In your writing, accounting for modern technology in your plots.

[Bramblethorn]

This seems like one of those "kids these days" things that's wildly overblown. People have complained about technology ruining stories for decades, and I guess it's true that it can ruin specific stories, but there are a lot of stories out there.

"Romeo and Juliet could have faked her death easily and the whole plot would be ruined if they had smartphones!" Well, they wouldn't have had that specific miscommunication, but... really? For one thing, they had a messenger and he just didn't make it in time, the kind of problem that can happen with any technology. For another, the plot depends on a poison that harmlessly puts someone in suspended animation, which doesn't actually exist in real life. If the messenger didn't fail, the poison could. For a third thing, the whole point of the story is that they're idiots, immature children, and Shakespeare didn't want them to have a happily ever after.

R&J seem like exactly the kind of people who would send ambiguous text messages leading to a fatal misunderstanding.

 

[TheLobster]

There has to be many opportunities to exploit the miscommunications created by it.

"Wanna fuck?"

"Sure! I could use one right now."

*10 minutes later*

"Where is it? The oven is warming up, and I've got the glazing and the stuffing ready."

"Huh? I don't get it..."

"What do you mean, don't get it? Where is the duck?"

 

[Bramblethorn]

One more plot introduced by modern tech -- autocorrect. There has to be many opportunities to exploit the miscommunications created by it. The plot bunnies are reproducing in front of me like, well, rabbits.

plot bunny: somebody who's just rescued farm animals texts an acquaintance, attempting to ask if they would like a duck.

 

[THBGato]

It's less about older readers for me, and more about younger ones. For example in a story set in 2001 I felt I needed to explain that it was still uncommon for UK school kids to have mobiles, while in another set in 2004 the protagonist was using a mini-disc recorder: a twenty year old reading that story probably wouldn't have a clue what that was (or know about myspace).

 

[iwatchus]

How about texting an invite list for a sex party to your SO and the wrong person gets invited. I don't know, maybe your boss. Your kid's 3rd grade teacher. Lots of possibilities.

 

[Soixenta]

@Soixenta example reminded of a tech interference(to one reader) in a fantasy series. There is an old mansion where you can pay a fee and they open up a portal to a fantasy (both in the sexual fantasy sense and in the SF&F sense) world tuned for the customer. I had a reader object that they took ApplePay. I liked the tech/magic crossover. They did have to leave all their tech behind when they entered the fantasy world, though.

Precisely. I might not like tech in "medieval" fantasy, for instance, but in Urban Fantasy it makes sense. The story explicitly contrasts carrying around an old-fashioned crystal ball, the size of a watermelon, with the convenience of a marble that projects onto a screen. And then the FMC's boss call her while she's just preparing for a little "scrying" on her neighbour's shower. How can anyone ignore the story opportunities?

 

[THBGato]

Romeo and Juliet could have faked her death easily and the whole plot would be ruined if they had smartphones!" Well, they wouldn't have had that specific miscommunication, but... really? For one thing, they had a messenger and he just didn't make it in time, the kind of problem that can happen with any technology. For another, the plot depends on a poison that harmlessly puts someone in suspended animation, which doesn't actually exist in real life. If the messenger didn't fail, the poison could. For a third thing, the whole point of the story is that they're idiots, immature children, and Shakespeare didn't want them to have a happily ever after.

The thing about R&J is that even at the time people called bullshit on the plot. Friar John, the messenger sent to Romeo, is meant to be delayed in a house placed under quarantine for the plague. But seeing as quarantine lasted 40 days, there's no way he would get out before the end of the play and be able to inform Friar Lawrence that he couldn't deliver the message.

 

[TheLobster]

One aspect that hasn't been mentioned much yet is that as long as you're not writing a period piece, and your general setting is within the very broadly considered contemporary world (second half of 20th century and later), the bulk of technological progress concerns relatively trivial things.

Sending a message, looking a place to eat, buying concert tickets, finding some porn to wank to -- these are all easier and faster, but haven't been fundamentally enabled by technology like internet, smartphones, social media or LLMs. In the olden days they might've involved voicemail, consulting a printed city guide, stopping by the concert venue on your way back from work, or perusing the stash you've got under your bed; but in the end, you could still do all those things.

And most importantly, the way you'd dispense with them in writing wouldn't have changed. Your MC would still simply order tickets and then make a reservation for a table for two; you don't have to specify if he picked up his rotary phone or used an online form on the restaurant's website. Unless the specific technological means enter the plot in some other way, there is simply no need to mention them.

 

[millamomud]

I actually made the "close friends" feature from instagram a plot device, which the mistress uses to give commands to the submissive. He got into his predicament after 3d-printing a chastity cage and posting about it on reddit, where he caught her attention

In another story the main character got doxxed on reddit, which was a turnin point in her entire journey, so there's that.

My other stories, however, are deliberately disconnected from tech.

 

[RetroFan]

I mostly write stories set in the past and will use technology of the time to help set the story in its era and am careful not to create anachronisms, although I wouldn't claim to be fool proof.

