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Has the digital revolution killed fiction?

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by Elliot Brown (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Will Blythe at Esquire asks, “In the golden age of magazines, short stories reigned supreme. Has the digital revolution killed their cultural relevance?”

Wearily, I started his essay expecting more of the same, and lo, finding it: Computers and the Internet, he contends, has done much to destroy literary fiction. By this point, I’m surprised any writer pursuing such a thesis would bother fortifying their argument with examples or statistics. Blythe does not fail on that count either: Other than some “c’mon, look around, you know what I’m saying,” the argument is made sans corroborative evidence. Of course the Internet has wrecked American literature. Why bother denying it?

It’s telling, then, that Blythe opens with the usual barrage of accusations about digital distractions—”Can you read anything at all from start to finish, i.e. an essay or a short story, without your mind being sliced apart by some digital switchblade?”—and then, to prove how things used to be so much better way back when, he segues to life as an Esquire editor in the 1980s and 90s:

[Rust Hill] and I would occasionally drink two or three Negronis at lunch, sometimes at the New York Delicatessen on 57th Street, and talk about the writers and novels and short stories we loved (and hated). … Then he and I would happily weave our way back to the office at 1790 Broadway, plop down in our cubicles and make enthusiastic phone calls to writers and agents, our voices probably a little louder than usual.

The jokes about fiction editors at a national magazine choosing stories to publish after a three-cocktail lunch write themselves, so I won’t bother. (Although I should, since, as an early writer, I had high hopes for placing a short story with a publication like Esquire. Perhaps I should have mailed a bottle of Bombay with each of my submissions.)

The dichotomy Blythe illustrates is telling: The hellish “after” is Amazon user reviews and iPhone notifications; the blissful “before” is cocktail lunches and not having to give a rat’s ass what anyone else thinks of fiction.

One counterpoint to Blythe’s thesis: The 1980s had plenty of distractions, including the now-glaring inability to silence your telephone without taking it off the hook. Another counterpoint: If you want to have Negronis and argue literature over Reubens, well, you can do that today too. A third counterpoint: A short story printed in the pages of Esquire was sandwiched between glossy full-color ads for sports cars, tobacco, and liquor—most featuring leggy models in evening gowns or swimsuits. Distractions abounded, even without the Internet.

But none of these are what Blythe is really talking about. What he bemoans is the diffusion of editorial power over the past twenty years.

Blythe throws a curveball—a predictable curveball—after his reminisces about Negronis and schmears. Sure, computers are to blame for everything, but the real crime is that computers now permit readers to make their opinions on fiction known:

Writers and writing tend to be voted upon by readers, who inflict economic power (buy or kill the novel!) rather than deeply examining work the way passionate critics once did in newspapers and magazines. Their “likes” and “dislikes” make for massive rejoinders rather than critical insight. It’s actually a kind of bland politics, as if books and stories are to be elected or defeated. Everyone is apparently a numerical critic now, though not necessarily an astute one.

I don’t actually believe Blythe has done a thorough job surveying the digital landscape to consider the assortment and quality of reader reviews out there. There are, in fact, a plenitude of readers penning worthy critical insight over fiction. Just as there are so many great writers out there that deserve wider audiences, there also exist critical readers who should be trumpeted farther afield.

Setting that aside, I still happily defend readers content to note with a simple up/down vote their estimation of a book. Not every expression of having read a book demands an in-depth 8,000 word essay on the plight of the modern Citizen of the World.

Rather, I believe Blythe—as with so many others in the literary establishment—cannot accept readers could have any worthwhile expressible opinion about fiction. The world was so much easier when editors at a handful of glossy magazines issued the final word on what constituted good fiction and what was a dud. See also a book I’m certain Blythe detests, A Reader’s Manifesto, which tears apart—almost point by point—Blythe’s gripes.

Cover of A Reader's Manifesto by B.R. Myers

When B. R Myers’ Manifesto was published twenty years ago, a major criticism was that Myers was tilting at windmills—that the literary establishment was not as snobbish and elitist as he described. Yet here’s Blythe practically copping to the charges.

