Story Lines for Teenage Fiction

Are you interested in writing fiction for or about teenagers? If so, you might want to take a look at an article in the Jan. 15 New York Times  entitled "Social Media Rules, Created by Kids."

Nominally, it's all about what kids should and shouldn't post online and how parents might help them avoid mistakes, but it also contains material suggestive of story lines.

"Middle school can be an especially complicated time for girls. They are experimenting with social identity, even as their always-on digital world intensifies the scrutiny. Many want to be seen as pretty (even sexy, in some ways), but also as innocent and as 'nice.' This is an impossible balancing act," the article says.

How might that play out in fiction?

It's OK, one girl told the article's author, to post a photo of yourself in a bikini if you are depicted with other family members, but not alone. Be careful about posting photos of vacations in fancy locations. You might offend friends whose families can't afford them.

If you don't want to spend time with someone, don't claim you have too much homework. Just say you have other plans because a photo of you posted by someone else of you with that person could appear shortly.

Since a recent Pew Research Center survey found that about 24% of teenagers are online "almost constantly," behavioral risks loom large. And so, one might argue, do story possibilities.

Why would a young girl post a problematic photo?

"In a study published last summer, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the pleasure centers in teenagers’ brains respond to the reward of getting 'likes' on Instagram exactly as they do to thoughts of sex or money," the NYT article said.

"I knew I shouldn't have done it,  but I just couldn't stop," she wailed.

Connecting the Dots ... and James Patterson's BookShots

With this post I am going to tie together some earlier topics and point out how they apply to James Patterson's new venture, called BookShots.

In a couple of  earlier posts, which interested readers can find here  and here, I discussed the phenomenon of declining attention spans in the digital and social media age. And then, in a more recent post that can be found here, I reported on a recent study that found, among other things, that a surprising number of people never finish the novels they purchase and, in many cases, don't read much of them.

Embrace My Brand, Get Hooked on a Feeling

Writing in the program notes, Seattle Opera General Director Aidan Lang said Georges Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers espouses the idea that honor and friendship should be held in the highest esteem, even to the extent of suppressing one’s own sexual fulfillment.

"But in an era of the gradual erosion of communal values, of the focus on the individual, of the ‘selfie,’ is it such a bad idea to be reminded of these redeeming human characteristics?” Lang asked.

I cite that because this blog has episodically taken a look at the impact electronic social media appears to be having on individuals and what that might mean for the future of fiction. Most recently, I addressed the topic in a post entitled “Literary Hand-Wringers,” which, among other things, noted a new book by MIT professor Sherry Turkle in which she argued that digital technology is eroding the ability of humans to feel empathy for others.

In that vein, the Oct. 25, 2015 edition of T, the New York Times style magazine carried an article called “Hooked on a Feeling,” with the subtitle “Thanks to social broadcasting networks, everyone and everything is its own brand. Now we want the one thing the Internet can’t buy: human emotion.”

“The empathy economy is booming. Facts are out, feelings are in,” the author, Michael Rock, declared. But not, it appears, on the basis of a return to direct, person-to-person interaction among humans. In fact, far from it.

“Branding is supposedly not about what something says, or what it means, but how it makes us feel. A brand is a promise. It’s the emotional payoff on an investment in a particular product, place or individual. … When we talk about a strong brand, it consistently delivers the emotion it promises,” Rock said.

The article then goes on to discuss the “mood board,” a tool long used by designers to help them come up with a certain look for, say, the interior of a room or a line of women's wear. A mood board usually consists of a collection of images that, taken together, supposedly conjures up feelings that are often hard to directly express in words alone – feelings clients will then supposedly experience when they live in the rooms in question or wear the clothes.  

How is this related to social media and human emotion?

Well, here’s one possibility. “Instagram,” Rock said, “turns every individual life into a social network mood board.”

I show you my feelings, and you show me yours, coded and subject to interpretation, of course, and not in a manner that might be uncomfortably intrusive.

“When everything is available all the time and we’re inundated with information in every way, shape and form, we are left with no choice but to favor what makes us feel,” Rock  concluded.

So here’s the new plot line:  will she or won’t she – hit the thumbs-up button and “like” the latest posting on her favorite social network so as to satisfy her emotional cravings? (As opposed to, say, enter into an in-the-flesh relationship with another person.) Sounds like a compelling read.

But wait a minute: wasn't that T Magazine article entitled "Hooked on a Feeling?" You know the song: "When you hold me in your arms so tight, you let me know everything's all right." Alas, that notion was written in 1968 and as for The Pearl Fishers, 1863. How can one relate to either of those when "it's all about me?" You want emotional contact with me? Embrace my brand, soak up the feelings.

 Communal values? How quaint.