Last week I finished
reading Intensity by Dean Koontz. The
novel was written, and set, in the mid-90s. The premise of the novel depends
heavily on the fact that the heroine is not able to call for help. Back then,
cellular phones were not an everyday commodity and were only found clipped to a
businessman’s leather belt or attached to a huge battery inside a briefcase. In
our modern day of instant communication and gratification, it becomes very
difficult for certain type of stories to work. Going low-tech is difficult
nowadays, but not impossible.
But what if you really
want to have a low-tech environment for your novel setting? Of course I don’t
have the absolute answer for this, because it would depend on the creativity of
the author. However, here are some ideas to bounce around.
~ Set your story in the past. If you set the novel in, say, the mid-90s,
you can forget about annoying personalized ringtones, everybody taking a
picture of you with their phone camera, and, most importantly, prevent
premature calls to the cavalry. In The
Assassins Gallery, David L. Robbins sets the action in the days around the
end of World War II. He deals with fuel rations, curfews, racism, and plenty of
other elements of the period that make this novel very rich.
~ Stranded away from technology. Oh, how we depend on finding those
signal bars in our little devices! Finding an unmapped island would be tricky,
but you can play a little there. Similar to the island is setting your story in
the mountains, with no cellular coverage. And while we’re on the subject of
islands, when asked about the contents of the unopened Fedex package in Cast
Away, director Robert Zemeckis has said the box contained a solar-powered
satellite phone. Opening the parcel would have cut short the movie by at least
1.5 hours!
~ Diagnose with OCD. A character with a fixation that technology can
bring the apocalypse faster than you can say “twelve-twenty one-twelve” can go
a long way. Oh, come on, don’t give me that look! We’ve had OCD characters even
before the term was coined or people diagnosed with it—think Sherlock Holmes,
for one. On the other hand, the BBC’s latest incarnation of the character goes
the opposite way, with Sherlock’s use of technology.
~ Time and Space travel. If you read a description of how to cook a
thriller, you will seldom hear “add a dash of fantasy,” but sometimes working
out of the box can take you to such unexpected places. For my short story,
Deeds of a Master Archer, I have two modern-day guys falling through a portal
and landing in a world where they become a village’s last line of defense
against—you guessed it—dragons. I usually refer to this story as a standard thriller
with a fantasy location.
So, how would you make
a character to boldly go where no character has gone before?
J. H. Bográn, born and raised in Honduras, is
the son of a journalist. He ironically prefers to write fiction rather than
fact. José’s genre of choice is thrillers, but he likes to throw in a twist of
romance into the mix. His works include novels and short stories in both
English and Spanish. He’s a member of the International Thriller Writers where
he also serves as the Thriller Roundtable Coordinator.
Thanks for posting with us. Low-tech settings are challenging, but that's part of the fun. I'm writing a thriller in which part of the scenes are in a rural, isolated community. Cell phone service is intermittent, and satellite internet is slow. :)
ReplyDeleteHi, LJ, rural, huh? Very goog idea!
ReplyDeleteThanks you for having me.
Jose
First of all, welcome back to CFC!
ReplyDeleteLet's see… for low tech "current" stories: an older protag who just doesn't get it; circumstances (medical, religious, choice) that precludes technology; an event that occurs that jacks up the ability to access any kind of technology… I'm sure there's more. And I like LJ's rural/remote idea.
Hi Peg,
ReplyDeleteIt's good to be back. I just love it at CFC!
José