Comments on: Slight, but slightly too long for a status update http://sararyan.com/2010/01/slight-but-slightly-too-long-for-a-status-update/ Novelist, comics writer, and librarian based in Portland, Oregon. Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:59:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: AlisonG http://sararyan.com/2010/01/slight-but-slightly-too-long-for-a-status-update/#comment-9432 AlisonG Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:40:29 +0000 http://sararyan.com/2010/01/slight-but-slightly-too-long-for-a-status-update/#comment-9432 I love the way Sara Zarr handled it in "Once Was Lost": Sam's parents wouldn't let her have Internet at home for protective religious reasons. It helped with plotting but it was a revealing detail about Sam and her parents too. I skirted the issue by setting my current novel in 1984 :-) I love the way Sara Zarr handled it in “Once Was Lost”: Sam’s parents wouldn’t let her have Internet at home for protective religious reasons. It helped with plotting but it was a revealing detail about Sam and her parents too.

I skirted the issue by setting my current novel in 1984 :-)

]]> By: Kip Manley http://sararyan.com/2010/01/slight-but-slightly-too-long-for-a-status-update/#comment-9430 Kip Manley Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:15:12 +0000 http://sararyan.com/2010/01/slight-but-slightly-too-long-for-a-status-update/#comment-9430 A poor, cranky semi-misanthrope who hangs with a crowd that doesn't so much understand such things is one work-around. One thing I've noticed about about their ubiquity is what it's done for the infodump--on TV, at least. Easy to have characters yammering expo at each other while separately moving toward other goals: illusion of plot-motion, easy to surprise one or the other with the next scene without mucking them both up, etc. Also, given the sub-par nature of Yankee cell signals and broadband, you can always have the network go down at a critical, groan-worthy moment... A poor, cranky semi-misanthrope who hangs with a crowd that doesn’t so much understand such things is one work-around.

One thing I’ve noticed about about their ubiquity is what it’s done for the infodump–on TV, at least. Easy to have characters yammering expo at each other while separately moving toward other goals: illusion of plot-motion, easy to surprise one or the other with the next scene without mucking them both up, etc.

Also, given the sub-par nature of Yankee cell signals and broadband, you can always have the network go down at a critical, groan-worthy moment…

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