Author Archives: The Hyperteller

#TellaFeministthankyou and is chivalry evil?

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Twitter brings people together. Without it, it’s very hard to abuse random strangers on the internet. Hastags clearly exist so that people can find others with contradictory beliefs, and then abuse them for exercising their right to free will. In fact, the internet in general took humanity one step closer to being reduced by hate to the dribbling monkeys we once were (or weren’t, depending upon your point of view).

For those that don’t know, using a hashtag on Twitter groups your Tweet with all others using that hashtag. It means you can become a part of a huge global conversation, and see what other people are saying on the same topic.

Yesterday, the top trending hashtage was Tellafeministthankyou. Naturally, this caused quite a few arguments.

Different personalities and beliefs coming together…to stab each other in the eyes

There were the genuinely grateful, the women who do their part, the men who do their part, the men who appreciate women, the women who appreciate men, the people who were just having an ironic joke, the people who were a little bit miffed, and then the men who hate women and the women who hate men, or other women.

There were lots of sarcastic Tweets about not being able to make kitchen jokes anymore, as well as the occasional bombardment of ‘How dare you campaign for birth control’ and ‘thanks to you I can’t raise my children properly.’ Just to clarify, any woman who storms into the home of another woman and drags her into the city to force her to have a high profile career, is not a feminist. Feminism is about freedom, the right to be equal, and the right to choose*.

*(Feminists who believe all women must renounce children, have careers, give up sex, or stop enjoying the company of men, is the exact same problem that feminism is trying to fight; people trying to force women to conform to their idea of what a woman should be. Forcing a woman to have a career is no better than forcing her to stay at home, have children, and look after the house).

There was one argument that kept cropping up that I wanted to look at, because there’s a lot of conversation that goes on about it, and the middle ground often gets lost in the extremes.

Feminism and chivalry

Some people were complaining that feminism has killed chivalry, some were thankful for it. If you don’t know, feminism regards the concept of chivalry as insidious sexism. The idea of opening a door for a woman, because she’s a woman, automatically implies that she is weak, needs help, or should generally be looked after.

Whether it’s offering to help a woman who is struggling with something heavy, or giving up your seat for her on the bus, these are things that society only expects people to do for women. Because they’re supposedly weak and delicate beings who need to be looked after like a small bubble of thoughts about kittens and babies who’d disappear in a second if exposed to the jagged, harsh reality of the real world.

The reason the feminism and chivalry issue is so interesting is because it is so bloody complex. You could argue that chivalry is good, or it’s bad. I think in both cases you’d be wrong. Twitter showed that many people were vastly missing the point of the debate, getting caught up with actions rather than the motivating responses.

Context is everything

A little example to clarify. A man comes home from work; his wife has dinner ready on the table. Now, the sexism in this scene comes from the context. This image isn’t an intrinsically sexist one, in the same way a powerful board room full of only white men isn’t intrinsically racist. It’s the context of the situation – i.e. all those men got the high up jobs over their female and/or black/Asian colleagues because they were white men – not the end result. If a woman genuinely, without pressure or fear, decides that she wants to give up her career to raise her children, that’s fine.

Of course, the problem at the moment is that women aren’t allowed to make choices like that. The sexism in society comes from the fact that equality is just a concept, not something that is practised. There is still an expectation that a woman shouldn’t choose to have a career, she shouldn’t make the money, or know how to fix a car, or wrestle a kangaroo to protect her husband.

Feminism and chivalry the sequel

This is all relevant because most of the Twitter discussions regarding chivalry were about opening doors.

The idea of chivalry is wrong because it is all about acting upon the underlying belief that women are somehow in need of help. If chivalry was universal, it wouldn’t be a problem. But the medieval idea of honour amongst men is not stabbing them in the back or making an iPad case out of their skin, whereas being honourable towards women was about not breathing too hard near them because the poor things were so fragile they’d break like a candyfloss lamppost in a monsoon.

