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Does Outdated Technology Spoil a Story?
Check out departed Robert B. Parkers Poodle Springs a completion of Raymond Chandler's (Philip Marlowe #8) last uncompleted novel. GREAT read.
Yankey wrote: "Check out departed Robert B. Parkers Poodle Springs a completion of Raymond Chandler's (Philip Marlowe #8) last uncompleted novel. GREAT read."I read this book and I think Robert Parker did a good job finishing it. Excellent read.
M. wrote: "With technology changing at an ever-faster pace, does reference to something outmoded like a bank of pay phones or a Walkman or boom box spoil a mystery for you? (This assumes, of course, that it'..."I read The Time Machine. It predicted life in the year 3000 something. I forget the exact date. Since the book was written before we had mondern technology it left me wondering what happened to it all. It also gave me the Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure feeling. (Boy am I dating myself lol) What would Wells think if he saw how we live today.
Heidi wrote: "M. wrote: "With technology changing at an ever-faster pace, does reference to something outmoded like a bank of pay phones or a Walkman or boom box spoil a mystery for you? (This assumes, of cours..."His reply would be really interesting. I often wonder that same thing about dear ones that are no longer with us. 'what would they think'
Yankey wrote: "Check out departed Robert B. Parkers Poodle Springs a completion of Raymond Chandler's (Philip Marlowe #8) last uncompleted novel. GREAT read."Yankey:
Been reading Parker's Spenser series in order and have Poodle Springs on shelf. Read many of Chandler's Marlowe so wondering would it be a good idea to read Poodle Springs now, or wait until I've read more of either one or both?
Your thoughts, and those of Temple's would be apprecitaed.
Thanks.
M. wrote: "I suspect Darvin's right, that readers are more likely to get huffy -- or at least distracted -- by references to something used only 10 or 20 years in the past."That's about right. I'm currently reading Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake (published 1990), where there's a lot of references to "modern technology" and every mention of someone extending the antenna on their cell phone, or having to explain how a computer works just takes me right out of it.
I've been having a lot of trouble getting into the book but I haven't figured out if the outdated technology is more of a cause or an effect. Is it distracting because I haven't gotten caught up in the story or have I not been able to get into the story because the outdated technology is distracting? I suspect it's a little of both.
I often envy the writers of yesterday. So much more room for misunderstandings with no mobile phones or internet. Now you can often say, 'Oh, why didn't he just phone her?'
It reminds me of the Jackson Browne song "The Load Out / Stay Just a Little Longer" where he boasts of watching Richard Pryor and the 8 track deck on the band bus. The tune is catchy, but you know you are listening to something 30 or more years old. With a book its up to the reader to choose the book to begin with. If you are reading about the crusades that is what you expect, if you are dealing with time travel in the mid 1800's then you obviously have to expect to deal with technology that may not have evolved as we see it today.
Cathy wrote: "Yankey wrote: "Check out departed Robert B. Parkers Poodle Springs a completion of Raymond Chandler's (Philip Marlowe #8) last uncompleted novel. GREAT read."Yankey:
Been reading Parker's Spens..."
My joy in reading Marlowe and Spenser is the engaging dialogue and the way the writing delivers me into another era (Marlowe) or to a place like Harvard Square (Spenser). I read every published Parker books, most out of order actually (since I buy a lot of books used).Reading out of sequence never impacts the read.
Mark wrote: "I often envy the writers of yesterday. So much more room for misunderstandings with no mobile phones or internet. Now you can often say, 'Oh, why didn't he just phone her?'"Yes, the technology thing can work both ways. A few weeks ago, I read a book set in current times in which one of the protagonists finds out key information and, rather than calling or texting the other team members, decides to go into the seemingly deserted, possible lair of the serial killer. Of course, he is caught by the killer and as he is restrained realizes no one knows where he is. I was so annoyed with this character because he didn't call with the information! It sort of took me out of the story because I kept thinking, "he couldn't really be this stupid, could he?" It created unnecessary and, to some extent, insincere drama.
