Will "Stories" Still Have A Beginning, Middle, and End? UPDATED

David Nygren asks a good question: How will the digital age affect the structure of "story?" Ten, twenty, forty years from now, will readers be content with the ancient conventions of narrative structure, meaning a structure that consists of a beginning, a middle, and an end?

When he first posed this question yesterday (in a tweet....), my instant reaction was yes! Of COURSE readers still want to read stories and stories consist of, well, a beginning, a middle, and an end.

But then I started thinking beyond my knee-jerk reaction. After all, I just finished posting a series here at my blog in which I wondered if we're living in a new age. If so, I wondered, will we dismantle ancient ideas and institutions and replace them with new modes of organization and thinking that we've not yet even imagined?

And if that's the case, why should or would the "story" be immune?

Answer: it may not be!

Added after initial post: If I remember right, back in the early 1990s, there was much talk about this very subject. Writers wondering how the use of "hyperlinks" could, should, or would affect narrative flow, and thus the structure of story. Other writers were toying with placement of words on the page, that kind of thing.

So it's not like no one's thought about this before -- but I suspect what used to be the ramblings of eccentric minds has become the norm.

Indeed, as I write the book I'm working on now, I constantly ask myself: When this book is published, will readers be content with static words on a page?

Eg, when I introduce a historical figure, like Gustavus Swift, should the text include a link to his entry at Wikiepedia? What about sources? Typically, I document the source for every quote I use in the book, and collect all those sources in the "Notes" separate section at the end of the book. Will an e-text have links directly to the source? How about the index? Will a reader be able to go to the index and click on an index entry and go directly to that page?

I don't know. I guess I'll find out in another two or three years . . .

Beer Pricing. Up? Down? Follow-the-Leader?

Harry Schuhmacher of Beer Business Daily (subscription-only) has an interesting interview with George Fisher, a craft beer distributor whose territories are Ohio and Indiana.

The always-lovely Harry gave me permission to post a couple of quotes from the interview. The context is a discussion of beer prices that unfolded recently over at Jeff Alworth's Beevana. I posted links to it here. Fisher's comments, again, coming from the perspective of a distributor, are fascinating:

Operating in Ohio, we lost about 350,000 jobs in the last few years, and some of my craft guys want to price like there's a big party going on. I think some brands are getting ahead of themselves. I think there are brands like Bell's or Stone or Dogfish or Rogue and a few others that really do set the tempo for high prices. And then there is the next level of brands that look at that pricing and say, 'hey, we should be there too.' I'm as big believer in pricing there is. I think it sends a message to consumers about quality. And at the top end you should be priced where it's not available to everybody. But I am concerned that some suppliers who don't have the reputation in the market are trying to move up to that top tier of pricing, and I think it's a mistake.

Equally interesting: Fisher's assessment of the potential for another craft-beer "bubble," similar to the one that unfolded in the 1990s (which I discussed on pp. 321-332 of my book.)

I can already see -- not quite the mid 1990s -- but almost there. I get sent a lot of samples of contract-packed pseudo crafts, at a discounted price point, and that worries me. We stay away from those and try to stay true to authentic crafts. But I can see it coming. Some of the more gimmicky stuff. . . . I'm seeing a little of that froth, and I'm concerned about the pricing. But I think the products are better. I'm cautiously optimistic."

Again, many thanks to Harry for permission to quote.

A Historian At Work: Why Now? What Now? How Now?

As a historian, I'm here to tell you that when it comes to "doing" history, these are interesting times. Ditto the endeavor of writing and publishing books. Interesting times, indeed!

Someone like me -- a working historian who writes books -- is experiencing (and sometimes being nearly swept under by) the confluence of two tides of change:

First, technology and our behavior are changing the way we experience, define, create, and consume words and ideas. The fact that you’re reading this "blog" on a computer monitor -- reading electronic images that convey words and ideas -- is evidence of these changes: Ten years ago, you would not have been reading me at all, and if you were, you would likley have been reading paper, not bytes.

Digitization affects my daily work as a historian. To a certain extent, it’s made my job easier; in other ways, more difficult. It’s one of the things I’ll be blogging about in this series.

