Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Early Ani Difranco is showing its age

From Shy:

I might go out to that phone booth
And leave a veiled invitation on your machine


Apart from the fact that it wouldn't be a phone booth because Ani would have a cell, it also wouldn't have to be a veiled invitation because the other girl (girl? I've always pictured it's a girl, but I don't think the song specifies) would have voicemail instead of a tape machine. And they'd probably just text anyway - isn't that now the standard medium for hook-ups?

5 comments:

laura k said...

I resubmitted my unpublished novel to agents five years after it made the rounds, and I had to rewrite sections to get email and cell phones in. Now it would need text, too.

Plot twists that depended on people being out of touch or missing phone calls can't be supported anymore.

impudent strumpet said...

So what would happen if you missed a mention somewhere? Would you tell the editor you rewrote it this way so they'd know to be on the lookout for inconsistencies? Sometimes I translate stuff where parts have been rewritten but they missed something in the rewrite, and confusion and hilarity ensue.

Or you could just set it in the recent past.

laura k said...

I don't think kids books can be in th e recent past. I think it can be either now, or the faraway past.

I wouldn't tell the editor I rewrote it unless asked. If someone noticed an inconsistency, they would edit it and show it to me for approval, or else ask me to rewrite it. Sadly, with this book, it has not been an issue.

impudent strumpet said...

Someone should tell that to the people who wrote the Babysitters Club books. They had Claudia wearing leggings to be extremely cutting-edge fashionable as late as 1994!

laura k said...

I hate those books.