06 July 2002

Mobiles considered disruptive to plot orthodoxy Bruce Sterling's 'Without Vision, the People Perish' talk, June 2002, mentions in passing that mobiles make thriller plots difficult... how the hell do you write a thriller novel in a world that has cellphones? [...] It's amazing how little technical room is left for the customary cliches of a thriller novel, in this, our modern, digitized, networked society. No more car chases == because I just use my cellphone and I call the cops in the next town. No more gunfights in deserted warehouses == I just use my cellphone and I call the cops. No more trailing the spy to his sinister lair == I just use my cellphone and I call up the cop's video monitors. But Bruce, what about new, mobile, cliches?: your mobile phone rings, alerting the bad guys that you're hiding behind those boxes in the warehouse the mobile that loses signal just as you call those cops the incriminating text message accidentally sent to the wrong name in the phone book Related: plot generation tool and from Rudy Rucker novel-in-development notes: "There are only two plots in literature: a person goes on a journey; a stranger comes to town". 12:24:51 AM     comments