Thus the inanity of him complaining that today’s readers hold the power to “inflict economic power” when, apparently, such power should reside solely with critics and magazine editors. I don’t even want to argue this point; to hold this idea is a retrograde understanding of how the world should work. This is why golden age thinking is so pernicious—since things used to be this way, it was the best way. Except when it’s not.

Of course the world was easier for the editors of national slicks fifty years ago, just as life used to be good for book publishers, major news broadcasters, and the rest of the national media. It was also deeply unsatisfying if one were not standing adjacent to the top of those heaps. It does not take much scratching in the dirt to understand the motivations of the counterculture and punk movements producing their own criticism. The only other option back then was to bow to the opinions of a klatch of New York City editors and critics whose ascendancy was even more opaque than the bishops’ of the Holy See.

That said, it’s good to see a former Esquire editor praise the fiction output of magazines that, not so long ago, editors at that level were expected to sneer down upon: Publications such as Redbook, McCall’s, Analog. and Asimov’s Science Fiction all get an approving nod from Blythe.

But to cling to the assertion that in mid-century America “short fiction was a viable business, for publishers and writers alike” is golden age-ism at its worst. Sure, a few writers could make a go at it, but in this case the exceptions do not prove the rule. The vast sea of MFA graduates in America had to settle for—and continue to settle for—being published in obscure literary magazines and paid in free copies.

No less than Arthur Miller opined that the golden age of American theater arced in his own lifetime. Pianist Bill Evans remarked he was blessed to have experienced the tail end of jazz’s golden age in America before rock ‘n’ roll sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Neither of those artistic golden ages perished because of the Internet.

What caused them to die? That’s complicated, sure, but their demises—or, at least, rapid descents—were preceded by a turn toward the avant-garde. Which is to say, it became fashionable for jazz and theater to distance themselves from their audience under the guise of moving the art forward. The only moving that happened, though, was the audience for the exits.

Blythe then turns his attention to a third gripe in his meandering essay. Without a shred of evidence, he argues that the digital revolution of the last twenty-five years metastasized into a cultural Puritanism in today’s publishing world:

Perhaps because of online mass condemnations, there’s simply too much of an ethical demand in fiction from fearful editors and “sensitivity readers,” whose sensitivity is not unlike that of children raised in religious families… Too many authors and editors fear that they might write or publish something that to them, at least, is unknowingly “wrong,” narratives that will reveal their ethical ignorance, much to their shame. It’s as if etiquette has become ethics, and blasphemy a sin of secularity.

I cannot deny that there appears to be a correlation between the rise of the Internet in our daily lives and the shift over the last decade to cancel or ban “problematic” literature. What I fail to see is how pop-up alerts or a proliferation of Wi-Fi hot spots is to blame for this situation.

If Blythe were to peer backwards once more to his golden age of gin-soaked lunches, he would recall a nascent cultural phenomenon called “political correctness.” P.C. was the Ur-movement to today’s sensitivity readers and skittish editors. Social media whipped political correctness’ protestations into a hot froth of virtuous umbrage—a video game of oneupsmanship in political consciousness, where high scores are tallied with likes and follower counts. Using social media as leverage to block books from publication was the logical next step. But blaming computers for this situation is like blaming neutrons for the atom bomb.

After a dozen paragraphs of shaking my head at Blythe’s litany of complaints, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in agreement with him:

The power of literary fiction—good literary fiction, anyway—does not come from moral rectitude. … Good literature investigates morality. It stares unrelentingly at the behavior of its characters without requiring righteousness.

At the risk of broken-record syndrome, I’ll repeat my claim that Charles Baxter’s “Dysfunctional Narratives” (penned twenty-five years ago, near the beginning of the Internet revolution) quietly predicted the situation Blythe is griping about today. Back then, Baxter noticed the earliest stirrings of a type of fiction where “characters are not often permitted to make intelligent and interesting mistakes and then to acknowledge them. … If fictional characters do make such mistakes, they’re judged immediately and without appeal.” He noted that reading had begun “to be understood as a form of personal therapy or political action,” and that this type of fiction was “pre-moralized.”

