I’ve been re-reading a few of my favourite old books. Well – not so old. Some were written in the 80s and 90s… and I was immediately struck by how much technology has changed the world. In particular an author’s world.
I’m not just talking about how much time we spend on Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest and all the other social media sites.
Nor about our obsessive checking of our chart rankings at the on-line retailers.
I’m talking about what we write.
In my bottom drawer is a book called Merchant Prince. It was the second book I wrote and has never been published (for very good reason – it was pretty awful). I mention it because a major plot device was the hero racing to the airport to try to stop the heroine hopping on a plane. There was tension because we didn’t know if he would make it or not. Today – that isn’t a valid plot point, because he’d simply phone her from the car. Or text her.
The heroine of the book I am writing now is a long way from home and terribly homesick. But with the free video calls on Skype or Facetime or whatever, she’s able to talk to her mother and her friends face-to-face whenever she wants. She’s still homesick – but it’s not as important or difficult as it might once have been.
Human relationships – and novels about them – are all about communication. Conflict, tension and plots come about when there is lack of communication – or miscommunication.
The old plot point of not knowing the man you just met is a millionaire or a movie star or married or whatever is made redundant by the knowledge that as soon as our heroine gets a moment, she will google him or search for him on Twitter. There’s so much out there about each of us, the mystery is much harder to create. And she doesn’t even have to go home to do it – she can do it on her phone while he is in the men’s room.
A few books I have read lately get around some of these issues by having our heroine’s phone battery run flat at the crucial moment. I know it happens – but I think that’s cheating. So is the ‘I left it at home’ solution (although I leave mine at home all the time).
I write books set on the Australian outback – one of the many places in the world where you can have your fully charged phone and not be able to make a call due to lack of coverage. This works up until you enter a town which will have both phone and internet service.
What I think all this has forced us to do, as writers, is come up with new ways of creating conflict and mis-communication. I sometimes try to use the technology – there can be things on the internet to mislead our characters. There could be internet trolls stalking someone. Have an embarrassing and misleading photo put online. Maybe have someone’s account hacked.
Or – I can simply come up with other plot points and conflicts where the technology doesn’t impact… but the most important thing is not to ignore it.
Writers of historical novels have to work at getting the period details correct. Writers of contemporary novels have to work at getting their time correct too – and it’s harder for us. Readers may not notice a small inaccuracy in a novel set in 1700 as easily as they will an inaccuracy in a contemporary novel.
When I read a book where the character doesn’t simply pick up a mobile or a tablet and check something – it loses me.
Although novels are fantasy –they still have to be REAL.