Radio - "There was a small box up on a shelf, half hidden in the shadows. The light from my candle glinted off of a metal grill on the front of the box, obscuring whatever was trapped behind it."

Toaster - "A rusty silver box hung from the ceiling, dangling from a long black cord. Sarah bent low to avoid bumping into it. Two long parallel openings glared at her as she passed beneath, dark eyes evaluating her like an ancient pagan god whose statue judged the hearts of warriors."

I'd say take only the most brief look at the vast collection of objects and not go overboard on detail. Point out a few obvious ones that would grab your MC's attention, and maybe focus on the specific item that is important in this room (unless the room is important in itself).

Jayson Merryfield

As to a radio, small box made of strange slcik wood with lots of small symbols and scratching on the front, nobs like a toy that spin and spin.

Toaster, metal box with a small lever that causes the springs inside to go up and down.

Keep in mind just because they are primitive doesn't mean ignorant and vice versa. Even though they might not be able to divine the use of the items they may very well understand the principles of how they mechanically function.

Battlefield Earth did a pretty entertaining job with the genius/clever savage in Jonny Goodboy Tyler.

Radio - "appears to be a small civilian communications device"

Toaster - "poking at the slot(s) revealed slim, mumified bread crumbs"

Kettle - kettles themselves aren't exactly a modern invention - they've been around in one form or another for about as long as we've been labeling years with "A.D." and are pretty basic to culinary needs (they're useful for heating up potable portable water, which in turn is necessary for distillation, and sanitation). Likely your MC will be able to immediately identify even an electric kettle right away, although he or she would likely wonder what all the transparent plastic-y doo-dads are for.

Also, in regards to plastic - it's likely your MC will recognize plastic as well, and it's also likely that at least some forms of plastic would still be used in a post-apocalyptic society, whether they be salvaged and improvised from existing forms (stripped plastic molding and other parts from an abandoned car reshaped into weapons and picks, for example) or even still manufactured (they might still be able to make some forms of primitive plastics like cellulite, bakelite, and of course, rubber). Either way, just because there will likely be so much plastic litter around, and they would likely reshape that litter into useful forms, I wouldn't be surprised if they readily recognize even specific forms of plastic.

Kettles as they were known to our forefathers while generally requiring metal Casting technology to use are actually pretty rare, in today's world of electric stoves and microwaves.

Additionally, who is your MC and who is his teacher?

The social realities at play here are really important, Nancy Kress calls this Imaginary toads/Real toads.

Is your MC basically what we would call a country boy? or is this MC more a townie?

I'm going to assume that you're MC is white which in itself indicates certain realities of the type of community that would have developed post-apocalyptic.

What part of the world is this taking place? Here too we'd find different realities presenting themselves.

The fact is that if an economic melt down occurred tomorrow and the US government lost solvency, the resulting communities would be vastly different about every 150 miles or so and small changes would take place immediately while major changes would begin to take hold in about 35 years or so (approximately 1/2 generation by "modern" standards which of course would be a worthless standard when the modern world no longer exists)

Unless you know the basics of what kind of social reality your character exists in you will never be able to convincingly portray your character.

Good point about the kettle - he would know the non electric type. There is electricity but he doesn't know about it for part of the story and not many people have it.

G-man - yeh, you're exactly right about the plastic, there's a lot of it around.

I'm growing up with this character, with him when he learns new things. He's seven when the story starts, eighteen when it ends. He learns much.

Who is his teacher? A mad old man, but mostly, himself.

I'm battling at the moment with a slight plausibility problem with this story. I set it around the year 2050, about thirty years after the events that destroyed the world as it is today. I'm now wondering if things could revert back as much as they have that quickly. I could easily set it another fifty years in the future, but that would mean the old man, a chracter that influences the MC, who says he was born in 1988, and has lived through both times, obviously couldn't have done that. I could make the old man, lets say, the son of the man born in 1988, pretending to be him, to influence the MC (its an important part of the story so couldn't change that). Most of what the old man tells the MC is lies anyway, so one more wouldn't make any difference.

All it would change is a few paragraphs at the end, but I'm unsure whether to do this. I've been with the idea a while, and am resistant to changing it, but would to give it credibility. Any thoughts?

The three things you've listed are distinctly outdated things especially if you're planning for the apocalypse to take place in 2020.

As to credibility its really hard to build credibility of a world wide event in 5000-7000 words.

You could try to brush off the cause of the apocalypse with statements about survival and what not.

ultimately, the question is what kind of story is this? A Character or an Idea story, as the choice will dictate how you construct the characters.

quote:

---

As to credibility its really hard to build credibility of a world wide event in 5000-7000 words.

---

Matt, its a novel, going to end at around 120,000-130,000 words.

It's definately a character story. It follows the life of Zechariah, through ten years. His chioces and actions dictate the story.

I'm not sure about toasters, kettles, radios, etc being outdated. I'm sure we'll all be using them in twenty years time. 2020 is only twelve years off.

Edit to add: These items are found in a room where someone keeps a collection of 'old fashioned' items. It's got a bit of everything on it including pens, cups, dishes, soap, detergent, clothes, a lot of electirc stuff, you get the idea.

However, your profile says you're from the UK and I'm assuming you're setting the story in the UK. Thus, make sure your story has a distinct flavor because it becomes important to your credibility as an author.

If your were in America, I'd say go to Wal-mart and look for your items, or visit a typical "city" kitchen to see what will be easily found and uses this for your "ancient" items.