"Burning Down the House" by Charles Baxter

Unlike Blythe, Baxter did not fret that literary fiction would perish. Baxter was a creative writing instructor at a thriving Midwestern MFA program. He knew damn well that writing literary fiction was a growth industry, and in no danger of extinction. What concerned him was how much of this fiction was (and is) “me” fiction, that is, centered around passive protagonists suffering through some wrong. He noticed a dearth of “I” fiction with active protagonists who make decisions and face consequences.

As Blythe writes:

Too many publishers and editors these days seem to regard themselves as secular priests, dictating right and wrong, as opposed to focusing on the allure of the mystifying and the excitement of uncertainty. Ethics and aesthetics appear in this era to be intentionally merged, as if their respective “good” is identical.

If Blythe is going to roll his eyes at the glut of reader-led cancellations and moralizing editors, perhaps he could consider another glut in the literary world: The flood of the literary memoir, with its “searing” psychic wounds placed under microscope, and its inevitably featherweight closing epiphany. These testaments of self-actualization may be shelved under nonfiction, but they are decidedly fictional in construction. In the literary world, stories of imagination and projection have been superseded by stories of repurposed memory, whose critical defense is, invariably, “But this really happened.”

It was not always so. Memoir was once synonymous with popular fiction. Autobiography was reserved for celebrities such as Howard Cosell and Shirley MacLaine, or a controversial individual who found themself in the nation’s spotlight for a brief moment.

There remains an audience for great fiction. Readers know when they’re being talked down to. They know the difference between a clueless author being crass and a thoughtful author being brutally honest. They also know the difference between a ripping yarn and a pre-moralized story they’re “supposed” to read, like eating one’s vegetables.

The death of literary fiction—especially the short story—will not be due to iPhone notifications and social media cancellations. Perhaps the problem Blythe senses is the loss of a mission to nurture and promote great fiction. The literary world has turned inward and grown insular. Its priorities are so skewed, I’ve witnessed literary writers question if fiction can even be judged or critiqued. The worsening relationship of class to literary fiction should not be overlooked, either.

If Blythe laments Asimov’s Science Fiction, perhaps he should check out the thriving Clarkesworld. Substacks of regular short fiction are regularly delivering work to thousands of readers. I don’t know if these publications’ editors are gulping down Negronis during their daily Zoom meetings—but as long as they’re putting out quality fiction that challenges and questions, maybe that doesn’t matter—and never did.


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IN MY MEMORY LOCKED now available

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In My Memory Locked by Jim Nelson

My latest is now available in Kindle and paperback!

IN MY MEMORY LOCKED is a modern detective story set in near-future San Francisco. The Internet has been decommissioned and replaced with the Nexternet, a worldwide network allowing people to transmit thoughts, emotions, and memories like text messages. The Old Internet has been stored on Alcatraz Island unchanging and in stasis, preserved as an artifact of history.

The detective—computer security consultant C.F. Naroy—is hired to located a piece of the Internet’s history stolen from its repository on Alcatraz. Naroy’s search for the stolen goods leads him to uncover blackmail, political intrigue, and murder. He also discovers his own past is connected to the theft.

More so than any novel I’ve written so far, IN MY MEMORY LOCKED was a labor of love. Heavy on the labor, though, as it took me far longer to complete than I anticipated due to the intricacies of the book’s execution. When I finally set the novel aside, exhausted, I found myself ready for a change of pace, which led to a surprisingly quick turnaround writing Stranger Son (released in April).

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of IN MY MEMORY LOCKED and give it a read. Even though it sounds like far-flung science fiction, it’s far more pertinent to today’s world than the story’s time and place suggests.


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Make your phone your digital writing notebook

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A smart phone and a writing notepad.
r. nial bradshaw (CC BY 2.0)

Last week, I finished my fourth novel. I used my phone throughout the entire writing process: developing, researching, outlining, plotting, and revision, all the way to my final draft. For all purposes, my phone was my writing notebook for this novel.

I didn’t write the novel on my phone. I’ll probably never do that. When I’m writing I want the full typewriter experience, real keys designed for human hands, the tactile sense physical buttons offer, the whole shebang. And I need a screen display that at least approximates the size of manuscript paper, and not one the size of an index card.

But planning and revising a novel on your phone is certainly possible, and my latest book is proof of that.

