By Christopher Herz
It should be no surprise that my new book, Pharmacology, is centered on the switch from analog to digital in San Francisco during the early 90s…I’ve always used technology as much as possible when working as a writer. Whether it’s soliciting Twitter users for pictures to create #sundaymorningstory mashups, or Skyping into a bookclub halfway around the world, I believe technology can help writers connect, expand, and create global literary communities.
Just never thought that I—an author who wrote a book about a few junkies and misfits trying to find their way in a world on the brink of a digital revolution and the exposure of the trickery involved in pharmaceutical advertising—would ever be using that technology to connect with a bunch of kids from Hawkesdale, Australia: kids who send me amazing pictures of the little lambs in their backyards (and a goat named Walter).
Was on Twitter one day and checked out how “Writers” was trending. Figured there might be a couple of other crazies out there counting down the days until their book dropped.
I found a teacher looking for writers to come in and talk to her class, because it was Writers Month in Australia. Being that I was in Brooklyn didn’t even stop me from thinking I could be there. Hell, I’d used Skype to do book clubs from Texas to Dubai, so why not talk to a bunch of Aussies about what I love to do most?: Share not only my love for literature, but fiction’s ability to save us from eating each other.
The teacher was shocked because it was the kids in school who were the most, shall we say, difficult, that actually responded. After one Skype session, she said she wished I could come back again and was sad that it was only once. Why did it have to be only once? I figured we could take the ones who really wanted to learn what it meant to write – the work that took place behind the scenes—and do weekly lessons.
“Are you sure you have time to do this,” she asked. “I don’t want to impose.”
Now, since 10 O’clock at night for me is lunch time for them, the slot was perfect. Besides, what else is better than talking to a bunch of Australian teenagers who have goats and lambs while sitting at my desk in Brooklyn?
During the first session, they had asked me about my technique: How I went about the actual DOING of the writing. Love kids – not one of them asked how I got published or what I made from my books. Usually, that’s the first question I get from adults.
So I set up a 5-week program where each Skype session (which was their 30-minute lunch time) I’d give them an assignment for the week. Then, at the following session, I’d talk about the work they’d done. To organize it all and keep a flood of emails from jamming my inbox, I set up an Evernote Account and gave them all access so they’d be able to post the various assignments:
Create a character. Interview your character. Talk to your character and let me know what they’re feeling.
After that, we soon had a database of characters that the entire class had created. To keep it interactive, I had them pull from that database of characters and incorporate other characters from the pool into a scene and write a dialogue between the two.
Though it was my first school doing this, I knew I was on to something. Some of the kids were, like me, the kids in school who didn’t behave all that well and had a hard time concentrating on what was in front of them because there was so many voices going on inside my head.
Thing is, these students were INTO IT!
Now, with the invitation to come back next year, I realize what I have to do: This program is going to have to get into other schools around the world so that they, too, can add their characters to this global database.
Soon, stories will start to be written with characters from different religions, races, economic situations, and political climates. When characters have such different backgrounds, in literature at least, it’s a draw because of how varied and unusual the stories will become.
If we do this in fiction, it can be achieved in reality.
If these kids grow up using each other’s characters in literature, when they reach adult age they might be a little less likely to drop bombs on each other.
The tools are there on the shelf. As with anything, the advantage to being human is the ability to understand that they can be used to create or destroy.
Combining literature with technology, the analog art of conversation with the digital ability to jump time zones, we have the power to make the unreal happen.
One classroom at a time, youngsters will add to a collection of new humans. These will exist in a world where their differences are actually the most engaging pieces about them.
About Christopher Herz
From selling his books on the streets of New York City, to having his first novel, The Last Block in Harlem, published and read across the globe, Christopher Herz has not taken the traditional literary route.
His follow up novel, Pharmacology, continues in his tradition of taking readers into a reality they don’t want to believe, but cannot turn themselves away from. Christopher lives with his wife in Brooklyn and is constantly working towards his mission of connecting the people of the world through literature.
