[stylist] Need some help. I want my character to do this...

[Anita Adkins]

Hi,

What if your character and the other user happened into the same chat room 
somehow? Your character could even enter by mistake, not realizing which 
webpage he/she is on. I'm not sure why you want your character to know what 
is on the other person's computer, and so that is probably is far as my 
imagination could go. But, if you wanted them to see the information with 
their physical eyes instead of via computer, what if there was a mirror that 
provided a small slice of the screen without the other person's knowledge.. 
So your character could only get a piece or even more than that of the info. 
Or a firedrill could go off or something, making everyone leave. Or, the 
laptop could be sitting somewhere, and your character opens it in order to 
find out a name so he/she can return it, and when it comes on, the 
information is what he learns? Just some thoughts. Anita

-----Original Message----- 
From: Nat Barrett
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 3:39 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] Need some help. I want my character to do this...


Stylist friends,

I need some help. I'm trying to write a short story and I'd like my 
character to become involved in a situation. The problem is, I don't know if 
it's possible.

The situation is quite easy to describe, so I'll get straight to it.

I have my character using a public wi-fi spot. Due to all the warnings that 
you get about using wi-fi and how people can hijack you and see what you're 
doing, I kind of thought, hmm. Maybe my character can inadvertently see what 
the person sitting at the next table is doing on their computer. And I don't 
mean with their eyes. I was thinking from computer to computer.

I only need this character to see a bit of the webpage this other person is 
using.

So far I've found nothing on the internet that talks about this. And another 
friend heard what I wanted my character to do and immediately said, not 
possible, unless my character is trying to deliberately hijack the other 
person.

At this point, I'm thinking I might just have to do ordinary, cliché ways 
and have my character just look with their eyes at the other person's 
computer. Of course, my friend also vetoed this idea, saying that with flat 
screens and being able to turn your screen off, it'll be hard to see 
people's screens and what they're doing.

Stylist friends, do any of you have suggestions? I'm even open to ideas. 
It's important to my whole story that my main character see something on 
this other person's computer. But I'm kind of fresh out of ideas, different 
or old.

I even contemplated these characters having identical computers and they 
accidentally get switched.

Or, I thought, maybe a  public computer. But the setting of this story is 
nowhere near a place that would have public computers.

Sigh.

Anyway, that's pretty much it. If anyone can offer up some suggestions, I'd 
be most grateful.

I'll say thanks in advance.
Natalie
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