Some of the stuff I left out was stuff I simply didn’t experience, but some was cut intentionally in order to help the flow of the story. That’s something I don’t think most people get; the BBS Documentary does not represent 100% of Jason Scott’s knowledge about BBSes. When you research a project such as that, you amass an encyclopedia’s worth of data; the job then becomes taking that much data and presenting it to viewers in some palatable fashion. It’s the same with any movie that was first a book. You simply can’t make a 12 hour film. (And no my friend, that is not a challenge …)

When writing books (or producing films) about nostalgic subjects such as these, I’ve learned that while some people read to discover what you have to say, they’re also looking for their own past in your work. Without that the reader (or again, viewer) walks away with an empty feeling that you didn’t tell their story.

It was a difficult mistake to learn, but one I am correcting with book number two.