On the other hand, I was watching an old cop show on TV and one of the guys was on surveillance - to call in information, he had to walk across the pool area, find a phone at the bar and call it in (dialing all 7 numbers!). But that time, the suspect had left the area. It was kind of funny but I was more sympathetic to the cop than to the idiot in the story above who just didn't use his cell phone!
Yankey:Ditto on that! I'm reading too many series and go from one to another.
Number 10 book is coming up on Spenser and while I like to read in order, sometimes can't or don't. Glad to know that not reading Parker in order doesn't matter.
Glad to know there's a kindred spirit out there. Thanks.
And in answer to original question, I say no. Just have to wrap your head around the period.
Susan wrote: "Mark wrote: "I often envy the writers of yesterday. So much more room for misunderstandings with no mobile phones or internet. Now you can often say, 'Oh, why didn't he just phone her?'"Yes, the ..."
You would not believe how many people, voting age, find the facts of no computers, cell phones, etc., hard to believe. Sort of like our grandparents walking through snow to school. Is that why in paperback editions they often acknowledge changes? Can an e-book be updated? Eventually holding a book to read, turning pages, will only be in old movies (kidding a little).
Sandi wrote: "You would not believe how many people, voting age, find facts of no computers, cell phones, etc., hard to believe..."At a recent family get together we were trying to describe to my grown nieces and nephews what it was like when we were kids. Have you ever tried to describe 8-track tapes to someone who's never seen one? Or having a landline phone that was on a party line? Then we told them about the year or so we were living in the middle of nowhere -- in the days before satellite dishes were everywhere -- when we couldn't even get one TV channel so we had to listen to one of the TWO radio stations we could get to come in. By the time we were done they asked us if we had to walk back and forth to school uphill both ways, too.
It gives me a better appreciation for some of the things my parents and grandparents were trying to tell me when I was a kid.
Most of what I know about life in Elizabethan and Victorian times came from reading novels set back then. Same with most of what I know about life during the Great Depression and WWII. It's not that I've never read a history book, but learning facts and learning about the daily lives of regular people are two different things. If authors start updating their books as a matter of routine, how are people in 2040 going to know what life was like in 2012? Sure, they can read nonfiction about the wars, the politicians, the celebrities, the scientific advances, the technology. But it will all seem so much more real to the people who read novels in which people use laptops and smart phones (which will no doubt be replaced by then) and drive cars (I hear driverless cars are coming) and who have to change their clocks for daylight savings time (I fondly hope that goes away), and who live with diseases that may be curable or nonexistent by then. Fiction is a record of our history, on a personal level.
My investigative thriller takes place in the late 70's. They did not have computers, cell phones or DNA evidence. It was comical, because once my editor corrected a text where I used inter-office memo and changed it to email (lol) I had to remind her there was no email then...B
L.L. wrote: "Most of what I know about life in Elizabethan and Victorian times came from reading novels set back then. Same with most of what I know about life during the Great Depression and WWII. It's not th..."Terrific, spot on!
It can't be avoided, so there's no point worrying about it. In the movie "Ghost" with Patrick Sywazie and Demi Moore, the computer screens are all green on green. But what could they have done. Deen Koontz tries to avoid technology, but the fact that the cop cars don't have dashboard computers dates his books.
Ken wrote: "L.L. wrote: "...updating my out-of-print mysteries would change them and I realized that they simply wouldn't be the same books anymore."I'm a big fan of Raymond Chandler and having Philip Marlow..."
Marlowe in a Beemer? No, please...
Yankey wrote: "Cathy wrote: "Yankey wrote: "Check out departed Robert B. Parkers Poodle Springs a completion of Raymond Chandler's (Philip Marlowe #8) last uncompleted novel. GREAT read."Yankey:
Been reading ..."
Thanks, Yankey.
Cathy wrote: "Yankey wrote: "Cathy wrote: "Yankey wrote: "Check out departed Robert B. Parkers Poodle Springs a completion of Raymond Chandler's (Philip Marlowe #8) last uncompleted novel. GREAT read."Yankey:..."
It's fun to recognize the change of voice when one writer takes over from the other.