I think chivalry can stay, it just needs a bit of retasking, that’s all. The underlying message is what needs changing, not the actions. I don’t believe that any of the following actions are ‘wrong’:

  • Opening a door for someone
  • Allowing someone to enter/exit a room/lift/pantomime horse outfit first
  • Saying ‘after you’
  • Helping someone carry something heavy
  • Getting involved in a fight to protect someone you care about who is at risk

When this becomes a problem, and why feminism and chivalry come to blows, is when you do the above because the other person is a woman. If you walk past a man trying to carry a cast iron safe in order to help a woman who has two books in her hand, that’s a problem.

I particularly like this article on feminism and chivalry on Everyday Feminism, as it acknowledges the difficulties for both genders. There are feminists out there who simply attack chivalry, and brand any man who tries to be nice to a woman as an evil sexist. The article linked to examines it from both sides, points out that in some ways, many women are just as at fault for the prevalence of chivalry, and that men have a genuinely tough time trying to work out how to not be a sexist because the expectations society places on their gender makes it incredibly difficult to show respect to women without seeming less than a man.

And it is important to acknowledge the plights of men when it comes to societal expectations, as these govern the way they ‘have’ to act and behave. It would be perceived as incredibly embarrassing if a woman were to help a man carry something heavy, and most men would feel hideously rude remaining in their seat on the bus while a woman stood. Society needs to allow men to break the expectations on their gender at the same time as allowing women to. We can’t achieve true equality while the hands of one side are tied by preconceptions and assumptions.

But the bottom line, which makes arguing about opening doors pointless, is that it’s the context of the action that is important. Opening doors for people is fine, better than fine in fact. It’s great. Opening doors for women only, then letting them go to smash into the faces of the men behind them, is most definitely not a good thing.

If you offer to carry a woman’s shopping for her because she’s a human being who might like a little help, and you would do the same for a man without a second’s thought, don’t worry, you’re a nice person.

Bottom line is, just be nice to people. That’s a huge part of what feminism is really about.

Ping me – thehyperteller@gmail.com

Tweet me – @RewanTremethick

The content of this post (including images) and the word Hyperteller are copyright © Rewan Tremethick 2013

A small change in the way you edit can have huge results

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There are many different views on how to edit a novel. Some like the tried and tested red pen. For others, it’s all about Beta readers. And for a few, it’s about walking around with the pages glued to your face so you can spend all day noticing errors. And bumping into things.

I’m in the last run of edits for Politics in Blood before I send it off to be professionally edited. Why am I bothering to edit if I’m about to pay for edits? Well, because it’d be a waste of both the editor’s time, and my money, if I paid them to correct things I knew were wrong. I’ve said before about not liking people to see drafts of my work, as I want to get it ‘perfect’ in my eyes. I want people to spot flaws I can’t possibly see, not highlight problems I know about.

Otherwise it’d be like calling the fire brigade just because you need someone to turn up at your house, point at the flames, and go “Yep, that’s definitely on fire.”

I’ve taken a new approach with this round of edits. It involves two pronged attack, if you will:

  1. I’m starting at the last chapter and working my way back.
  2. I’m typing the whole thing out again.

Both of these are, I daresay, slightly unusual. But there’s a reason, and that reason is that they both work. Let me explain.

Starting last and working backwards

I had always had a plan. That plan was that I would get the first 3 chapters of the novel perfected, so I could start submitting to agents. By the time an agent actually got back to me, wanting to see the complete MS, I’d have finished editing/proof reading that, too. Didn’t work like that in the end, as life got in the way.

What this means is I have the first few chapters of a book which have been edited and proofed a lot. They are of a much better quality than the rest of the novel. Also, quite frankly, I’ve read them so many times I’m a bit bored of them.

But the end of the book has hardly been touched. And I can’t really remember much of what happens. So, by starting at the back, I’ve given myself a fresh new book to read.

There’s another good reason for this. Most journeys go from A to B. Reading the chapters in reverse chronological order means that I get to see B first. When I get to A, it’s a lot easier to see whether the journey makes sense. Were those events between A and B enough to change the situation from the former to the latter? Does the logic need a bit more clarifying? Does chapter 39 really need so many monkeys?

