the bad experiences - which, without the coping mechanisms, could leave people crushed by things as everyday as tripping on the sidewalk and bruising the knee, or getting chuckled at for walking into a window...

Maybe?

I suggest you not worry too much about "accidentally" copying something, especially if you haven't previously seen or heard of it. The ones who tend to be most concerned about unintentional similarities tend to be the writers themselves... the readers will frequently compare something even to things that are only even vaguely similar. (lately, that's seems to be everything with vampires being compared to Twilight, every dystopian future being compared to the Hunger Games, etc...)

Off hand, I can think of a few short stories, an episode of the Venture Brothers, an episode of the Simpsons and at least one episode of star trek that has that as a plot point. Eternal Sunshine (which I've never seen) just happens to be the most famous.

A few random thoughts:

Could someone who erases a memory of a crime be held in contempt of court if they were set to testify?

How easy is this to take? you may have the ultimate date rape drug on your hand. I could also see people taking the drug to erase a movie/book/song from their mind so they can watch/read/listen to it and get the first-time feeling all over again. Can you wipe everything from potty training to present day as an act of pseuto-sucide?

If you preform industrial espionage, can a court order you to take the forget-me-now pills to protect corporate secrets? What about copywright infringement? Download a movie, get the movie ripped from the brain. Can parents require their children to get it? Can employers require their workers to get it (turning it into Paycheck rather than Eternal Sunshine),

how endemic does this become? if most people constantly forget bad things happening, what sort of cultural norms evolve around memory gaps that are not mutually shared?

And lets say you can reverse the memory wipe. If you bring back a memory of a bad battle to a PTSD soldier or of a rape to a survivor, does that constitute assault? Would it violate the 4th amendment to force someone to take remember-alls?

Memory alteration isn't even science fiction. Give this a listen (about 1 hour). (Radiolab is one of my favorite things ever.)