Doesn't bother me at all.Reminds me of Judy blume - they updated her book Are you there God, it's me Margaret? They updated the book to show more modern day "menstrual items" and bra information to appeal to audiences. Why not just leave it in the original text?? Thought it was silly myself.
if the book is well written, the lack of technology should not be a big deal. You can barely tell Kinsey doesn't have a cell; although w the scraps she gets in I wish she had one. lol
Erin, Lois Duncan apparently updated her books. As I an adult, I do not know what they are like. Personally, putting a cell phone in Down the Dark Hall would ruin the entire plot.
M. wrote: "With technology changing at an ever-faster pace, does reference to something outmoded'..."Nope. Not at all. For many reasons. In fact I think it is exactly the opposite from what you say, that super-new technology creates the sense of anachronism in the reader and authors should stick with traditional technology whenever possible.
You see this illustrated in movies very frequently. Its referred to sometimes as the "You've Got Mail" syndrome.
They made a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan back when AOL was 'hot'. Remember? The movie was actually a remake of a film from the 1930s, so it was really just an 'update' to modern times. But nevermind that.
The problem was that the digital world moves faster than anyone ever imagined. Hollywood is never up-to-speed at best but in this case these producers naively assumed that AOL mail was 'here to stay'. But it wasn't. We laugh at AOL these days, right? So the movie is useless. And yet AOL was quite popular, not even all that very long ago.
Lesson: if you write a thriller based on something which you think is 'going to be here forever' you're probably wrong. Digital electronics is the area which will trip you up every time.
Its better to remember that people's lives and habits stay largely the same. Ergonomics don't fluctuate that much. All the really important things in life, are always done the same way. People like to sleep laying down, they like to eat on plates and tables, and read books while sitting down. We attend concerts, plays, and sports in stadiums just like ancient Greeks did.
One hundred years of movies and television have given modern culture a 'visual sense' of ourselves such as no other culture in history has ever enjoyed. Yes, modern life moves fast: the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk in 1903; only fifty years later the jet age had arrived. Then, the space age. But that doesn't mean fiction should depict that crazy pace.
Here's why: for 80-odd years of movies/tv, technology remained properly in the *background* of visual storytelling. Think about it. Telephones never changed much. Cars never changed much. Kitchens never changed much. So, 'hi tech' never interrupted a narrative.
Only recently did gadgets get so small that they now intrude into a scene. Now they are part of what an actor holds in his hands. And this is a crisis of disastrous proportion.
Because now, audiences eyes can't avoid noticing these gadgets. This is a dilemma for authors and screenwriters. Because no matter what cellphone you put in a character's hand, it is bound to look old-fashioned in just a few years. An 'outdated phone' is not what you want your viewers focusing on. Storytelling is all about controlling the eye, leading attention, directing the audience towards the characters.
In comparison, how much easier is it if you write a story set in 1950..all boring, non-amazing gadgets disappear safely into the background of the narrative, where they belong. A wall phone is a wall phone is a wall phone. It becomes almost abstract in concept. That's a benefit! No matter the shape or color, we all know what wall phones do. There's no question about brand or model--or how to operate it. When a character in a film noir picks up a wall phone, the drama is all about the emotion she displays as she is speaking on the phone. We gaze at her face. No interest in what the phone might do. We know what it does; a standard phone is subservient and oblique. No questions are raised, no puzzles are spawned.
A phone and a computer are just static props as far as good drama is concerned. The moment they become more interesting than the humans in the story, drama collapses. Today's writers and authors are screwed, big time. You can't fight technology's dominance over us, you have to outwit it, avoid it somehow; write stories where these devices aren't part of the tale. Tricky either way. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
One of my favorite series is the Kinsey Millhone series and that is set in the 80s. I actually like that better than some of the newer series that I read because it seems she has to work so much harder for clues than those people who can just jump on the computer to check things out.
I just finished the last book in a series where the main character doesn't own a cell phone mainly because she has other tried-and-true means of communicating with others and doesn't feel the need to have a techno-toy just because everyone else does.It's refreshing to read about a character who isn't 'up' on the latest technology and doesn't rush right out to snap up the latest gadget. It made the character unique.