These are all important questions. You know how a road you walk/drive down every day can look really different when you come back along it for the first time? That’s what reading my novel backwards has turned out to be like. Having the ‘effect’ fresh in my mind means that when I reach the ‘cause’, I can see how strong the relationship between them actually is.

It’s proving to be immensely insightful.

Typing out the whole thing (Yes, the whole thing)

Someone blogged about this, and that’s how I found out about it. I can’t remember who wrote it, or where I read it, but thank you, mysterious writer person.

I read each chapter aloud, correcting mistakes as I go. Then, I open another Word document, get the two windows next to each other on the screen, and type the whole chapter out into the other document.

What really works about this is that the things you notice aren’t so much the glaring errors (which have already been identified and fixed by reading it aloud), but the things you thought were fine. Copying out each sentence makes you think about it in much more detail. I think for most of us, we value each sentence in regards to the paragraph surrounding it. Typing the whole thing out allows you to momentarily hold each sentence in your mind and your subconscious really goes to town on it.

I’ve found so many things that can easily be changed to make them more efficient, bits of information I needed to clarify on, and whole sentences that can be taken out. I’ve noticed clunky writing, and even great writing that can be tightened even further by a little rephrasing, or the change of a single word.

I suppose this method works because you’re analysing each sentence several times. You have to read it first, so it passes a few spelling/grammar/literary tests in your mind. You then have to type it out, and in doing so, get to think about each word as it spills out of your fingers across the keyboard. Finally, you’re reading it as you type (and probably hearing it aloud in your head), giving you yet more time to analyse its meaning, its flow and its rhythm.

Fresh new perspectives

Each of these two methods has drastically affected the way in which I view my story. It’s like a fresh new novel. I’m noticing things I didn’t before, and changing things I had previously thought were fine.

And when I’ve finished, it goes off to the editor. Once I’ve finished implementing her corrections and suggestions, it’s out into the big wide world once more. Except this time for good. From that point on, I’ll know the novel is the best it can possibly be. So, if an agent rejects it, then they didn’t like it. Fair enough. But I’m not going to sit around worrying that maybe there was a flaw in the story or something in the writing that turned them off. I’ll know it’s just not right for them. And I’ll keep going, sending it to other agents.

There’s an agent and publisher out there waiting for Politics in Blood, and I’m going to find them.

Ping me – thehyperteller@gmail.com

Tweet me – @RewanTremethick

The content of this post (including images) and the word Hyperteller are copyright © Rewan Tremethick 2013

“Fantasy vs. Casserole Romance” – Blogger profile and Guest Post with Danielle Shipley

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There’s so many great peeps in the blogging world. I thought I’d do my bit to help you find some of the talented folk who are writing out there. Danielle Shipley is for some reason my arch nemesis (I’m not entirely sure why).

Real Name (optional, y’know, in case you’re a super villain or something): Danielle E. Shipley

Alias: Deshipley

Blog name/URL: Ever On Word (everonword.wordpress.com)

What’s your main topic?

Most often, my posts will have more to do with writing than not. Creative processes, character development, and playing with words are what I know best and love most, so that’s what I’ll usually end up talking about. I’ve also been known to put my pen where my mouth is and share pieces of original fiction and poetry. Beyond that, I just talk about whatever interests me, and try to be entertaining about it.

Describe yourself in 100 words?

A used-to-be homeschooled, ever-will-be Christian, overemotional, obsessive-compulsive fantasizer. White and nerdy beneath lovely brown skin, looking perhaps to mature, but never to grow up. While an artist in general, a writer first and foremost. A willing vessel for beloved figments of imagination. I also tend to wax free-form poetic when asked to offer a brief biography; I guess I feel essentials are best expressed thus. My philosophy is that life ought to be a musical. Optional: A fairytale musical, animated by Disney.

How long have you been blogging, and why did you start?

My first post went up on September 1, 2011, and I’ve kept up a largely steady stream of content in the year-and-a-bit since. The blog’s primary purpose is to garner positive attention from potential fans of my novels (which I have yet to publish, but I’m working on it). They – y’know, the all-knowing “They” – say an author needs a blog, a website, a Twitter… I don’t buy all of that; I believe all an author really needs is to have written a book, preferably a good one. But an online presence where people can see what you’re all about is a nice thing to have; hence, Ever On Word.

