Making Tech Entertaining
This is from a conference panel I was on about the role of technology in fiction, and how to make it entertaining instead of boring.
1. How do you make sure tech doesn’t overwhelm the story, i.e., that it doesn’t become the focus over plot and character? Or do you plan it that way?
The story comes first for me, which means plot and character arcs. The technology is part of the setting--what’s at the characters’ fingertips. For example, instead of people browsing Facebook or Twitter on their two dimensional screens, in the BetterWorld cyberpunk trilogy, they’re immersed in realistic three-dimensional virtual reality. Of course, having 2 billion people spending a big chunk of their time in virtual reality has all sorts of social consequences, like loss of interest in the real world. And if one company controls this entire virtual reality, they control every aspect of your existence.
2. One of the “Moscow Rules” is that technology will always fail. Give an example of how you’ve used tech failure to heighten tension in one of your books.
Most of the tension in my books comes not from equipment failure, but from the bad guys outsmarting the heroes, like out-hacking or tricking them. I like having villains who are more than a match for the heroes. But here’s an example of tech failure: The heroes use stun guns in some situations to avoid killing anyone. Trouble is, they’re not terribly reliable, in that a person might be incapacitated for a couple of minutes, or only a few seconds. It depends on the target and a lot of other factors. And in one scene, the people they’re up against have a conductive layer inside their armor that grounds the E/M pulse and makes the stun guns useless.
3. Is the tech in your books based on the state of the art now, or do you extrapolate “future tech?”
My cyberpunk series is set in the near future. I tried to extrapolate what computer and other technology would be like in a couple of decades. I did that by doing research on technology trends, and where things are expected to be headed. So, for example, virtual reality was just starting to take off when I wrote Sleep State Interrupt. I invented BetterWorld based on poking around Second Life and World of Warcraft, which are 2-dimensional massively multiplayer environments, and so I made a 3-dimensional version in realistic virtual reality. Since the book was published, VRChat was launched, which is kind of a low-res version of BetterWorld. That’s the danger of writing near future stories--eventually they’ll become alternate history. I also envisioned a pervasive surveillance state, with advanced drones both large and tiny. That’s just a matter of time too. Artificial intelligence is also an integral part of the world in my trilogy, and that’s advancing all the time also.
4. If you extrapolate, is it important to make that future tech believable?
I think for fiction, your world has to be believable, or at least follow consistent rules. For a reader to become immersed in a story, and for it to have a powerful impact, they have to forget that it’s not true while they’re reading it. So the more realistic you make everything seem, the less the reader will think, ‘wait a minute, this is impossible,’ and get pulled out of the story. I think you can have some unrealistic elements as long as they’re heavily outnumbered by realistic elements.
5. Who are some tech-heavy writers who have inspired you and how?
My cyberpunk trilogy was inspired by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Neal Stephenson, the classic cyberpunk authors. And also some anime series like Ghost in the Shell and Psycho-Pass. That’s why I decided to write a cyberpunk series. I’m working on other books also--alternate history and contemporary satire--that have a completely different focus, but none of those contain advanced tech, so that’s why I’m just focusing on the cyberpunk here. Since my series is set a lot closer to the present than any other cyberpunk I’ve read, I drew most of my inspiration from real world trends rather than works of fiction. I did try to incorporate the general feel of classic cyberpunk, though--of powerful mega-corporations, a huge divide between rich and poor, main characters who are outcasts... Wait--most of that sounds like the real world too.
1. How do you make sure tech doesn’t overwhelm the story, i.e., that it doesn’t become the focus over plot and character? Or do you plan it that way?
The story comes first for me, which means plot and character arcs. The technology is part of the setting--what’s at the characters’ fingertips. For example, instead of people browsing Facebook or Twitter on their two dimensional screens, in the BetterWorld cyberpunk trilogy, they’re immersed in realistic three-dimensional virtual reality. Of course, having 2 billion people spending a big chunk of their time in virtual reality has all sorts of social consequences, like loss of interest in the real world. And if one company controls this entire virtual reality, they control every aspect of your existence.
2. One of the “Moscow Rules” is that technology will always fail. Give an example of how you’ve used tech failure to heighten tension in one of your books.
Most of the tension in my books comes not from equipment failure, but from the bad guys outsmarting the heroes, like out-hacking or tricking them. I like having villains who are more than a match for the heroes. But here’s an example of tech failure: The heroes use stun guns in some situations to avoid killing anyone. Trouble is, they’re not terribly reliable, in that a person might be incapacitated for a couple of minutes, or only a few seconds. It depends on the target and a lot of other factors. And in one scene, the people they’re up against have a conductive layer inside their armor that grounds the E/M pulse and makes the stun guns useless.
3. Is the tech in your books based on the state of the art now, or do you extrapolate “future tech?”
My cyberpunk series is set in the near future. I tried to extrapolate what computer and other technology would be like in a couple of decades. I did that by doing research on technology trends, and where things are expected to be headed. So, for example, virtual reality was just starting to take off when I wrote Sleep State Interrupt. I invented BetterWorld based on poking around Second Life and World of Warcraft, which are 2-dimensional massively multiplayer environments, and so I made a 3-dimensional version in realistic virtual reality. Since the book was published, VRChat was launched, which is kind of a low-res version of BetterWorld. That’s the danger of writing near future stories--eventually they’ll become alternate history. I also envisioned a pervasive surveillance state, with advanced drones both large and tiny. That’s just a matter of time too. Artificial intelligence is also an integral part of the world in my trilogy, and that’s advancing all the time also.
4. If you extrapolate, is it important to make that future tech believable?
I think for fiction, your world has to be believable, or at least follow consistent rules. For a reader to become immersed in a story, and for it to have a powerful impact, they have to forget that it’s not true while they’re reading it. So the more realistic you make everything seem, the less the reader will think, ‘wait a minute, this is impossible,’ and get pulled out of the story. I think you can have some unrealistic elements as long as they’re heavily outnumbered by realistic elements.
5. Who are some tech-heavy writers who have inspired you and how?
My cyberpunk trilogy was inspired by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Neal Stephenson, the classic cyberpunk authors. And also some anime series like Ghost in the Shell and Psycho-Pass. That’s why I decided to write a cyberpunk series. I’m working on other books also--alternate history and contemporary satire--that have a completely different focus, but none of those contain advanced tech, so that’s why I’m just focusing on the cyberpunk here. Since my series is set a lot closer to the present than any other cyberpunk I’ve read, I drew most of my inspiration from real world trends rather than works of fiction. I did try to incorporate the general feel of classic cyberpunk, though--of powerful mega-corporations, a huge divide between rich and poor, main characters who are outcasts... Wait--most of that sounds like the real world too.
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