I had an interesting review that mentioned the 'old' technology in Reprobate: A Katla Novel, see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....The funny thing is that the old technology is being used for particular reasons, and not always the obvious ones. For instance, Katla uses an old-fashioned pager so clients can reach her. The reason for this is that, unlike cell phones, pagers cannot be traced, because a call to a pager is a blanket signal, and the pager itself does not send out a signal.
Katla uses 'burner' (pre-paid) phones because they're unregistered, and she disassembles cell phones between use because they can be traced even if they're 'switched off'.
Bram, the blind jazz musician, has a huge collection of vinyl jazz records, mostly because (like many audiophiles) he prefers the dynamics of analog vinyl records over the compressed music on digital CDs and mp3. Also, he loves jazz from 1955-1970, when most music came out on vinyl.
In a sense, I think you can use 'outdated' technology if there is a reason for it. My blind character used to use a cell phone with a dot on the 5, so he could tap out the pattern of the telephone number, but in the third book he went to an iPhone which is more 'user-friendly' for visually impaired and blind people, but he'll still stick to vinyl records for his music.
If you are walking down the street and you see a man striding towards you wearing a shirt and jeans and sneakers...as he passes you (going about his business) you don't think to yourself, "Gee..that's an un-spectacled man ..(he's not wearing eyeglasses).."If you are walking down the street and you see a man striding towards you wearing a shirt, jeans, sneakers, and eyeglasses, you might think to yourself as he passes you, "Oh. That's a man *with* eyeglasses."
The 'default' human condition, the 'simplest' way we all exist in this world, is without any kind of devices or gadgets or 'extras' added-on.
Feliks wrote: "The 'default' human condition, the 'simplest' way we all exist in this world, is without any kind of devices or gadgets or 'extras' added-on."While you are right in your assertion, the spectacles are a bad example. Since the dawn of spectacles, there was never a decade when spectacles were not worn. Of course there was the brief few years when people with spectacles were drawn to wearing contact lenses, but even back then, most people needing corrective lenses just kept on wearing spectacles.
It's different for wigs, top hats, trilby hats, walking canes (the Johnny Walker variety), lorgnettes and monocles. Those were vanity/fashion accessories from other eras (although they made a comeback in Clockwork Orange).
Other things that can age something is the 'comb-over'. Most contemporary men with male-pattern baldness either leave the spot bare or shave their whole head.
Still, none of this is relevant to the topic - spectacles are like crutches, a wheelchair or hearing aids, they might change design, but not functionality.
The question is, should you have your protagonist watch a television, or will television disappear in the next decade? Will people still go to the cinema? Will handheld cell phones still exist or will they become as small as a hearing aid? Will people still Skype? Facebook? Will not having a built-in GPS chip make you 'old-fashioned' or 'a criminal'?
You have to choose your characters carefully. If you want to write about American teenagers living in Chicago (or any other big US city) how would you avoid mentioning their gadgets? Or (aka) their spectacles?But if you choose someone living a more sober, serious, traditional, non-goofy lifestyle..say a smuggler in Somalia..or a member of a biker gang; a Nebraskan corn farmer, a small-town professor, a scientist working at the Fermi lab, or a Vatican priest.. 'non-frivolous' people who don't spend their every waking moment stuffing their eyeballs with popculture..you have a better chance of not creating anachronisms.
And really, isn't that the kind of character you want in a thriller? You don't want to read books about the most concrete, mundane, sick-of-seeing-them, plentiful-as-lemmings, over-saturated type of redundant people we have to suffer around us every day.
Books and movies never show *exact* reality. They show a slightly compressed, condensed, heightened reality where super-interesting people speak to each other eye-to-eye, square-on, emotions twisting their faces into dramatic, tortured expressions, lashing out at each other with phrases like, "I will destroy you"
This is one of the most hideous aspects of what the internet brings us. 7/10ths of everyone in America are ..exactly like their neighbors. 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', redux.
