What are your watershed years for major societal shifts you address in your writing?

[Euphony]

Anything you fight to stay keenly aware of in your writing?

Common things such as:
Cell Phones
Dial up internet
Hi speed internet
Information explosion (so harder to sell inet savvy youngsters who don't know sexual basics)
Car phones
Pagers
Proliferation of porn concepts/now common place sexual information
Album release windows/dates/charting (as I progress into the itunes era, I'm less inclined to claim popularity further from single releases)
Anything else you can think of (fashions, consumer products, etc.)

This is really a thought space for you to share timelines you work under (within a reality space) and where you sometimes accommodate for them.

I find myself pigeonholing to small windows of year(s) and want to play around with some of the shoulder times still keeping plausibility.

 

[TheRedChamber]

A lot of my contempory stories occupy this fuzzy area when I'm planning them of whether they happen now or around the year 2000. I'm firmly in middle age now so flipping things back 20 years avoids any unfortunate 'hey fellow kids' moments when I'm writing youthful protagonists. Besides, the Internet and hence Internet porn and dating was less of a thing back then so it's easier to write sexually naive young characters - (not that I necessarily want my characters to be pure as the driven snow, it's just when mum's friend Margery from next door suggests latex bondage sex with triple dildo penetration, I prefer my MC to go 'wow' instead of 'great, I've got that page bookmarked on PornHub, but frankly I don't think you're going to be able to live up to some of those Japanese girls...)

On the other hand, I'm currently writing about the 1960s which is a great period to explore the sexual revolution and have characters who are genuinely in the dark about sexuality but also start discovering opportunities to really go wild. Because it wasn't a period I lived, it can be difficult putting together the day-to-day scenes well, though.

I've also had a strong interest in Victoriana - eight years ago when I started (and then immediately stopped) writing I had a big plan for lots of stories set in a fantasy world mixing Victorian Britain and Imperial China. The Victorian stuff is really interesting because it's a great opportunity go mix the facade with the reality and really lay on the contrasts between the pure upper-class heroines and the seedy underbelly of the reality. I need to revisit some of this stuff, but I've got at least four other big series projects vying to be born at the moment, so its probably not something I'm returning to soon.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I tend to vague it up with loose allusions to "now" - a couple of covid stories, for example - and allusions to "not now, but then," without going into specifics. Otherwise contemporary stories age too fast.

Go for timeless, and keep it vague - seems to work for me.

 

[KeithD]

I write from the beginning of time into the future.

 

[SimonDoom]

Almost all of my stories are set in the present time, and I often incorporate contemporary technology and social media into my stories -- things like cell phones and cell phone cameras, text messaging, webcam sites, dating sites, online porn and sites like OnlyFans, things like that. I'm not a tech geek by any means but I try to maintain a moderate degree of familiarity with these things because of the way they affect sex and erotic behavior.

 

[Seadog777]

The only real "common" thing that I put in my stories is that there is AT LEAST ONE THING that is true or actually happened.

Whether it be a name, scenario, location, situation, body, etc, etc.

I like to let the readers try figure out what is real and what is fiction.

 

[Euphony]

I tend to vague it up with loose allusions to "now" - a couple of covid stories, for example - and allusions to "not now, but then," without going into specifics. Otherwise contemporary stories age too fast.

Go for timeless, and keep it vague - seems to work for me.

Covid has been especially problematic. I generally avoid it due to it turning cliche but sometimes I use something in narrative that timestamps me and forget about it when I add months/a year or two (which would be smack dab mid covid)

 

[Candy_Kane54]

1980's in the beach cities of the Greater LA area.

 

[GrantBricksly]

I was thinking about this just the other day actually. The two MCs in my story are...lets just say my age, and leave it at that....And I was about to have one of them recall how they first met. But then I remembered that the way they met (the way my wife and I met) is something that doesn't really exist anymore. And I wasn't sure I was ready to try to explain something like that in a story. I don't want to have to explain how old I am...lol(I'm not even that old...but Damnit, technology ages so quickly, that it can make you feel old when it becomes obsolete.)

My wife and I met in a......Yahoo Chat Room.......and that hasn't been around for a long time now..lol

 

[Euphony]

I was thinking about this just the other day actually. The two MCs in my story are...lets just say my age, and leave it at that....And I was about to have one of them recall how they first met. But then I remembered that the way they met (the way my wife and I met) is something that doesn't really exist anymore. And I wasn't sure I was ready to try to explain something like that in a story. I don't want to have to explain how old I am...lol(I'm not even that old...but Damnit, technology ages so quickly, that it can make you feel old when it becomes obsolete.)

