Back in the Nineties there started a wonderfully entertaining TV series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Witty, female-lead, creative stories and some dark themes. It was a big hit. I watched every episode. One of my favourites was “Hush”.
The story is a perfect balance of creepy bad guys, called the Gentlemen, and the Scooby gang coming together to destroy the demons. The Gentlemen had stolen their voices, forcing the gang to communicate silently. They make use of mime through charades and cartoonish drawings on overhead transparencies (remember them?) and eventually they defeat the baddies.. of course.
I watched the episode again years later when my kids got hooked on the series. The natural question for the younger generation – couldn’t they just text each other. In fact, most of the early plots for Buffy would be resolved much quicker if they simply called each other on the phone (technology did progress in the series). It’s a comment that can be applied to many old TV series.
Now times change and so do the stories the writer wants to tell, but sometimes that pesky mobile phone does introduce complexity – social media in general does. I don’t want it to be easy for my characters to have a quick chat and solve misunderstandings. I don’t want the clue on page ten to be texted immediately when I have other things happening in other places that need suspense and not resolution; can’t it be revealed in person on page 40?
I use a book formatting tool, and it has the feature where you can now add dialogue in the format of text messages. Ten years ago, I had to mock that up using fonts and indents. It’s almost expected that Whatsapp or Messenger will appear in the book at some point. These are great for creativity, and I’ve read many books when the use of mobile phones adds to the story and brings new plot twists and developments. But sometimes that awkward suggestion – why don’t they just text each other – is not what the story needs.
Solution – wind back the clock. I’ve noticed more books telling stories from the Seventies and Eighties. (I suppose in the 21st century, this would be touching on ‘history’ for younger readers.) Some of us remember life in those days being slower and requiring more patience simply because we had to wait for the letter to arrive in the post or the phone to ring in the evening when we’re home from work.
The other alternative is to remove the possibility of having a mobile phone, or any modern device. Let’s give the protagonist no ability to utilise such convenient devices. Let’s have her stuck in the past among the contemporary world and see how the story unfolds.
Coming soon – a new ghost story with a twist. The narrator is the ghost!
House of Thieves
Trapped in Terrington Hall, a nameless soul watches as the living unearth fragments of her forgotten story.
She has no form. She has no voice. But she’s always watching.