Are you letting social media 'leak" into your novel?

This applies mostly to novels that are taking place in modern times (although I suppose other dimensions could have Twitter too!)

I'm torn. I want to keep my novel relatively "timeless", I don't want to mention any television shows or pop culture that will set it in a specific year. I don't really want my characters tweeting, updating their status, etc. I don't want the crime in my plot to be solved by sending photos via text, I'd rather go the old-fashioned route.

However, I do have a few young people as main characters and I feel like it will just come up eventually and be completely out of my control! I'm not ambitious enough to set my novel in a completely different era, so it will inevitably have a modern feel.

So, my question to you:

Are you going to be having your characters talk about their various social media profiles (maybe starting your romance via a "poke"), or are you keeping Zuckerberg and friends out of it altogether?

Last year's (and the previous year's) NaNo had a reference to a character's favorite social media site, but didn't use a name. That's the closest I've done.

This year I'm writing Historical Fiction so there will be no characters Googling, Tweeting, or playing Farmville.

Nope

My novel could be set at any point in the past 20 years or so, and that's the way I want to keep it.

Well, I'll be referring a lot to TV / movies, music, books and what's happening in the world or happened in previous years (the story's set 2011)... but not to social networks, twitter and such stuff. I'm not doing any of it and so couldn't convincingly portray anyone using those media.

Guess the most modern digital medium I'll use is Skype, as my MMC and FMC communicate via it. They're leading a long-distance relationship with him being in New York and she in Munich.

One of my novels is set in the Renaissance, so there won't be any social media there. As for the others, who knows? I struggle with this question all the time. So many situations are solved so quickly when these technologies are introduced, and what if these technologies aren't as popular in a few years?

Though my novel this year is taking place in modern day (more or less), the timeline diverts from ours a few years ago (don't have a firm date for that yet), and given the state of things, social media really won't be an issue.

...which is just as well, since I'm not a user of "social media" sites myself anyway...

I personally am going to be having the modern stuff in my novel, mainly because it is set in current times and involves a girl meeting her fiance when he stole her friend's phone during a track meet in high-school and started texting her. Then he friends her on facebook and it takes them a year of facebook communication before they actually meet in real life.

Though I suggest that you do whatever you think is best.

This year, yes. The way the MC meets up with the antagonist is via social media, and that's how they communicate for at least the beginning of the story, as the antagonist starts out overseas, and only comes into the story physically at a later point. I probably won't give the site a name, though, or just say "online forums" or "online networking" or something to that effect, so it won't date the story too much.

My novel actually revolves really heavily around social media... for example, the main change comes about through a smartphone app, and I'm planning a few interludes where my MC blogs. Then again, it's set in the 25th century, so I expect social media will be quite different from how it is today.

My stories are considered contemp, but most of them can fit anywhere from the early 90s until now. There is references to internet, cell phones (calls and texts), cable TV, laptops, and computers in general. Nothing more narrows down time really. It's better that way to avoid major time milestones unless books are meant to be dated. How much fun can I really have with a character updating their facebook status or twitter? Not a whole lot. Besides who wants to chance a chance of being sued for using a name in a story?

My novel's set in 1974 so no facebookling and tweeting for my characters. And most of it takes place in another world anyways. Which means I get to think up terrible tv shows and books and brand names that don't exist. I love that.

My novel is modern, and I really hadn't thought about it until now. I agree that the use of social media (unless critical to the plot, like in Nightingaleprincess1's story) can date a story in a negative way. I mean, if someone writing a few years ago had their teenage characters using MySpace, that would seem out of date even today.

I think technology is a good idea -- that is, use email and IM and video chat -- but keep specific names out of it because those will be what dates your novel (Yahoo, Skype, Facebook, etc.).

This is a good way to explain how I see it - my novel revolves around humorous misinterpretation of a typo, but except for blogs and vlogs there isn't a whole lot of mention. There will be hints that people are using it a lot when it comes to the bloopers at hand, but I think it could take place anytime after YouTube came into being. Or, at the least, webcams.

Then again, that's 15 years right there. So, it's as timeless as it can be. While Much less plausible, it is still possible that it could have taken place before; there would just have to be a series of bizarre mistakes that aren't caught.

I think comedy could go eitehr way, but there are probably some where it would be hard to keep reader attention without social networking; Young Adult, for instance, it plays a huge part in the background my luu.com book "Discovering Grace," for isntance.

Even though the book is set in modern times, I doubt it, because I'm planning on an action packed book. I don't think my MMC is going to have time to update his status on Facebook while dodging authorities. xD

I've found recently that my stories are starting to get dated because I've been leaving technology out of them and have been asked by my editing group why they didn't just call people on their cell phones. I think the inclusion of Facebook and Twitter would be fine, so long as you don't talk too much about the layouts or features of it to make the dating too specific.

IMO, social media is pretty much inescapable if you're writing about modern times. I don't plan to make it a huge part of my novel, but I am tentatively planning for it to have a large part in the resolution of a problem my MC has to solve. I haven't invented any friends for her yet, but I suppose I'll have to - she's a recent college grad and will have people texting her, if nothing else.

Good point, with that book I mentioned on lulu.com (there, changed typo :-) I don't say how they text - it could be any of a number of devices. And, an older one I wrote for YA in 2002 I *think* has e-mail, I'm not sure, but doesn't have much need of it.

However, I think it's almost impossible, as I said, with some things *not* to have it dated. We are in the middle of a massive cultural change, IMO, and I think it's impossible to truly call something "timeless" anymore if we only look at the outward parts. I think timelessness has to do more with whether it's about human nature and all those things that go into human interactions. "Tale of Two cities," for isntance, is set with specific years mentioned at times, but it's still a timeless classic on many levels.

Last year I did go heavy on social media-- the three MCs were bloggers. I had thought through this then, and my conclusion was that a novel only appears dated for a short time- then it is simply set in a certain era. If the story is strong, the historical references only add color and authenticity to that.

I am writing a story that is in modern times, so yeah. E-mail, chat, forums; it's part of my daily living, so it's part of my modern literary world, too.

This is always a hard choice, keeping the story universal or limiting it with exciting details that reflect the times.

This year I'm using Facebook as part of the storyline, but only because it's a communication method used by the organization in the novel.