My wife and I met in a......Yahoo Chat Room.......and that hasn't been around for a long time now..lol

This is ABSOLUTELY what I'm talking about.

I do okay with stuff my brain easily clicks as "from another era" but it's the fringe stuff or steady progress of tech/time that will make for some uncomfortable narrative reshapings.

Cell Phone adoption being the biggest. Breaking down, teens being (logically) unavailable for a couple of hours, various other misinterpretations/missteps that SMS, VMail, Smartphones are now the sensical, expected solution.

Every set of parents can't be religious nuts who don't bend to the pressure of just about every other set of parents in the community getting their kid a cell phone/lifeline.

The others in my list invisibly crop up from time to time and I pray they jump out on an edit.

 

[HordHolm]

The beauty of setting a story firmly in the past is that it won't age, and the potential downfall of near future stories is that any tech (or even the entire world) will look unrealistic once the near future date is reached - the original Bladerunner is set in 2020, for example. Personally, I try to avoid too much detail that will date a story (easier in kink than non-kink imo) but inevitably small things will creep in and in future firmly place a contemporary story in the past. But that's ok - when I read nineteenth/early twentieth century literature I don't find it jarring that the author was writing a contemporary story but I'm reading a 'historical' work of fiction.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

A lot of that stuff (well, everything mentioned, really) is touched upon in the Alexaverse, most often in the Mike & Karen flashbacks. A lot of things also get touched on in Time Rider, but that's an actual time travel story, so maybe that's cheating.

Karen, for instance, is from an absurdly wealthy family, and in the 80's can be seen carrying around a handbag cellphone. She hates it, since it accessorizes with nothing, and it also means she cannot escape from people who have her number. She was a pioneer in the field of quantum cryptography (I know, really romantic, right?), so in the present day, it is often remarked about how her research influenced today's society. In the mid-80's she and Mike were groundbreaking with Calabi-Yau Manifolds, and expanded our understanding of black holes.

Mike may also have parallel-invented an early form of Wi-Fi.

I touch on those subjects a lot, because they're fun.

 

[Rob_Royale]

My latest is set in 1962 and learning about fashions, hairstyles of the day was pretty important.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Thankfully, that's stuff I don't have to deal with. The worlds my stories are set in are made up by me, as are their histories. One of the perks of writing mostly SF and Fantasy. Even the stories set in worlds resembling our own can be a bit loose thanks to the influence of hidden forces.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I have a fair few characters my age. Ish. So when they were students they didn't have mobile phones. One plot really required some phone messaging despite being mostly out of reception range, so it got bumped into the future by about four years.

I'd already done a story where the dates of UK legislation re homosexuality were a significant part of the plot, so while I'd written most of it to happen round 2014, there was some hasty editing to put it in 2010 so events like the age of consent drop and lifting of the ban in the armed forces weren't so far in the past.

Which means characters who appear in both age about 18 years in ten. Tbh honest, that's consistent with my experience of the early 2000s...

I did a First Time story for Geek Pride which is based in a large multinational company in around 1993, so the fact that they have what we call instant messaging on their mainframes is key to the plot (messages all get copied to a certain account, for a while), use of phone boxes, no adjustments made for disability, etc. Lead observes that she's seen porn mags but only ASCII porn online so she was unfamiliar of the sounds of sex until her housemates regularly shagged on the other side of a thin wall.

How disability rights and access have changed in the same time period also comes up in my Wheelchair Bound? story - one guy refers to going down the huge curved stairs of a national museum in a wheelchair as part of Disabled Action, more fun than being chained to railings in the rain. (based on actual incidents).

The likelihood of encountering pubic hair on a woman and if so how much has changed hugely. Ditto facial hair or long hair on men, and piercings all over. I figured recently more of my characters should have tattoos if they're modern Londoners, so a guy got some on his chest and thigh based on what was on telly at the time.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This is ABSOLUTELY what I'm talking about.

I do okay with stuff my brain easily clicks as "from another era" but it's the fringe stuff or steady progress of tech/time that will make for some uncomfortable narrative reshapings.