As one example, my story 'Sexy Savannah from Number 9' takes place in 1997, and in one scene the main male character Dino attempts to connect to the internet. I describe the noises of the number dialing and connecting via dial-up internet, then Dino's authoritarian father appears behind his son, demanding to know why he is using 'an internet' He is not accepting his son's explanation that he was studying, accusing him of 'trying to look through the windows to see pictures of naked girls' and ordering Dino to turn off the internet as he (the father) is expecting an important phone call and instructing his son to go to the library and use the encyclopedias to study like normal people do.

The above describes the early days of MS Windows and dial-up internet back in the 1990s quite well especially how Dino's dad doesn't really understand how it all works. Other times I mock the obsession with social media in more recent years, like the ending of my story 'Bad Things Happen on April 15' where a Tasmanian family find a message in a bottle from the Titanic in the Mersey River in Devonport. The eldest daughter Poppy at age 18 is a social media addict who aspires to becoming an influencer, and is on her phone the whole time, doing one mindless thing after another. Poppy's parents lament some of their daughter's online activities, such as sending pictures of her bare feet after a pedicure to a supposedly gay male couple, but whom the parents obviously suspect are a pair of perverts posing as this to procure feet pictures from naive young women.

 

[SkyBubble]

Smartphones. Smartwatches. Doorbell cameras. Etc. Modern gadgets and the internet can negate some plot conflicts that would've otherwise existed a decade or two ago.

Well, in a story set in an earlier timeframe, the characters would call each other. They might still do that sometime, but in contemporary times, a lot of the "calling" will simply be texting.

 

[SkyBubble]

I had the opposite problem with one story, which was mostly set in 1983. I wanted to exchange cell phone numbers and the like and had to say, oh yeah, not om 1983.

When I was in college, more years ago than I want to admit, we had phones at the end of each hall in the dorms. The phone would ring, the caller would ask for whomever he or she was calling for, and you'd go get that person.

It made for some...interesting moments. One Saturday, the phone at the end of the hall range. My roomie picked it up, and the conversation went like this (excluding last names):

"Hi, is Jeff (Last Name) in?"
"No, he's not even up yet."

It was the guy's dad.

 

[SkyBubble]

People assume tech solves problems. Honestly, as a tech worker, tech creates more problems than it solves.

It solves some, creates others. Whole new problems this time.

 

[Britva415]

Smartphones. Smartwatches. Doorbell cameras. Etc. Modern gadgets and the internet can negate some plot conflicts that would've otherwise existed a decade or two ago.

Assuming you're writing a current-day story in a setting with the infrastructure...

- How do you account (or not account) for internet-connected devices in your plots?

- Do you feel you have to address the existence of gadgets, or waste words writing them off, to preserve certain aspects in a story? (Example: I feel like it's pretty common in movies today to see a character have to look at their phone and basically convey that there's no reception).

- On the other hand, does the relatively older Lit readership mean that no one is really asking, "Well, a Ring camera in this day and age would've solved that issue! Unrealistic!" Or, "Why didn't the MC just Google the guy? Unforgivable!"

- Is there a fine line between plausible and implausible?

I haven’t written a plot which would depend on either the presence or the absence of any of these technologies, except for the one whose entire raison d’etre is organized around cameras, the internet and doing massage videos for money.

I mostly write about regular stuff which happens to regular people, and could happen almost any time or place. There are cultural prerequisites (my one about a woman who’s a biologist couldn’t have taken place in 1780) but not technological ones. And since I focus on what’s happening between two people, and not on twists and surprises, I don’t anticipate having to keep track of tech “gotcha’s.”

I mean, I don’t know. For all I know, someone will drop a comment on my Genie’s Wish series to the effect that “there’s no way the government wouldn’t catch what this guy is up to,” but they would have to ignore that it’s already about fuckin’ magic wishes and genies fgs.

 

[SkyBubble]

plot bunny: somebody who's just rescued farm animals texts an acquaintance, attempting to ask if they would like a duck.

OK, why a duck?

 

[dirk2024]

So far, I'm comfortable with tech. I'm an admitedly older gentleman. Most of my stories/WIP occur within the last few years. So I incorporate cell phones, texting, Tinder etc.

I have only one published story at this point with a texting exchange. Hopefully its a clear communication for the readers. It's received a lot of comments and none of them complained about the texts. Future stories will use <blockquote> to set the texts within the story boundaries, hopefully making them even clearer. I only wish emoji's were more clearly displayed. (I read my stories with a dark gray background, so that may be the reason why I don't see them clearly.)

I don't see how current stories can be told without texting and emoji's, considering how prevalent its used nowadays.

 

[Off_base]

Smartphones. Smartwatches. Doorbell cameras. Etc. Modern gadgets and the internet can negate some plot conflicts that would've otherwise existed a decade or two ago.

Assuming you're writing a current-day story in a setting with the infrastructure...

- How do you account (or not account) for internet-connected devices in your plots?

