Revising your modern day book because history changes?

[moderntimes]

Have you ever written a book or maybe short story, then needed to revise it before publishing because the historical progress of things, facts you may have used when originally creating the story changed, and so you wanted to update the book before publishing it?

For example, computers and cell phones and such.

You may have written a story where the character is trying to make a phone call and has to find a pay phone. But now it's all cellphones and so you haul out your story and revise it forward to allow this tech progress? Or maybe someone is logging onto the internet via a modem and phone line, or is using, oh, Netscape, or copies data to a floppy disk. And you need to update your story before it's published?

Maybe your book involves world politics or terrorism and you still have Osama Bin Laden hiding and to republish your story you need to update it so that Bin Laden has been killed.

I had this happen to my first private eye novel, Blood Spiral. In the book, my private eye meets a sharp, fascinating female NASA astronaut. She hires him to stop someone who's sexually harassing her. And as part of the story, she's in training for the latest Shuttle mission.

Well, the novel went unsold till last year, when all 3 of my books were purchased for publication. So what I had to do was go into my novel and rewrite the story, tweak it a bit, so that she's training for an ISS (International Space Station) mission. Thankfully, the changes didn't affect the main plot, only the details of the background. But still, I had to update things so that the novel would be fresh and current. I also updated the private eye's "technology" slightly so he was now using a Galaxy smartphone.

Right now I'm re-reading the superb mystery thriller "Demolition Angel" by Robert Crais, the famous mystery writer. I highly recommend this book -- it's first rate. It deals with a Los Angeles policewoman detective who's been targeted by a crazy bomb maker. In the book, she uses a Mac computer and logs in via a phone connection, and reading this made me think if this topic. Now the book was accurate when it was written and published (2000), so revising it isn't an issue, but I'm talking about something which was written a while ago which now needs updating for republication or first publication?

Have any of you felt the need to update any of your writing, set in the modern day, as a result of changing events in the world around you?

[Sarah_Khan]

Although I haven't ever written a book, I don't see the reason why someone would have to update their book. If the book was written in a time where events were different then I think the facts should be left the way they were regardless of whether it's published or not. I also enjoy reading a book where there's "old timey" references . For example when a book refers to flip phones, dial-up, cassette tapes, etc.
But again I haven't ever written a book so I don't know if maybe changing the book to be up to date with facts from today would be better because it might boost the sales of the book.

[MsMartha]

As a reader, I think that in most instances the details need to match with the time the story is taking place. For a lot of stories, that would mean no updates would need to happen (unless the information was a few years off in the first place.) I just got Blood Spiral and haven't read it yet, but I can see--given the time it took to be printed--that an update might have been needed. "Fresh and current" is indeed a key point.

[moderntimes]

Thanks. Of course when I first wrote Blood Spiral, the US Shuttle missions were ongoing. And that was fine.

But Sarah, the point I'm making is specific to the eventual publication of the book and if wasn't published when it was written, but later, perhaps a revision was appropriate.

Realize that my 3 (thus far) private eye novels are a series, and they fit together for the progress of the overall arc of the character of the private eye. Novel 1 is set in the spring, novel 2 is set late fall of the same year, novel 3 is set in the summer of the next year.

So in this specific case, not when novel 1 was published, but when written, the Shuttle missions were ongoing. But by the time I sold my 3 novels and they were set to be published (2015) the Shuttle was defunct, and having the astronaut a Shuttle member would not fit the timeline of the 3 novels.

This is a special case. If a novel were written and published a few years ago, sure, the timeline may be older but we understand this. It's just that in this specific instances, updating the astronaut mission from Shuttle to ISS made sense, since the novel was newly published and it needed to fit within the 3-book timeline of months separating each novel, not years.

[CrescentMoon]

I think it depends on what time period the story takes place. I've never actually published a book and I'm not a huge writer, but I remember in high school I wrote some short stories for English class. Looking back then, if I were to maybe take those stories and try to publish them now, it would definitely seem outdated because those stories involved things like flip phones, disc mans and CDs and CD players. People just don't use those much anymore so unless I was actually referring to that time, I would most likely adjust technology to reflect the current time period.

[moderntimes]

Well, of course, if the stories were deliberately set in an earlier time, there's no reason to change this. The only reason to change is if the story is set "today" but was written a few years back, and if now just being published, you'd likely wish to revise them slightly to match "today's today" rather than the "today" of 10 years back.

[Rebeccaej]

This has happened to my novel on a political level, more than technological. I wrote the rough draft and half of the second draft of my novel before the last election, and now a lot of it looks like commentary on that and the general political situation in America right now.

[Sushan Ekanayake]

I usually write science fiction and their setting is mostly the future. So I haven't met with this problem

[lisalynn]

Once a book is published, the technology of the day is set. It's like watching an older TV show where the characters use flip phones. Funny, but that's what it was at the time. If the book isn't published, yes you're free to rewrite to reflect modern times, but you can also establish the time period of the setting, and then everything is correct.

[Amanda Deck]

This question reminds me of a couple people I've known who had to change their entire PhD thesis when new scientific discoveries and technologies came about.

I usually check the publication date of a book to get an idea of what the world may have been like at the time of writing, to know what to expect. Can't say I really considered that the book may have been written long before it was published! That may have been the situation in a book I read recently; I questioned something in the book that didn't fit when it was published. Thank you for offering a very likely reason.

[CinWin]

I love reading books that take place before cell phones, etc. were out. I think it lets me remember what life used to be like, and it allows those that are younger to appreciate all we had to go through - just to make a phone call!