OMG: Texts and instant messages becoming more common in literature

TORONTO – Vancouver author John Vaillant’s recently published novel “The Jaguar’s Children” begins with a text message, printed all in lowercase: “hello, i am sorry to bother you but i need your assistance…”

And so begins a suspenseful story — told entirely through text messages and voice notes from a cellphone — of a Mexican man trapped in a broken-down truck used for human smuggling.

Vaillant says he wrote the story partly in text form because that’s how it popped into his head.

But he’s far from alone in using the approach.

More and more literary writers are using texts and other forms of instant or social media messaging — in all their lowercase, abbreviated glory — to depict dialogue in a contemporary way.

And by all accounts, they enjoy it.

“The phone solved more problems than it caused,” says Vaillant, noting the cell provided a much-needed light source for his character inside the truck.

“It caused a few problems, but it solved more, and it was just kind of a cool constraint to have to work around.”

Toronto-based Miriam Toews says she incorporated text messages into her widely acclaimed novel “All My Puny Sorrows” partly because it allowed her characters to get in touch long-distance.

“It’s kind of fun because there’s misunderstanding there as well with tone and messages cut off,” she says. “It creates a little drama.”

In “The Rise and Fall of Great Powers,” Vancouver-raised Tom Rachman used Facebook and other social media messages because he likes to write fiction that “really engages with the times,” he says.

“I think that any tool that anybody wants to use in fiction, that works, is wonderful. I think if they want to add another arrow to their quiver — if that’s the right metaphor — then it’s great.”

Rachman says he does see a potential danger if such dialogue “becomes sort of gimmickry.”

Staying accurate to the times is also a challenge.

Vaillant’s story is set in 2007 and he says he had to do a lot of research on whether cellphones back then “had the capacity to record and how long could you get the battery to last.”

“All that stuff I had to work out because I didn’t want to be shot down on page 10 by some techno-person saying, ‘Well this could never happen.'”

The presence of smartphones in a story has also been a challenge for authors of suspense, notes Joe Hill, whose dark fantasy novel “Horns” became a 2013 film starring Daniel Radcliffe.

“When cellphones became ubiquitous it turned into a huge problem for thriller writers everywhere,” he says.

“Because so much of a good thriller often depends on people being cut off at the cabin in the woods, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to convince your audience that, in fact, that cabin in the woods doesn’t get any cellphone reception.”

But that also presents an opportunity to create a new type of suspense, he adds.

For instance, in his book “NOS4A2,” he equipped a kidnapped child with an iPhone but added a supernatural/sci-fi flair to it that ramped up the drama.

“The cellphone gave me an opportunity to do something a bit more scary instead of doing something that took away from the fun, so you just have to remain alive to the possibilities,” says Hill, whose dad is bestselling horror novelist Stephen King.

“My dad isn’t the first person to say this, but I have heard him say many times that every problem is really an opportunity in disguise.”

Brevity may also be a benefit with using text messages for dialogue, notes Anne Carson, who won the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize.

“I think all those forms are interesting because they’re economical, and it’s a value to me, economy of language,” she says.

“I don’t myself do much texting or any tweeting, so I wouldn’t really know how to incorporate that.

“But I do like the idea of using as few words as possible.”