Comments on: New Media in Fiction: Will There Ever Be an “iPhone Novel”?

By: rudeboy7969

rudeboy7969 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:25:17 +0000

I just finished reading PATTERN RECOGNITION by William Gibson. It was good with the correlation between the Internet and narrative. MS. MISERY by Andy Greenwald also had good scenes with cell phone conversations and blog posts.

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By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:56:49 +0000

Is it possible that our current narrative conventions just don’t include room for all the incidental knowledge we glean from our use of technology? I wonder if there is a need for a kind of description that highlights the digital environment the way one would describe a physical setting in a novel – pertinent details and overall mood guiding the reader’s imagination.

By: Amy Abatangle

Amy Abatangle — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:57:48 +0000

I’m interested in both the appearance of technology in fiction (characters using email, cell phones, more futuristic devices), but am rather more interested in how to represent the fractured experience of a mediated life. Formal experimentation has always been a marginalized activity, but it seems like there is room for an update to the epistolary novel at the very least. What does it mean when everyone is plugged into a Bluetooth headset or is multitasking with an iPhone? Linear narrative has always seemed a bit disingenuous to me; now, it seems even more so. Technology has made life that much more prismatic, and linear experiences have been replaced not so much by the shattered experiences of postmodernist/deconstructionist discourse but by a new synthesis, one that demands that each of us make sense of that much more information, experience and interaction in our daily lives. That process of keeping an internal narrative going (not to mention the multithreaded, social interactions now incumbent upon us) is where each of us creates meaning from experience. I’d like to see *that* in fiction.

By: Simen

Simen — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:43:23 +0000

A bit tangential: message board activity in fiction is done brilliantly here: http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html

But of course, that is a very short piece, which would probably be tedious and boring if it were any longer, and it also pokes fun at internet culture, and not all fiction that has technology in it should be *about* technology — it’s probably easier to use the blog form to poke fun at blogging or the message board form to poke fun at web forums than it is to integrate it into a story about something else. And the whole text is just a forum thread, so the problem of how to integrate it into a larger text is irrelevant. I guess it doesn’t really address many of the questions you ask. I just wanted to mention it because it’s funny and sort of related. Also, I don’t think it has a “experimental, scrapbook feel”, but that may be because it’s not a novel.

By: Joanne McNeil

Joanne McNeil — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:22:17 +0000

Good point. But the absence seems more pronounced in popular “literary” fiction than genre. The basic working of email and message boards hasn’t changed in ten years, although people think of both very differently now, and a larger group uses them. And it’s fair to assume the basic framework will be around and the terms will be used, unless some radically different technology hits the market and then everything seems dated (like have a landline telephone in pre-21c fiction.)

That link about the Diablo Cody effect is pretty relevant here as cultural references — bands, tv shows, product brands — also date a work, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped reading say, American Psycho. Or even the Catcher in the Rye, as Holden talks a lot about now obscure stage stars.

BTW, the only case I’ve heard about a publisher removing dated references is Judy Blume’s books, and that’s because confused eleven year old girls could not figure out what the belts for pads were about: http://feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/08/17/judy-blume-updated/

By: kevin

kevin — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:12:32 +0000

Reason: wariness of the half-life of technology. Action authors love the AK-47 because the thing is going to last FOREVER. In the movie media, you could show the Kalishnikov in an Afghanistan setting in a Bond movie in 1971 and it (and Afghanistan) is still be relevant today.

Historical fiction that the reader couldn’t possibly have lived (pirates, romans) is romantic. Historical fiction that the reader can cringe through the memory of a side ponytail is more niche. Will the message board look similar enough in 10 years (or even by the time the book makes it to print) for the people to accept the writing as current? Takes a different (braver? prescient?) writer.

By: Cheryl Kaye Tardif

Cheryl Kaye Tardif — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:01:25 +0000

Very interesting post, Joanne.

I will let you know that there is one author who is not only incporporating the use of an iPhone into a novel, she’s writing it on her iPhone 3G using the Notes section.

News of this has already reached Canadian media and she’s been interviewed by various reporters for TV radio and newspaper.

And by the way, “she” is me.

http://www.cherylktardif.com/finding-bliss

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/canadian-author-cheryl-kaye-tardif-writes-a-novel-titled-finding-bliss-on-the-new-iphone-3g-69000.php

All the best in success!

Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
bestselling author of Whale Song