In the past I’ve relied on paper-and-ink writing notebooks. A writing notebook is a tool I evangelize to anyone who will listen, mostly because I believe it functions as a kind of “inspiration laboratory” for writers. However, towards the end of my previous novel (Hagar’s Mother) I found myself turning to digital note-taking tools during the editing process.

In the final stretch of editing a novel, a torrent of small details begin erupting. The only way to keep the problems and details organized is with a writing notebook of some manner. When the edits are coming hot and heavy I find removing my hands from the keyboard to be a distraction, so I began using a free note-taking software packaged with my MacBook Air, Apple Notes. Rather than reach for a pen and my trusty notebook, I would ⌘+Tab to Notes and add a bullet point to a little checklist I kept. As I kept working, I would periodically consult my checklist and be sure the appropriate changes were made.

Well, Apple Notes is also available on my iPhone. Thanks to the Internet, at all times my writing notes were synchronized between my computer and my phone. That meant I could review my notes while at work, on the bus, even in bed. It also meant I could add more ideas at any time. Later, when I returned to my computer to resume writing, they were there waiting for me.

That’s the hard reality I faced, one I’m certain other writers face as well: While I sometimes leave the house without my writing notebook, I never leave without my phone. These little devices are simply invaluable to us (which is why I encourage writers to keep them in mind when writing their own fiction).

After Hagar’s Mother, I decided to try an experiment and use Notes as my primary writing notebook for my next novel. I told myself if I had the slightest of problems I would bail out and revert back to my old paper-and-ink notebook. It seemed a risk-free experiment.

Well, I finished my novel and I’m here to tell you: I’m sold. Yes, you can plan, write, and revise your next novel using your phone as a notebook. What’s more, you don’t need to spend an extra dime on additional software so long as you’re using a reasonably up-to-date computer and smart phone. The note-taking software already installed is probably good enough, and if it’s not, there are free alternatives available.

Ways of note-taking

Let me get this out of the way: I’m not a shill for Apple. I’m happy with Apple Notes and how cleanly it intersected with my creative process. That doesn’t mean you should use Notes if you don’t own Apple products, or if you want to try something else. (I list some alternatives below.)

Looking back over my notes, I see three “types” of pages I developed, each representing a period of time in the novel-writing process.

The earliest pages are scrapbooks of ideas, thoughts, and research. Random notions fill these pages alongside bits of dialogue, descriptions, even character names. (With my fiction, I try on character names the way I would try on a pair of pants.) For every novel I will read up on related subject matter to ensure I’m getting basic facts and terminology correct. Using my phone’s Share button I could add any page—Wikipedia, a news article, even a word in my phone’s dictionary—to a note. Although the foundations of the book are laid here, much of this primordial stew didn’t wind up in the final draft.

Later in the writing process, the pages start becoming more organized and less free-form. Here I was thinking about scenes I was developing. Dialogue and descriptions on these pages often reached the final draft. I also began roughing out timelines in these pages, primarily to flesh out the backstory of the main character.

The last note pages are highly organized. The novel was gelling; the big ideas are down on the page and I was more concerned about the small details and tightening up the narrative. In this stage, my note pages are mostly checklists of changes to be made. The pages are broken up into sections: Characters, Details, Terminology, Important, and so on. When I made the edit, I would check off the item.

This stage is where I wrote a final character list (to keep track of names and relationships) and lists of terminology and spelling (useful in a novel with imaginary technology). I also built a final master timeline which incorporated the chronology of the novel into the backstory—useful to avoid the problem of a character is talking about an event as happening the day before when it actually occurred two days before.

A few points here. First, notice the pages are structureless because the process is structureless. Even the later page’s organization is more-or-less free-form. The notebook met whatever need I had at the moment. It never imposed a system on me. Some writing software wants to guide you through steps or categories for organizing your work. I’m not sold on that idea. I could use the digital note pages for anything I wanted to preserve for later. Make your writing notebook a tabula rasa.

Likewise, avoid reminder or to-do style software. Yes, I use checklists in my writing notebook, but I also used it for so much more. Task software imposes organization on your creative output. (“Mark this task High, Medium, or Low?”) That’s not what you’re looking for with a writing notebook.

