The Thing About the Pager, by Kat Richardson:

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I never would have expected it, but the most common question I get about Harper's world is "why doesn't she have a cell phone in Greywalker?" For some readers it's been a point of unreality that threw them out of the book so badly, they abandoned the story altogether. Kind of an odd point, isn't it? But it shows you never know what's going to work for some readers and what won't.

One of the difficulties for any Science Fiction or Fantasy writer is creating a world that's believable and compelling without getting so detailed that you spend all your time setting up or explaining things. You have to just take some things as read. As a writer, you have to strike a balance between showing the world in action and explaining it that doesn't make the whole experience fall apart like a stage flat falling over. And it's not the same for all writers or for all readers. No writer can satisfy all possible readers. Some will just not buy in, no matter how hard you try.

So... about this pager....

Back in May of 2000 I started on the first draft of Greywalker. At the time, my husband and I were the only people I knew who had cell phones as their primary telecommunications device. It's not that they were still very expensive, but rather that they were such a huge pain to keep in service. Coverage with any one company was terrible and patchy and the phones themselves were delicate and temperamental. But, living on a boat, we found that a traditional landline was not making the grade for us. We still had the line--we used it for our computer modem (124k baud, a veritable Niagra of information at the time)--but we were destined to drop it very soon. So I didn't consider giving my protagonist such an ill-tempered, unpredictable instrument. Instead, I tried to stick closer to the reality of the time--one I thought would prevail a little longer.

I chose the pager because I'd spent some time working for an answering service and many of our clients were professionals who used pagers for their service calls and messages: doctors, plumbers, maintenance companies, a private investigator, IT guys. Yes, one of the clients really was a PI. Remembering that guy and knowing a lot of other professionals who were still using pagers at the time, that's what I went with.

Oh, had I but known....

Moore's Law (that computer chips will double in power while halving in price every 18 months) has its corollary in other technologies, too. And in the human memory. The faster technology changes, the faster we will forget that it ever was any other way. It's one of the tough things about Science Fiction these days; you can't make a reasonable guess at where technology will be in five years, much less fifty. Trying to write a truly "hard science" fiction story requires either a ton of technical explanation or the assumption that your audience is pretty science-savvy to begin with. So, better to stick with Fantasy, yes?

But no. Because even Fantasy is rife with funny little pitfalls like the pager thing. Not only guessing ahead--since it takes about 18 months for a contracted manuscript to make its way onto shelves as a book and if you're dealing with contemporary settings or events, you might be dead wrong by then--but building and maintaining your world in terms and detail level that keep your readers comfortable and engaged.

There will always be readers who just can't get into it, who want more or less or simply different explanation, or who just can't believe that your protagonist doesn't have a cell phone. So what do you do?

You give up.

I don't mean you give up writing or writing your story as you feel it must be written. I mean that you, as a writer--I as a writer, in this case--cease to try to be all things to all readers. It's not possible to satisfy everyone. There will always be a potential pager in your story--something that breaks the reader's suspension of disbelief. You cannot stop it, you can't predict it--any more than you could predict how many angels might dance on the head of a certain pin. You accept the pager and you go on.

So I am sad about the pager in that it ruins the story for some people, but I am not sorry about the pager. It is what it is and that cannot be changed. I accept my pager-y shortcomings, the reality of pager supplanted by cell phone. I am at peace with the pager.

Do not try to eliminate the pager. That is impossible. Instead, realize the truth...

There is no pager.

Kat Richardson

Poltergeist

Harper Blaine

Greywalker

detective

supernatural

murder

Penguin Books

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