Cell Phone adoption being the biggest. Breaking down, teens being (logically) unavailable for a couple of hours, various other misinterpretations/missteps that SMS, VMail, Smartphones are now the sensical, expected solution.

Every set of parents can't be religious nuts who don't bend to the pressure of just about every other set of parents in the community getting their kid a cell phone/lifeline.

The others in my list invisibly crop up from time to time and I pray they jump out on an edit.

I find the challenge of this stimulating. The research required to maintain the proper accuracy and continuity takes time, but readers appreciate it (for the most part).

I have been working on a story for most of the past year that takes place in 1990. This year was chosen because it matches the timeline of events that are alluded to in the story that this one will be a prequel for. I didn't realize at the beginning how much occurred in the world during this one year, especially in Europe. Technology was also in a major transition point with early internet services such as Prodigy and CompuServe just becoming available to the general public. AOL didn't exist yet, cell phones were rare, and databases were just beginning to become digitized.

I am integrating many of the world events and emerging technologies into the story and beta readers have been pleased so far. We'll see how the masses perceive it in a few months when I publish it.

 

[jsmiam]

With full respect and admiration for those who write historically (even if it’s just the early 2000s), I rarely if ever read them.

Then, with great irony, I acknowledge that involving technology today will make my stories even more outdated in 2042, than the way I view a 2002 era story.

But regardless of the irony, I mostly am a current times person. Just me and my own preferences.

 

[PennameWombat]

I’ve set a connected series of stories that begin in 1962. The JFK presidency plays into it and over the course of a couple of years the nascent civil rights movement is noted. The FMC in this earliest story is twenty-two and had an older brother who died in the Korean War. Most of the stories take place in 1980/1981 and 1985/1986 and then around the turn of the century. I chose this time frame to specifically start with computers, an internet that was available but quite limited and no mobile phones nor digital cameras. Interracial and gay couples in the earlier stories are careful about their relationships. Not entirely hidden, but as Samantha says of her and Teresa, “we choose our battles.” Biracial Asha recalls her parents having issues in her youth. Since this is all essentially an alternate history, the stories see technology developing, but in different ways.

Another story used the then upcoming Brexit as a key driver.

The Mermaid stories start in a near future then jump a millennium to a galaxy being colonised by humans using slower-than-light starships with ‘cold sleep’ technology.

Other stories are set whenever I feel fits the idea. One is essentially a post-COVID travelogue, but the actual pandemic is only alluded to so you can imagine it to be whatever you want. Others include mobile phones, etc., or not, again whatever fits. Some stories are set in times and places which are fully up to the reader to suss out.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

With full respect and admiration for those who write historically (even if it’s just the early 2000s), I rarely if ever read them.

Then, with great irony, I acknowledge that involving technology today will make my stories even more outdated in 2042, than the way I view a 2002 era story.

But regardless of the irony, I mostly am a current times person. Just me and my own preferences.

What about futuristic references in stories?

I don't necessarily mean Sci-Fi type stories, but stories with scenes that predict characters' lives at some point in the future, living happily ever after or not. Some of these could include references to cultural or technological changes that the author envisions to exist in the future.

In a couple of my stories which are part of a universe, I had to move the story a few years into the future in order to maintain the age continuity of the characters for the previous story. It was fun to envision what the social and political landscape might be a few years into the future, as well as the technology that the characters would have available them versus currently.

 

[holliday1960]

Irony... I watched a short video this morning of two male teens (present day) attempting to figure out how to dial a rotary phone. The video went on for several minutes and they never did discover that picking up the receiver before dialing was required to complete a call. This is a parallel scenario to me trying to figure out how to use a smart phone. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. Unless there's a point to those fine details, why worry with HOW it works? This is erotica. Devote detailed info to the finer points of sex. The rest is just boring filler.

 

[MrPixel]

What we're talking about here are "epochs" - distinct periods delineated by events or technologies, and not necessarily by calendars. I have a non-writing interest where epochs are important, and I do my best to adhere to my chosen epoch.

My writing? Current period only, reflecting today's societal norms and even specific events that do in fact date the writings. For instance, I have an important subplot in the most recent published installment referencing the 2022 controversies surrounding women's health and their effect on sexual relations. All the characters carry smartphones* and the business represented in the core of the story has fiber internet service and several internet-savvy employees including a Gen Z social media marketing manager. Most of the cast are late-period Millennials.

