Occasionally, we have an open spot on our blog schedule. One of our members suggested we all (or those able) could jump in for a group blog question. Our first was suggested by Miko Johnston.
How do you incorporate ever-changing technology in your writing, especially in a series that covers years?
Jackie Houchin — In my short stories, I use the technologies needed in the story’s time and place. I used GPS settings to find a long-buried stash in one mystery set in modern New York. In that story, the dates were firmly set by newspaper clippings. In my missionary kids’ series set in modern but rural Africa, cell service is spotty (indeed, you can’t even be sure of electricity), so I use these technologies but don’t depend on them. Actually, “no cell service” adds to the suspense of the moment when an emergency happens.
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Gayle Bartos-Pool — If you write stories set in the Roaring Twenties, you might want to include a bunch of things to define that era, like telephone operators connecting you to whomever you are calling or a radio program providing music and some news. There were no televisions or cell phones back then. The automobile was new with the Ford Model T, and assembly lines were just gearing up.
Every era has its newfangled gadgets, but do they have to do more than set the stage in the story? Sometimes, too much detail distracts from the narrative unless there is one particular thing that plays a key role in your story, like the old typewriter with the damaged key and the ransom note with that same twisted letter. That’s been done before in several old movies, but it worked.
But if you are writing a contemporary tale, do you have to rely on the main character’s cell phone on every page? After a while, it gets old to have the characters pull out his or her phones rather than use their eyes and ears to see the problem at hand.
I do like gadgets, but I don’t depend on them totally in my books. My characters will use a computer, but they use their brains more.
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Miko Johnston — Back in the 1990s, before I started my series of historical novels, I attempted to write a (then) present-day mystery thriller that centered around a secret high-tech device. The problem was that I knew nothing about the subject and figured what I’d made up would ring false with knowledgeable readers, so I put the manuscript aside. Twenty years later, I revisited the story and realized I knew enough about what had been developed back then to finish the story with authenticity.
I do incorporate technology in my modern work as it’s such an integral part of life now. For example, my short story, Senior High, comically follows three older women who travel to Washington, one of the first states to decriminalize marijuana. Although they haven’t “partied” since the seventies, they decide to get high one more time but can’t figure out how until Siri comes to their aid.
Not finding all the wires and cords and plugs for the computers for a month had me surviving using only my Kindle, but at least I could read my e-mail. I still haven’t gotten the landline set up. Or the printer. But it’s only been a month since I got here. And I still had several thousand things to do on this end.
Okay, that’s an idea. But what if the people are overly friendly, almost too outgoing, and they want to know everything about this new neighbor who came from this distant state? What if they keep asking questions? Odd questions. Almost like they are learning about life here for the first time? What if the entire community is made up of space aliens and they want to learn everything they can about us humans before they take over the planet?
And then there is the idea that came to me when I saw the first tree in the strip of woodlands near my house that had gone totally autumnal with orange and yellow leaves. There it was stuck down under all the taller, green trees around it. It reminded me of a kid wearing her mom’s fancy dress just for fun. But what if my main character happens to pick up a branch that had fallen off that little beauty and realizes the branch is plastic? Then my protagonist pulls a leaf off one of other trees and it’s made of fabric or plastic? My character runs to her house and as she yanks open the front door it comes off its hinges because it was only stuck there with a tiny metal hinge held on with glue. The curtains at the windows are little pieces of lace from an old handkerchief. Some of the furniture inside is made of plastic and several other pieces are overturned revealing a Made in China label. She’s living in a miniature world full of doll furniture that has gotten all shook up from its long drive from California to Ohio.
The Writers in Residence 
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