The largest revision I made between the two drafts was adding a flashback to when Alex first started seeing Percy. It is very short, and leaves some questions unanswered at first, but hopefully its inclusion clarifies what Percy’s role was, as well as what he was. During the scene, Percy was very vague and Alex questioned it alarmingly little. This probably seemed suspicious, and hard to believe, but with the context of Percy’s disappearance closer to the end, hopefully it got across the message that a) Percy was someone Alex made up to keep them company, and b) they were not thinking logically in regard to their own loneliness, and wanted to believe Percy was real badly enough that they were willing to ignore the improbability of the situation.
I also altered the very beginning of the story to make it more concise, and took out the long description the other draft started with, but still got the message across (that Alex was hungover). I also made it so that Percy was the reason Alex woke up. Although I was sad to remove most of the original opening (I worked quite hard on it), I do like this one, and I think it was appropriate for Percy to be the one getting Alex up in the morning.
Another change (which was discussed a bit in class) I made was using spacing to separate the text for the final time skip. I considered doing this for the others as well, but for those I felt it wouldn’t have helped the flow of the story. For the final one specifically, there is a great separation of space and time between the sections, so it felt more fitting, and since it was the only one with that spacing, it had more of an impact.
I also made some smaller, more specific changes, to try and fill in or more clearly establish certain details. One example is the fact that Alex was waking up the day after the anniversary of their arrival. I also included the fact that they didn’t really have family and friends on Earth. It would have made them a good choice to go on such a dangerous mission, but my hope was that it also gave an answer to where they came from without giving an answer at all. Not to leave people with unanswered questions, but to give an answer that still left the situation the same: this is a person with no past, and no future.
