When the Familiar is Too Familiar

The subject of this article falls under the broad category of fact-checking, but it covers a specific area that could use some extra attention when you’re working through a manuscript.

Whether you’re a writer or an editor, it’s likely that you take time to consider the technology and products of the story world in a manuscript. This is probably especially true if the story takes place in the distant past, in the future, or in another world.

But do you always remember to look at technological advances made during your own lifetime? Or are some technologies and products so familiar that you didn’t even think of checking out when they came into popular use? Are some products so common that they feel like they’ve been around forever? They haven’t been. And while some products might have been around well before your characters use them, they may have been in a different developmental stage than the one you’re familiar with.

If a story is set in your lifetime but does not feature today’s world, have you verified that the story’s everyday conveniences were available to your characters 50, 20, 5, or even 2 years ago?

Because technology has advanced so rapidly in the last one hundred years, because the world has gotten both larger and smaller, with people able to travel widely, exposing them to new people and cultures and practices—and because changes have been even more pronounced in the last 50 or 60 years, with many advances taking place in the last 10 to 15 years—you may need to pay careful attention to products and technology.

Consider 24/7 television programing. Some of you won’t remember this, but TV stations used to go off the air overnight. With the rise of cable, deregulation, and new technologies in the 80s and 90s, TV stations started staying on all night. (Some stations here and there did broadcast in the night hours before this time. But they were exceptions.) In those early days of 24-hour programing, there were a whole lot of infomercials to keep insomniacs enthralled.

This was a big change in the television landscape. And a big change in people’s behavior too. Before that time, you didn’t stay up all night and watch TV. You couldn’t.

CNN began its 24-hour news coverage in 1980; that’s not that long ago. Twenty-four-hour coverage changed what we saw of the world. News didn’t have to wait until dinnertime; we saw events playing out on our TVs at any hour.

But it wasn’t always that way. And if your story takes place before this time, you need to be aware that people couldn’t just turn on the TV and instantly know what was happening across the world.

The internet is new enough that I assume that most of us know not to have a character using it back in 1975, but we also need to remember that the early days of the internet were different from what we have today. Dial-up access was the reality. And not everyone had a home computer, much less internet access through a phone.

Products may start out in one form, but they often change over time. And some changes are fairly rapid. Where in their development would products have been when your characters encountered them? What features or limitations would they have had at that time?

My suggestion is that you check products and technologies that your characters use or refer to. Make sure those products and technologies existed—in the form you show them being used—at the time your character is using them.

Check the dates of scientific, medical, and technological advances. Check the dates of car introductions, the release dates of albums or songs. Check the release dates of new smartphones.

Would your characters rent have rented videos from Blockbuster? Would your characters have rented a VHS machine in order to watch movies at home? (Ah, the good old days.)

Was a product available in your character’s part of the world in the year you have him using it? Just because a product was produced and sold doesn’t mean that everyone everywhere had access to it. Availability also doesn’t mean that everyone could afford a particular product, especially in the early days of some products.

When did operator-assisted calls end in your character’s town? When did party lines give way to private lines for every house?

Could your character afford an answering machine? Were answering machines even in common use in your story’s year(s)? Would your character have needed to use an answering service instead?

What was life like when people couldn’t reach others so easily?

There are so many possible products and innovations that I couldn’t name even a small percentage of them, but throughout this article I’ll include a few questions as prompts for your own searches. And yet I’m not going to limit my prompts to products.

Beyond Technology

Not only should you consider changes in technology and the products your characters would use, but consider also the existence or time lines of companies, landmarks, historic events, major tragedies (local, national, worldwide), natural disasters, wars, and even major changes to towns and cities.

Does your story account for Boston’s Big Dig or LA’s Metro Rail project? What about the gas crises of the 1970s?

Had the first space shuttle been launched? Had the Challenger exploded? What would these events have meant to your characters?

What events would your characters know about? Which would influence them if they took place during the story’s time line? Which would have influenced them if they took place during a character’s childhood or teen years?

What was the slang of the day? What words were in transition, and which would your characters have used? What about popular phrases or terms for people or objects?

In what year did Mars change the tan M&M to blue? You wouldn’t want a character picking out the blue ones before they were produced.

In what year did the first child restraint laws for car seats go into effect?

When did your character’s favorite fast-food restaurant reach a certain state or country?