My daughter is 31. Last year she orered something from amazon that she'd always wanted: a complete set of the Travis McGee novels, most of which were published before she was born. She loves them. She loves the stories, the characters, the writing, and she loves what she refers to as "a little time capsule of the way things used to be." When people on a mystery digest were talking about authors literally "updating" their books when they turned them into ebooks, she was horrified and said they should leave the stories alone.I agree with her. I can enjoy a book set in the 1870s, so why would I not be able to enjoy one set in the 1970s?
L. L. Thrasher
I'm reading a collection of Dashiell Hammett stories. These are set in the 1910s-20s. There was a reference to a Bertillion examiner. I had to look it up. I still enjoy these and the Chandler books because they are a peek into an era.My objections are where the technology becomes a large focus of the story. The author is all gaga over 3.5" floppies and explains the innards to us. Look at all the hi-tech movies like the first Mission Impossible where everyone is chasing a floppy disk or some of the other thrillers where someone logs on to a computer and we watch as a floppy transfers info over. The stories are good but they don't feel like period pieces, they just seem quaint. Compare the aforementioned movies with something like Boardwalk Empire. Nothing in the series is contemporary but nothing in it detracts an iota from the story.
Now, if you will excuse me I have to find a drug store with a wooden phone booth and a couple slot machines.
Quillracer wrote: "I just finished the last book in a series where the main character doesn't own a cell phone mainly because she has other tried-and-true means of communicating with others and doesn't feel the need ..."
This character reminds me of myself!
This character reminds me of myself!
Me, too, Kathryn. I think my wife and I were the last 2 people on earth to get cell phones.One reason was we had too many close calls with people yakking on them instead of paying attention to their driving or walking.
The other reason was we didn't need them.
I think this is an interesting question. I prefer to read contemporary books which use technology appropriate to the time. I just read Anne Holt's Blind Goddess which is set in Norway, presumably in 1991 (it was published in 1993). At least one of the characters has a mobile phone which must have been very expensive at that time.
Another take on this is the Inspector Chen series by Qiu Xiaolong. He has set these books in the early 1990s because, at least in the first 6 books, the Cultural Revolution is an important factor and the characters would be too old if it were 10 or 15 years latter. However, he has added mobile phones presumably for his own convenience in telling his stories.
"Does Outdated Technology Spoil a Story?" I don't think so, but NOT using technology relevant to the time period for the story throws readers off. Gary's point above describes this concept perfectly for 20 years ago.
What bothers me is reading a thriller set today and but the hero/heroine doesn't use a cell phone to call for help. For crying out loud: everybody has a cell phone, even the cop who's about to run into the badguy's HQ has a phone and should use it.
TV shows are especially bad about using not using some technology while over-using others. No, you can't zoom in on a snap shot and "enhance it" to read a license plate three miles away :)
Peace, Seeley
"Does Outdated Technology Spoil a Story?" I don't think so, but NOT using technology relevant to the time period for the story throws readers off. Gary's point above describes this concept perfectly for 20 years ago.
What bothers me is reading a thriller set today and but the hero/heroine doesn't use a cell phone to call for help. For crying out loud: everybody has a cell phone, even the cop who's about to run into the badguy's HQ has a phone and should use it.
TV shows are especially bad about using not using some technology while over-using others. No, you can't zoom in on a snap shot and "enhance it" to read a license plate three miles away :)
Peace, Seeley
I have no problem with it as long as it's appropriate to the time period I wouldn't expect cell phones and computers in an old book.I think Seeley worded it just right.
Seeley wrote: "What bothers me is reading a thriller set today and but the hero/heroine doesn't use a cell phone to call for help. For crying out loud: everybody has a cell phone"Damn right!
Seeley wrote: ""Does Outdated Technology Spoil a Story?" I don't think so, but NOT using technology relevant to the time period for the story throws readers off. Gary's point above describes this concept perfec..."
I agree Seeley; I get so irritated when the main character "doesn't like modern technology" and refuses to use a cell phone; for crying out loud...it's beyond ludicrous.
Quillracer wrote: "Me, too, Kathryn. I think my wife and I were the last 2 people on earth to get cell phones.
One reason was we had too many close calls with people yakking on them instead of paying attention to th..."