I conveniently don't mention anything about COVID, which I consider to be a sad time in our collective history I would rather forget. Like Bob Ross famously said, it's my world, and I can make it anything I want.

* - Which underscores the challenges of representing texted dialog on LitE, especially emoticons. Lots of discussion elsewhere about this.

 

[Euphony]

I find the challenge of this stimulating. The research required to maintain the proper accuracy and continuity takes time, but readers appreciate it (for the most part).

I have been working on a story for most of the past year that takes place in 1990. This year was chosen because it matches the timeline of events that are alluded to in the story that this one will be a prequel for. I didn't realize at the beginning how much occurred in the world during this one year, especially in Europe. Technology was also in a major transition point with early internet services such as Prodigy and CompuServe just becoming available to the general public. AOL didn't exist yet, cell phones were rare, and databases were just beginning to become digitized.

I am integrating many of the world events and emerging technologies into the story and beta readers have been pleased so far. We'll see how the masses perceive it in a few months when I publish it.

I've done similar and you hit the nail on the head, it's a writing exercise treat. I know I am more concerned about accuracy than the average reader.

Researching sexual mores of a particular time has been more problematic. As people tend towards a wider spectrum w/intimacy subjects, I can stretch a little but I still wish I had more solid sources so I have a real sense of how transgressive I'm being in having sheltered character engage in a sex act.

 

[Euphony]

I have a fair few characters my age. Ish. So when they were students they didn't have mobile phones. One plot really required some phone messaging despite being mostly out of reception range, so it got bumped into the future by about four years.

I'd already done a story where the dates of UK legislation re homosexuality were a significant part of the plot, so while I'd written most of it to happen round 2014, there was some hasty editing to put it in 2010 so events like the age of consent drop and lifting of the ban in the armed forces weren't so far in the past.

Which means characters who appear in both age about 18 years in ten. Tbh honest, that's consistent with my experience of the early 2000s...

I did a First Time story for Geek Pride which is based in a large multinational company in around 1993, so the fact that they have what we call instant messaging on their mainframes is key to the plot (messages all get copied to a certain account, for a while), use of phone boxes, no adjustments made for disability, etc. Lead observes that she's seen porn mags but only ASCII porn online so she was unfamiliar of the sounds of sex until her housemates regularly shagged on the other side of a thin wall.

How disability rights and access have changed in the same time period also comes up in my Wheelchair Bound? story - one guy refers to going down the huge curved stairs of a national museum in a wheelchair as part of Disabled Action, more fun than being chained to railings in the rain. (based on actual incidents).

The likelihood of encountering pubic hair on a woman and if so how much has changed hugely. Ditto facial hair or long hair on men, and piercings all over. I figured recently more of my characters should have tattoos if they're modern Londoners, so a guy got some on his chest and thigh based on what was on telly at the time.

These are fantastic examples.

I'm curious how you research nuances outside of your personal experience? My process feels lacking the more and more social/pop culture the trait is.

 

[Voboy]

I try not to include major chronological signposts in my stories, the exceptions being the 2-3 stories I wrote about quarantining. Covid was a significant enough event that I couldn't ignore it in my writing, but in general I moved on quickly.

Technology presents a problem, but not if you don't mention specific brands or models of devices. A reference to "iPod shuffles" is obviously dated now; a reference to "music players" less so. Early on I decided to develop my own analogues for certain real-world businesses (just for fun, mostly), and that might come in handy once FB, Instagram, and Twitter go the inevitable way of the long-forgotten but once all-powerful MySpace: my Pixboox will still be going strong in my universe. And so will my Secret Whispers and Ahab's, even if Victoria's Secret and Starbucks go bankrupt.

I hope my stories age well. It is something I'm conscious of. The relatively few stories I explicitly set at specific historical periods? Those I research exhaustively, because I find it fun.

 

[HeyAll]

I've been writing for over 10 years. Early on, I was still in college, and I saw someone typing on something in class. This was pre-smart phone. I remember thinking, 'That's what people use now?' because it looked so advanced to me. It was a blackberry I think. A texting device. I was behind on the times with new technology, admittedly. So then I started referencing 'texts' into stories. Before that, texting hadn't even crossed my mind to use in a story.

I remember having one comment saying the story was modern because people were texting. Must have been an old guy. Keep in mind, I had never texted before. Just saw someone doing it in class, then put it in a story to be modern.