What was the legal drinking age in the local community in your story’s present? Laws changed over the years, so this is a detail you might need to check.

When did companies merge? Do your characters use the correct name for the companies of their day?

When did companies go out of business or get bought out? Did a company mentioned by one of your characters even exist at the time you have the character mentioning it?

What would people in your story world have known about the rest of the world? How would they have discovered that information? How old would news have been by the time it reached your characters?

Nearly everyone today owns a cellphone and a computer. But that wasn’t always the case.

Before computers were ubiquitous, what did college students use to type their papers in your fictional world? A study center where they had access to a typewriter for two hours? A friend’s typewriter?

What real-world events would have inspired or touched or shaken your characters? What events, products, companies, or innovations would have influenced them? Consider a few . . .

the Beatles breaking up

9/11

the fall of the Berlin Wall

the first disposable Bic lighter

assassinations: JFK, MLK, RFK, Anwar Sadat, Malcolm X

prevalence of home computers, home printers, fax machines

pot use becoming legal

video conferencing

heart transplants

bar codes

ATMs

GPS technology

Starbucks

drones

Wi-Fi

iPhone

Jaws (first summer blockbuster)

digital photography

DNA testing

3D printers

information at our fingertips 24/7

Viagra

World of Warcraft

selfies

Mandela released from prison

first test-tube baby

Jonestown

Arab Spring

the Channel Tunnel

O. J. Simpson trial

killing of Osama bin Laden

trial of Saddam Hussein

stock market crash

Y2K

Harry Potter

dot-com bubble

desegration

Indian Ocean tsunami and earthquake

Tohoku earthquake

Hurricane Katrina

smoking bans

election of Barack Obama, first black US president

ebay, Apple, Google, Alibaba, Amazon, Baidu, Yahoo, AOL, Uber, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Wikipedia, Instagram, Netflix, YouTube, PayPal

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Fitting a Character into History

What world was your character born into? What world would she have known from her childhood—what kinds of products are nostalgic to her?

What’s new to your character in her present? What newfangled gadget is cool to her? Which ones drive her crazy? What product does she drool over? How does she handle changes in technology?

Where do your characters and story events fall in the time line of national, cultural, and world-wide events?

Before or after Watergate and Nixon’s resignation?

Before or after walking on the moon?

Before or after 9/11?

Before or after the death of Princess Diana?

Before or after the disappearance of MH370?

Before, after, or during a particular war or battle?

Before or after the discovery of AIDS and HIV?

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A few more issues and questions to keep you thinking . . .

Did a major Ebola, SARS, or Avian flu outbreak take place in or just before your story’s time line?

Was there a notable sports victory or defeat before or during your story’s events? Had the Olympics been boycotted? Did any sports figures have to give up their titles or medals? Would one or more of your characters mention these events? Be influenced by them?

Did a sports team move to a different city? Did a familiar stadium change names?

Not only do you need to know what happened in your story’s now, you need to know what happened in your characters’ formative years to make them who they are in the present.

What was around to influence them? What people or events gave impetus to their dreams? Who were their idols?

Was a certain TV show on the air? What music groups and styles were popular? Which were on the way out? What were the popular movies, drinks, books, leisure activities?

Would the building or opening of the London Eye influence your story world and characters? What about the Louvre’s addition of its pyramids?

When did European countries switch from their own currencies to the Euro? Was a country part of the European Union when you said it was?

What was the local political situation? The world-wide political situation?

Was the area of your story (town, city, state, region, country) really in decline at the time you said it was, or had the area seen a boom in new businesses and home building? You won’t want a story to be out of sync with an area’s reality.

What were the social trends during your story’s time line?

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As you work through your manuscript, give a thought to products,  technology, social trends, historic events, and even a city’s growth or decline. Ensure that facts are accurate. Don’t have the Mets playing at Citi Field if they would have been in Shea Stadium at the time of your story. Don’t have a character remember a visit to the Spy Museum in D.C. when she was a child if she’s in her fifties in 2018. Don’t have a character blithely visiting a marijuana dispensary in a state that doesn’t have them.

Look beyond what’s familiar to you to ensure that details fit your story’s setting. Use details to enrich your stories, to give them authenticity, but give them more than a passing thought. Put them to use for both the character’s present and his past. But make sure that you get your facts straight.

Tags: character, facts, setting     Posted in: Beyond the Basics, Writing Tips