As someone else noted a "radio" has given way to a boombox. Yes its still possible to find "just" a radio but when you say "radio" I think 1960's era transistor radio. Which in turn why would say a 1960's era transistor radio be the thing this crazy old person who was supposedly born in 1988 and thus 32 at the time of the apocalypse have 1)had access to things two decades older than himself or 2)kept things that were two decades older than himself.

But since this is a novel, well then in my opinion, most of the rules change. For novels you can build more quirks into your characters and a more depth to your world.

However, the story is set in the US, which I'm guessing makes a difference. The toaster is only a sentance in the story, something that can easily be changed to something more suitible. I'm pretty sure I have him seeing an i-pod or mp3 too.

Edit: Leave it to Beaver?

If you don't know the TV show Leave it to Beaver, you're not missing anything on an artistic level but you are missing important cultural referents for many "liberal" (ie marxist/feminist) academic talking points. (And no such labels are not swear words or derision, I'm a sociologist and some of my colleagues are rather radical)

Okay well in America, there are some people who have generations old things but generally, these things are the exception rather than the rule. Some communities which highly value their families have a higher rate of family heirlooms, but by and large most of America's current middle class can only trace their "middle classness" to the Post-World War II economic boom where mass production of consumer goods made "quality" products widely available.

As such things that most things that are truly family heirlooms are either truly old, are things of sentimental value (ie quilts) or were bought at an antique show/store with the express purpose of being heirlooms.

Most gadgets like TVs, Computers, Radios/Boomboxs/MP3 players are not manufactured to last for years and are in fact purposefully priced to be "disposable" in a consumers mind. (Apple's Ipod comes to mind, it's expensive but not so expensive most people can't afford to upgrade every time a new version comes out)

In fact, the progression of technology is such that pre-1990 TVs are obsolete in 2009 (barring use of an adapter) when in the US all broadcast stations must use High-Definition digital signals as opposed to the current analog signals.

If this wasn't a writing forum where we're supposed to respect copyrights, I'd send you a scanned copy of Gardner Dozois's essay "Living the Future: You are What You Eat" He provides a lot of pointers I think you'd find helpful. Its found in Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Schmidt and Dozois.

Of course this book is nearly 20 years old so much of the references are out of date but the general themes are still true.

Leave it to Beaver - the standard for stereotypic family life in America. It was a fairly long running series in the late 50's and early 60's. See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver

Description wise, I'd stay short on details. Just give the reader enough to figure it out.

I'd say most people use toaster ovens and not the slot type toaster in the U.S. these days.

Thanks for pointing me towards that essay, I'll have to see if I can find it.

I got a little confused by boombox, until I searched and realised they're what us Brits call Stereo CD players. There you go, I've learned something today.

HuntGod, hope you don't mind, I used a variation on one of your examples.

quote:

---

Also, not novel but Disney's Beauty and the Beast has the same issue. Ariel, the mermaid, is relying on a seagull to tell her what the things she finds on shipwrecks are for. Of course, he's wrong.

---

I think you mean the little mermaid. Good example. It does not have to be loss of information due to a backward step in technology. I often wonder if the same thing is happening when arcaeologists are hard at work explaining what the newly dug up aftrifact, sometimes barely recognizable through the corrosion, was used for. I am sure the spirits hanging around the site are slapping their fore heads and groaning, saying "They got itw rong AGAIN"

quote:

---

posted August 22, 2007 10:41 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ohh you've missed a cultural classic here.
Leave it to Beaver - the standard for stereotypic family life in America. It was a fairly long running series in the late 50's and early 60's.

---

Back to the subject at hand. If there has been a backward step in technology, (maybe all the electricity generation sites were destroyed and it will take 50 years just to get anything built again because of wide spread destruction of roads and infrastructure), you could have people who know what the objects should be used for but have adapted to other uses because of the inability to use them in the way the were originally intended. Anything electrical could fall into this category.

It needn't even be a post apocolyptic thing which puts us into this state. If extremist Greenies, environmentalists, were listened to and followed we would all have a wind turbine on our house, be washing clothes by hand and growing our own food. What would happen to all the existing infrastructure and paraphenalia to do with activities that were deemed environmentally unfriendly?

If anything I said was usefull by all means use it, I am tickled to have proved helpfull.

On a last note Stephen Baxter's series (which I didn't particular enjoy) MAnifold and it's sequels, had a sequence in which primitives were basically operating a primitive nuclear pile. Though the books were somewhat thick to slog through and they are definately "idea" driven sci-fi and not character, they might prove insightful for you in how it handles some of the technology that crops up.

I guess if the apocalyptic event doesn't blow up here and now, but some point in the future of the here and now, that some changes from the standard room / kitchen would be in order.

But not everybody keeps up with the latest technology. I switched from vinyl records to CDs, but have not yet made the jump to iPods or MP3s. (I tried the latter but it broke about three months after.) I've moved from VCRs to recordable DVDs, too. But my parents never moved into CDs and don't even have a player; the DVD players they have are gifts. (My dad has a computer; my mom has never used it.)

So what you find in a kitchen will depend on the owner as much as the technology available. Somebody older might not have a microwave oven...somebody younger might have a fridge with a built-in TV. (Not to forget "money to burn"---those TV / fridge combos cost over three thousand dollars at the loacl Best Buy.)

quote:

---

As someone else noted a "radio" has given way to a boombox.

---

Well, actually, even the "boombox" has given away (as they may say, "that is, like, so 1991" ) to small radios with earplugs and, since 2005, these funny little things they call "iPods" (although generically you would call them "MP3 players").