- Do you feel you have to address the existence of gadgets, or waste words writing them off, to preserve certain aspects in a story? (Example: I feel like it's pretty common in movies today to see a character have to look at their phone and basically convey that there's no reception).

- On the other hand, does the relatively older Lit readership mean that no one is really asking, "Well, a Ring camera in this day and age would've solved that issue! Unrealistic!" Or, "Why didn't the MC just Google the guy? Unforgivable!"

- Is there a fine line between plausible and implausible?

I think all of my stories at least mention of some kind of modern tech. It wasn't a conscious effort at the time, but I'm glad this thread brought my attention to it. Thank you.

 

[NuclearFairy]

So far, I'm comfortable with tech. I'm an admitedly older gentleman. Most of my stories/WIP occur within the last few years. So I incorporate cell phones, texting, Tinder etc.

I have only one published story at this point with a texting exchange. Hopefully its a clear communication for the readers. It's received a lot of comments and none of them complained about the texts. Future stories will use <blockquote> to set the texts within the story boundaries, hopefully making them even clearer. I only wish emoji's were more clearly displayed. (I read my stories with a dark gray background, so that may be the reason why I don't see them clearly.)

I don't see how current stories can be told without texting and emoji's, considering how prevalent its used nowadays.

Yeah, emojis are kinda like the texting equivalent of body language and facial expressions.

 

[Britva415]

I don't see how current stories can be told without texting and emoji's, considering how prevalent its used nowadays.

Yeah, totally. I read some story where all they did was talk and I was like what is this 1950

 

[Rob_Royale]

1- How do you account (or not account) for internet-connected devices in your plots?

2- Do you feel you have to address the existence of gadgets, or waste words writing them off, to preserve certain aspects in a story? (Example: I feel like it's pretty common in movies today to see a character have to look at their phone and basically convey that there's no reception).

3- On the other hand, does the relatively older Lit readership mean that no one is really asking, "Well, a Ring camera in this day and age would've solved that issue! Unrealistic!" Or, "Why didn't the MC just Google the guy? Unforgivable!"

4- Is there a fine line between plausible and implausible?

1 & 2 - If I think it's going to be problematic, I set the story in the past. It's easy and the older readers seem to appreciate the dated references / blasts from the past.
3 - Hasn't been an issue so far.
4 - Of course, but the average reader ISN'T trying to poke holes in the story. They are just looking to be entertained. The troll commenter is a minority.

 

[APilgrimSquare]

I write for a modern audience who understands modern technology, and I don’t write plots where modern technology would obviate those plots.

Take cell phones, for instance. So many plots of yesteryear would be ruined if the characters could simply text each other all the time, photographic evidence is easy to come by, etc.

But cell phones introduce potential plots of their own: dead batteries, going through another’s texts, embedded tracking, etc. There’s lots of conflict that can arise from the use or misuse of technology.

It would be silly to write a plot that cell phones would easily solve. But if a cell were out of battery, you could make that the plot, and have the characters be foiled at every attempt to find a charge. It’s probably not enough to explain a phone away: you need to make its unavailability an ongoing feature IMO.

 

[CalBishForNow]

I'll admit, it  has been a pain figuring out how to use emojis. I think I resorted to writing "eggplant emoji, peach emoji, eggplant emoji" in one story.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I'll admit, it  has been a pain figuring out how to use emojis. I think I resorted to writing "eggplant emoji, peach emoji, eggplant emoji" in one story.

You right click, and then at the top of the created menu is "Emoji" I think that any emoji inserted with this will also show up in story.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

I try not to focus too much on modern communications devices and systems in present-day stories. I'd rather spend the time developing characters or the plot itself rather than specifics that most readers will gloss over.

However, since a number of my stories or series are set at specific points in time, I do try to make sure that any technology or devices that are actually relevant in the story are appropriate to that specific period of time. It was fun trying to determine when answering machines and rolling suitcases became commercially available to the general public since they both items ended up being important plot points.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I had to check when shifting a story a few years earlier, whether fingerprint unlocking of smartphones existed in 2010. It did, on up-market ones, which luckily my character would have. So when he was passed out, and his phone rang, his partner could lift his hand and unlock the mobile.

Otherwise I could have just had the caller prefer to try the landline first, I suppose. Another story had characters in rural Wales away from phone reception, having to jog a mile down the road to make calls. Probably still plausible now.

One story has students using early instant messaging on mainframes in the early 90s, but the story was for Geek Pride so that tech was part of it. Another has a couple emailing and then triggering the need for an international phone call at work.

The tech thing that actually dates the 2010 story mentioned the most is the guy trying to quit smoking but dismisses the idea of an e-cig, because of not wanting to suck on something looking like a Tampax applicator. I wrote it in 2020, just as vaping really took off with the attractive packaging to lure kids in.

Soon, pulling a handbrake will be obsolete, or putting a key into a car lock. Video doorbells I think have peaked, code locks for doors to allow and record multiple people entering are catching on. Restaurants where 80% of people through the door are Deliveroo drivers is a huge cultural/tech shift (after being able to order food delivery at all!), though I can't think of the erotic potential offhand...