Second, this sea change in behavior and technology has collided head-on with, and is being accelerated by, the cataclysmic upheaval in the global economy. ("Cataclysmic" is not too strong a word.) Publishing houses are collapsing (including the one contracted to publish my next book). Brick-and-mortar bookstores, even the giant chains, are closing their doors. The future of the newspaper as we know it (eg, a daily content delivery system based on printing presses and paper) is in doubt.

It’s hard to know what's cause and what's effect. Hard to know how much of the economic cataclysm is due to fundamental changes in the way we think about making, buying, selling, using "stuff." To what extent economic chaos is accelerating the demise of old modes of thinking/doing that were already dying.

All I know for certain is that the collision of economic upheaval and the "digital" revolution (can we call it that?) are having a direct and immediate impact on my professional life.

So that’s my focus here: the real-life consequences of these changes on my life and work as a 21st-century historian and writer.

Legacy of Prohibition = Dumbass Laws Today

Back in December, I wrote a piece for US News about the long shadow of Prohibition. In it, I noted that today's destructive alcohol culture stems in large part from the repeal of Prohibition: When Americans repealed the 18th Amendment, lawmakers at all levels built a cumbersom legal fence between Americans and alcohol, all but guaranteeing that generations to come would demonize drink.

Great example of what I meant is unfolding now in Iowa (where I live). Iowa guy owns winery. Decides he'd like to use his talents to make beer as well. Sorry, the state says. No can do. Back in 1933, state lawmakers "protected" Iowans from the evils of alcohol by forbidding residents from working in more than one alcohol-related industry at a time.

Those controls are so strict . . . that they have been interpreted to mean that if a husband drives a beer truck for a distributor, his wife can't work in a grocery store or tavern where beer is sold at retail.

In this specific case, the director of Iowa's Alcoholic Beverage Division says that

The fear . . . is that cross ownership would lead to excessive promotion, creating too much public intoxication. The bans were extended to family ties and to employment situations, he said, to make it clear that even indirect ties would not be allowed.

You can read the entire article here. Read it and, ya know, weep......... Got any dumbass laws you'd like to publicize? Send 'em my way.

Is This the Dawning of the Age of . . . E-Quarius? Part 5 of 5

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five One more example. Sometime in 1994 or 1995, my step-daughter, who was then in her late 20s, told me that she and some college friends had begun using something called email to stay in touch. I'd heard of email (vaguely) but all I knew about it was that it required a computer connection. (Computers, I knew. I’d started using a PC in 1984 and had owned one since 1986.)

"Why?" I asked her. "Why not just write a letter? What’s the point?" It struck me as a total waste of time to use a computer to communicate. I could see no utility to the idea of "email."

Flash forward to September/October 2006: My agent had just sold my new book proposal (for the book about meat, which I’m working on now), and he called to tell me the details of the contract. We talked, we finished our conversation.

I hung up the phone, and my first thought was not, "YAY. Contract completed. Book sold," but: "By the time I finish this project, will there still be 'books'"? What will a 'book' look like?"

In the space of a decade I'd gone from being baffled by email to pondering the meaning and form of one of humanity's oldest, most common forms of communication: the book. That’s a fundamental change in how I see, think, and act in and upon the world.

No. Correction: that’s a profound change. And one that unfolded in a short period of time.

To end this long train of thought (and I thank you for sticking around to the end), I leave you where I started: Peggy Noonan's column. She was commenting specifically about the current economic collapse, but her point can be extended to include . . . well . . . life, the universe, and everything. She ended that column with this:

Dynamism has been leached from our system for now, but not from the human brain or heart. Just as our political regeneration will happen locally, in counties and states that learn how to control themselves and demonstrate how to govern effectively in a time of limits, so will our economic regeneration. That will begin in someone's garage, somebody's kitchen, as it did in the case of Messrs. Jobs and Wozniak. The comeback will be from the ground up and will start with innovation. No one trusts big anymore. In the future everything will be local. That's where the magic will be. And no amount of pessimism will stop it once it starts.

WHOOOO HOOOO!

It's March 1. And if you live in the upper midwest, that means one thing:

Winter is over.

Yeah, it'll still be cold for another month. We may have another blizzard or two.

But none of it will amount to much and rather than signify the beginning of months of the same, they'll signify minor roadblocks en route to daffodils, leaf sprouts, and puffy clouds skittering across pale blue sky.

Bliss.