These notes did not happen in concerted bursts. They represent hundreds of points in time, some slivers of seconds used to type out an idea. At any point in the novel’s progress, I was adding notes on the bus, at work (shh), in my easy chair, even at the gym, sweating and madly tapping a thought that came to me on the treadmill. The phone was always there. Losing even a single story idea to the frailty of human memory and our shortening attention spans is a loss.

Before you start

If you’ve read this far, you might be excited to start using your phone for your next big writing project. There are downsides to keep in mind.

First, be aware you’re entrusting your precious creative output with a third-party corporation. Apple (or Google, or Microsoft, or whomever) could, at any time and with no warning, discontinue the software, discontinue their services, or even go out of business. Whatever software you work with, be sure you can export your data, even if it’s nothing more than printing out your notes or saving them as a PDF. You absolutely do not want to wind up in a situation where a corporation has your precious creative output locked up—or has deleted it.

Just as you protect your word processing files, make periodical backups of your notes in case of disaster. Most modern note-taking software has some method of doing this in such a way that the backups can be restored later if necessary.

Do a little research into your software’s data security practices. While you’re at it, make sure you’re using a strong password. No, I’m not worried about another author “stealing” my ideas, but I do worry about unknown persons accessing my notes without my consent. My writing notebook is a creative and freeing place. Part of that freedom rides on an expectation of privacy.

Recommendations

If you’re curious or excited to start using your phone as a writing notebook, your first step is choosing your software. My checklist for baseline features it should include are:

  • It should run on your phone and your writing computer. While you could turn to your phone while typing on your writing computer, I found it invaluable to be able to read and update my notes without leaving the screen. Being able to Alt+Tab to my notes and Alt+Tab back to my word processor was invaluable when the story was flowing and I couldn’t type fast enough.
  • Your notes should synchronize between every computer you use. In the 1990s synchronizing data between computers required specialized software and arcane cables. These days synchronizing should occur across the Internet, all-but-invisible to you.
  • Your notes should be available on the Web. It’s handy to be able to access your notes from anywhere. In the case of Apple, I can login to icloud.com. Your software should have this feature as well.
  • …but you should be able to access your notes without being connected to the Internet. As I’ll explain in a moment, it’s quite useful if your note-taking tool has it’s own app and doesn’t require using a Web browser.

You’ll notice that the above three points revolve around a single convenience: access. The key to my success with note-taking software was that I could access it at any time. You never know when or where inspiration will strike. Recording inspiration and returning to it later is the entire reason for keeping a writing notebook.

The reason I like accessing my notes outside of a Web browser is simple: I turn off WiFi when writing. Disabling Internet access is a great way to avoid temptation and whittle away the day surfing around. Disabling your WiFi also removes distractions while writing, such as new email, social media alerts, and so on.

(While I’m on the topic, I also recommend looking into how to turn off all notifications on your phone and computer while writing. Disabling WiFi doesn’t disable your phone from receiving text messages, for example.)

Those are my top-tier must-haves for a digital writing notebook. Features I think are desirable include:

  • Checklists. It’s great to be able to add checkboxes next to the edits I need to make. It’s even better to check them off when they’re done.
  • Scrapbooking. Surprisingly, I found myself harvesting ideas from Web pages more often than I expected. Being able to store links, photos, dictionary definitions—even maps—was invaluable.
  • Folders & note organization. Eventually I would fill a page with so much raw material I needed to create a second page to continue, and subsequently a third. Organizing all these pages into distinct folders is invaluable.

Other features to look for:

  • Drawing or sketching. If you like to doodle in your writing notebook, you might seek out software that supports drawing. (Alternately, you could use a separate sketchpad app and add it to your notes.)
  • Audio notes. Some note-taking software can attach voice memos to a note. It’s not how I work, but it might be yours.
  • Searching. It’s surprising how many times I remembered a keyword but could not find the exact note for it.
  • Collaboration. Some software allows you to share your notes with one or more people. If you’re collaborating on a novel with another writer (or illustrator, or editor), this might be a real need for you.

If you’re not an Apple user or seeking alternatives to Apple Notes, there are other options you can investigate. I’ve not had a chance to use any of these but they seem promising:

Good luck!


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