Words: 1735
Time to read: 9 minutes

Since I’m on TikTok to hopefully spread the word about my books, it makes sense that I’ve found some books to read, too. I’m on a “break” from editing my Christmas novel, and I’ve been trying to do other things like read books that I haven’t written, purge some old clothing, and do other annoying things I’ve put off like getting my oil changed. I’ve had success with some–I got my oil changed and an estimate for new tires before the snow comes (yikes!)–but failed at others, mostly reading books I haven’t written.

The book I picked up from TikTok promised a hot, sexy read, and it is. A reader will have no complaints about that part of it. But like any book, there needs to be more than sexytimes, and this one delivers that too, if only in passing. There’s the main plot (all the sex), the subplot, and a sub-subplot, that unfolds very slowly, and that’s fine. We talk about “literary” versus “commercial” books, and let’s just say, people aren’t reading this for the plot. Perfectly okay. After all, I did borrow it in KU and I’m not going to apologize, but what took me completely out of the story at about 50% or so, is the fact I could see where the subplot and the sub-subplot are going to tangle and explode. It’s not that I don’t like the direction the author is going, but the whole thing could be avoided by a quick Google search.

This is where technology can be the bane of an author’s existence… and a character’s too. I’ve heard authors say they write strictly historicals because they don’t want to have to deal with it. That’s fine, but if you write 80s books, I’m not reading it. I was born in 1974, and nothing interests me less than how things were in the 80s. I actually like technology. I jumped in when internet was still new, had dial-up through our landline and learned a few photo manipulation techniques on GIMP long before I decided to write books and design my own covers because I messed around with pictures of my kids. I’m not unlike anyone else who is constantly online, and if you think about it, characters in contemporary novels are online a lot too. It’s very difficult to get away from, and as authors, we have to assume that as with real life, information is but a touchscreen away.

You can make the argument that a character isn’t going to know what he doesn’t know, and that’s true. When you’re writing a mystery or a thriller, your character is going to start from scratch. That’s inevitable, but if your detective has agency and moves the plot forward instead of letting the plot push him around, he’s going to be curious, ask questions, and yes, do internet searches. You can’t get away from it if your character works for the FBI, the CIA, or an off-the-grid intelligence agency that you invent. They have software at their disposal like AFIS and face recognition software.

Mafia and Billionaire romance is steeped in technology, everything from paparazzi stalking them and posting photos online to the male characters doing background checks on their love interests to help them decide if she loves him for him or his money. That’s the part that hung me up in this book. The main guy is the son of a dirty billionaire, she has a mysterious past, and the thing that’s going to break them on page 500, he could have found on page two. Now, I don’t know for sure if that’s how it’s going to play out. The sub-subplot is mentioned so infrequently that I will more than likely have to read the entire series to see if my hunch is correct, but I’ve written my own twisty books and I doubt I’m far off.

The thing that bothers me most is that with the type of book this is and the types of characters are in this book, doing a background check on her would have been a no-brainer. Maybe the author is a pantser and didn’t fully plot out this series and decided on the direction she wanted to go too late, or she realized that if she didn’t plan it that way, there would be no book at all. It’s not like she cares. According to Publisher Rocket, the first book in the series is estimated to make $49,000 dollars this month alone, and who knows how many books are in the series. She doesn’t give one f*ck if a lowly indie author sniffed out a potential plot hole. And let’s face it, if you’re reading a book with that much smut, a plot that makes sense is a bonus (and I mean that in the nicest way possible, as it is well-written otherwise).

Technology, or deliberately excluding it, is the same as characters holding on to a secret–sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m getting reviews for Twisted Lies, and one or two have pointed out that they should have just talked to each other. Sure, but then there would have been no book. It’s human nature to hold on to things you think another person is going to react negatively to, but when it comes to tech, is it human nature to avoid it? Maybe, depends on the kind of book you’re writing and if you can get away with it. In my Christmas novel, he’s stranded in a small town and stumbles upon a mystery about a woman he’s falling in love with. He wants to solve it for her, and he starts with a background check on her and another character. There definitely would have been no book if he wasn’t curious enough to start investigating, and as a billionaire, he has the resources that a poorer character may not have. He digs and backtracks, people lying to him or telling him things they think are the truth only for him to find out otherwise. Could he have solved the mystery without technology? Yes. But as he dug online, the readers also could piece together clues, which is what a real mystery is about–readers solving the puzzle along with your characters.

People text each other (rather than placing phone calls), they’re on social media, they stream rather than pay for cable. They’re on TikTok and Facebook, and even if you don’t mention some platforms by name in an attempt to make your book evergreen, it looks very suspect if you exclude these things from your writing. So, yeah, when a character doesn’t know something he could find out online, that’s always going to trip me up unless your character has a specific reason why he didn’t go looking in the first place. And you better consider if “he didn’t think of it” is going to be good enough because chances are it won’t be.

I don’t go crazy with technology in my books. My characters have cell phones, take classes online. Some have social media profiles, some don’t or if they do, I don’t mention it. It depends on the story and what should and would be naturally included. Most of my books require characters to do some kind of online research. The most important is for it to sound natural.

I was disappointed this author hid a fact that would have been found out in a five second online search, but I also read like a writer and not everyone is going to pick up on that or care. Sex doesn’t carry my books, so if I do cut corners out of laziness, I can’t use that as an excuse. Sometimes a character’s lack of information is just sloppy writing or the author didn’t do enough research on their side. When I was plotting Captivated, I spent hours on YouTube watching construction projects so I could get an idea for a realistic accident that would hurt Rick. On the flip side, when Devyn was investigating what happened, she too, watched clips on a video sharing site.

Technology is a part of our everyday lives, and it should be for your characters, too. After all, chances are good that your reader is reading your book on a tablet and she bought the ebook online.

I’ll skim the rest of the book I borrowed– I doubt I’ll find out if my hunch is correct until later books in the series. I may or may not get to those as I have other books on my list to read first.

If you want to read about more tips and ways to include technology in your books look here:

https://www.artfuleditor.com/blog/2019/6/12/how-to-use-modern-tech-in-your-novel

https://nickkolakowski.com/2022/02/01/how-to-weave-technology-into-that-thriller-novel-youre-writing/

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In author and personal news, I finished the second read-through of my Christmas novel. I have a few things to do this week, so I’m going to let it sit before I listen to it, get a few things done around my apartment, and watch Queen Charlotte on Netflix. I also want to read a couple more books I have coming in the mail, and I want to work more on the cover (also working a blurb would be a good idea).

Over the weekend, I was experimenting with my billionaire trilogy covers, and I think I might have found some guys that will work a lot better than what I have now and also a city background that is more suited. I’m excited, and my first impulse is to change them out, but I’m going to wait until January when they have their first book birthdays and try to get a little mileage out of a re-release. I have plenty to do while I wait, but you know how it is. I’m not even going to put them up here until later, and I’ll write a whole blog post about it.

One more thing before I go, KENP page reads for August went up to $ 0.004108 compared to the $ 0.003989 it was in July. That’s good news, as a lot of us were expecting a downward trend. I feel justified telling my blog readers to stay calm and see what happens. It’s never a good idea to make decisions based on other people’s negative prophesies.

I suppose I should save some news until next week, so I will say goodbye for now and I hope you all have a good week!