My husband and I have what we call "dumb" phones and only for emergencies. He drives an hour each way to work through the woods, mostly. I like the school to be able to reach me if there is an emergency with the kids when I venture out for groceries. We are not technologically savvy at all.
One reason was we had too many close calls with people yakking on them instead of paying attention to th..."
My husband and I have what we call "dumb" phones and only for emergencies. He drives an hour each way to work through the woods, mostly. I like the school to be able to reach me if there is an emergency with the kids when I venture out for groceries. We are not technologically savvy at all.
Kathryn wrote: My husband and I have what we call "dumb" phones and only for emergencies. He drives an hour each way to work though the woods, mostly. I like the school to be able to reach me if there is an emergency with the kids when I venture out for groceries. We are not technologically savvy at all.That's basically why we got them, too. We got the most basic plan available and have yet to use anywhere near our allotted minutes. Mostly I use mine to call my wife from the grocery store when what's on her list isn't available.
Barbara wrote: I agree Seeley; I get so irritated when the main character "doesn't like modern technology" and refuses to use a cell phone; for crying out loud...it's beyond ludicrous.
There's a difference, Barbara, between not liking modern technology and not snapping up the latest gizmo just because it's the latest. My cell phone makes calls and texts. That's all it does. That's all I want it to do. I don't need a phone that does everything but sort my laundry. And I like characters that in some ways think like I do.
Quillracer wrote: "Kathryn wrote: My husband and I have what we call "dumb" phones and only for emergencies. He drives an hour each way to work though the woods, mostly. I like the school to be able to reach me if th..."Quillracer, my quibble is not so much with characters who won't use the latest gizmos but with those who refuse to have a cell phone altogether. Then when the technology-averse detective (or other main character) gets some vital clue or gets caught in a dangerous situation ...he/she can't communicate right away. I do understand this might be a plot point purposely done by the author but I still want to yell at the character.
Barbara wrote: Quillracer, my quibble is not with characters who won't use the latest gizmos but with those who refuse to have a cell phone altogether. Then when the technology-averse detective (or other main character) gets some vital clue or gets caught in a dangerous situation ...he/she can't communicate right away. I do understand this might be a plot point purposely done by the author but I still want to yell at the character.Okay, I follow you. It's like on TV shows where the detectives wander around the house looking for clues just with flashlights. I want to bellow, "Turn on the (bleep) lights."
Quillracer wrote: "Barbara wrote: Quillracer, my quibble is not with characters who won't use the latest gizmos but with those who refuse to have a cell phone altogether. Then when the technology-averse detective (or..."Really, turn on the f**king lights! And do you like the way they hold flashlights in TV shows these days? What's with that? Bulb next to the little finger, thumb on the end, hold it next to your face and let the bad guys know where to shoot (yet they still can't hit the broadside of a barn :)
Of course, there is the famous father/son exchange between the great 20th Century philosophers:
Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr. Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!
Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.
Peace, Seeley
Seeley wrote: Really, turn on the f**king lights! And do you like the way they hold flashlights in TV shows these days? What's with that? Bulb next to the little finger, thumb on the end, hold it next to your face and let the bad guys know where to shoot (yet they still can't hit the broadside of a barn :)Or better yet, Hold it next to their gun which they are holding right in front of your chest. Can you say, "Center mass?"
Quillracer wrote: "Seeley wrote: Really, turn on the f**king lights! And do you like the way they hold flashlights in TV shows these days? What's with that? Bulb next to the little finger, thumb on the end, hold it n..."It might look dumb, but I believe that is the recommended way to hold a flashlight when holding a gun.
http://www.iwillnotbeavictim.com/flas...
You hold the flashlight in that orientation, yes, to allow you to get a good smack in with it if necessary - but not right next to your face or chest. Hold it out to the side and away from your body since people tend to shoot at the light source. (Or turn on the light)
The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group
Books mentioned in this topic
Twice Shy (other topics)No Witnesses (other topics)
Reprobate: A Katla Novel (other topics)
The Time Machine (other topics)
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration (other topics)
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Good rule. I bet that's a great book.