How Cell Phones Ruin Stories, and a Beka Cooper Giveaway

Read an interesting article in The New York Times recently, about how modern technological devices jam long-revered literary ones. Missed connections (the letter about Juliet’s faked death that doesn’t reach Romeo in time) doesn’t work if both teens have cell phones.

The author of the article, a thriller writer named Matt Richtel says:

Technology is rendering obsolete some classic narrative plot devices: missed connections, miscommunications, the inability to reach someone. Such gimmicks don’t pass the smell test when even the most remote destinations have wireless coverage. (It’s Odysseus, can someone look up the way to Ithaca? Use the “no Sirens” route.)

Of what significance is the loss to storytelling if characters from Sherwood Forest to the Gates of Hell can be instantly, if not constantly, connected?

Plenty, and at least part of it is personal. I recently finished my second thriller, or so I thought. When I sent it to several fine writer friends, I received this feedback: the protagonist and his girlfriend can’t spend the whole book unable to get in touch with each other. Not in the cellphone era.

Then I started talking to fellow writers and discovered a brewing antagonism toward today’s communication gadgets.

(Ironically, RIchtel’s debut novel is about how “hooked” we are on digital technology. I guess he became a luddite sometime in between the two?)

He’s got a point. I was chatting with some author friends recently about the modern trend of rewriting fairy tales or other old stories, and how sometimes, getting them to work in a modern setting is very difficult.The other day, I was watching one of my favorite old movies, A LETTER TO THREE WIVES. In the film, three young wives are headed out to an island campground with a group of children when a telegram is delivered to them stating that a fourth “friend” of theirs has run away with one of their husbands. Which one? Their friend deigns to say. There’s an excellent shot of the three of them looking at the dock’s one lone pay phone before the boat pulls away. The women spend the rest of the day wondering, discussing, and fretting over whether or not each of their husbands will be there when they get home. If they had cell phones, there’d be no movie.

Of course, there are advantages to modern technology as well. I get a lot of dramatic mileage out of cell phones and emails in Under the Rose. Indeed, much of the plot hinges around the way that emails can be manipulated — a plot that woulnd’t have been able to exist if it were about, say, secret letters, instead. And in Rites of Spring (Break), when it was important that people not be able to communicate by cell phone every second*, I just made sure that their island was out of range of any convenient towers. (It happens. I was camping last summer and I coudln’t find the campground where I was supposed ot meet my friends, and the only place that got cell phone reception was a precarious roadside pull out on the top of a mountain. That was…not fun.)

All of which is to say that though there are some dramatic devices you lose with the advent of technology, there are some that you gain as well. Indeed, I think the tension is even raised in situations where you know that help *is* only a phone call away — if you can just get reception on your cell phone! And when you’ve got a girl like Amy, who is used to whipping out her cell phone at the first sign of trouble — and you take that away from her…

In Rampant, Astrid has no cell phone once she gets overseas. This was a conscious decision on my part and one that makes sense in the context of the story. Given her isolation in the nunnery and her mother’s finances, I saw no reason why either her mother or the people at the Cloisters would give her one. Her cousin, on the other hand, has a cell phone. Having just returned from overseas with nine other Americans, I noted that only one actually had a usuable cell phone. (Actually, maybe Maureen did, too.)

However, in KU2, which I’m writing now, she does have a cell phone. Things have changed with her situation and she’s got a greater degree of agency. With that, comes control of her own telecommunication. It’s a subtle shift, but an important one, as it definitely has an impact on the plot.

And now, changing gears to a land with no cell phones. This weekend, I’m doing a giveaway of the marvelous Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce! Since I know some of you have not read the first book yet, how this works is, if you win and have read Terrier, I’ll send you Bloodhound. If not, I’ll send you Terrier.

And all you have to do to enter is leave a comment here about your take on modern technology in stories. Does it make things too “easy” or can it gum up the works as much as any Renaissance Italian waylaid messenger can? In what books/films/TV shows do you think that modern technology (or the convenient lack thereof– hello, LOST!) is portrayed most effectively?