Slashing Technology’s Tires

I’ve finally submitted my manuscript for the short story book (the title’s acronym is BitB — best guesses might get you a free copy) for Matt’s deliberation. While I have a spare moment to breathe and annoy my WordPress install I thought I would let everyone reading this know that I’m going to singlehandedly stop technology from developing any further.

When I started writing A Season Underneath I included in the story the common communication technologies and social media sites of the time. When most of the people about which you’re writing are in their 20’s you pretty much have. I tried leaving the specifics open ended because I knew things were changing rapidly in terms of consumer electronics and I didn’t want to date the novel by mentioning outmoded devices. Of course, as time wore on and I needed to do rewrites, technology advanced and the big social sites changed faster than my hairline to the back of my head. More editing needed to be done. Small changes, really, but I fear it’s going to keep happening until I finish the stupid manuscript.

The idea of advanced tech in fiction – i.e., cellphones and smartphones – is actually a pretty spicy enchilada. The center cut of the fiction-steak is that characters n know xyz while characters f do not, and cell phones (and GPS, and foursquare, and Facebook, and Twitter) really cut down on the possibility of the crucial knowledge gap that makes fiction enjoyable. Authors have to rely on their characters having bad memory, being accident-prone or hasty, or cursed with low battery power, or not knowing how to not to cross a street when cars are speeding, in order to render those devices non-working and plot-preserving. There are some authors that I know of that just forgo cellular technology altogether in their story and just rely landline and a web 1.0-level environment, but that would take more work to revert my manuscript.

So, the easiest solution is for me to stop technology altogether in real life until my manuscript is finished. Get ready to light up your Twitter hashmarks because I think I have the moratorium nailed down. Don’t be expecting slashdot or Wired to be mentioning anything new or exciting for a short time, and and hopefully your iPhone 20G Puff-up Pizza Blitz or Andoid Droid AI Coffee Maker Tablet will last you a little while longer. Think of it as a retroactive Y2K that actually happened. I’m sorry I had to do it but I have to get this done.

Photo by edge of the continent