Best blogging experience?

Surprisingly, given my lone-wolfish tendencies, I’d say it would have to do with the communal aspect of blogging. There’s fun to be had in the preparation of the blog pieces, true, but much of that fun comes from anticipating how readers will enjoy what I’ve put together for them. I’m always excited when people respond to what I’ve put out there; “like”s are nice, comments are gratifying, new followers put me over the moon, and it’s a treat to virtually hangout with fellow blogger friends and give them some love and laughs and whatever other L things I’ve got to give.

One instance that stands out in particular is when I posted the eulogy for my late Shetland sheepdog, this past summer; the empathetic response from all quarters was a sweet comfort in a tearful time. On a brighter note, it tickled me to see all the banter in the comments following an interview with one of my characters, Will Scarlet; it might be to my benefit to make that Merry Man my marketing director, since he’s got charming gift of gab to spare. And any time I’m offered the chance to write a guest post for another blog is a day-maker; when it comes to blogging, I’d call invitation among the sincerest forms of flattery.

Title of the post you are most proud of, and reason why?

After much lengthy thought, I’m going to choose (hastily, before I can wimp out and go back to scour the archives again) “Reviews” or “How to Make Me Love Your Book Like My Own Flesh and Blood”. Writing book reviews is a challenge for me, but for this blog post, I forced myself to write two, in the name of supporting a couple of worthy authors with worthy books (thanks, in massive part, to worthy characters). I’m pleased with a) the result and b) that I was able to make a small contribution to the authors’/books’/characters’ publicity.

One thing you wish you could do/did more of (regarding blogging)?

I wish I had more time to go randomly searching out other people’s blogs. For one thing, it’s just good business to drop “like”s and comments everywhere, because more people are likely to trail back to me and my blog, that way; Writer/Blogger Me likes this. For another, there is some really entertaining material to be found, out there in BlogLand, and Reader Me would like to be able to read it. That’s why I started my semi-regular “HYSRT!” (“Hey, You Should Read This!”) feature on my blog – to give a little additional exposure to blog posts that I feel are worth the read. If I had a nice battalion of Danielle clones (with cloned laptops and internet access, of course), that’s the kind of thing I would do more often.

What do you think makes your blog worth a read?

Come for the voice, stay for what it’s jabbering on about. I like to blend humor with depth, intelligence with frivolity, usefulness with just plain fun. Ever On Word is me in the way I can only be seen through my written words, and it’s probably the truest me you can get. Why should you read my blog? Because you can’t read my novels yet. Say “no” to Deshipley deprivation!

Now what would a profile of a blogger be without a demonstration of their skills? So, specially for The Hyperteller, is Fantasy Vs. Casserole Romance.

By Deshipley, Danielle E. Shipley, whatever you want to call me

Why do I write fantasy? Because it’s a piping hot market, y’all!

Actually, that couldn’t have much less to do with it. If all I were concerned about was selling my work, I’d write a series of steamy romances that include recipes for low-calorie, cancer-fighting casseroles and advice on how to meditate your way to the inner peace that only a billion dollars made through the power of positive thinking can bring. But lucrative as that would be, I can’t see myself working up any enthusiasm over trying to produce a book like that. (So feel free to steal the idea, someone; just make mention of me on the acknowledgments page, that’s all I ask.)

Fantasy, on the other hand, though less of a surefire goldmine, is nonetheless a delight to write. I mean, think about it:

You Get to Make Up the Names! Officially, you could do this for chick lit and whatever, too, but your characters might have a difficult time explaining themselves.

Jenna gasped. There he was again – that cute guy from the coffee shop! And he was coming right for her, his dreamy smile punctuated by an adorable dimple, blond hair rakishly ruffled in the summer breeze.

“Hey,” he said. This close, he smelled like cinnamon. Jenna could breathe him in all day. “I don’t think we’ve properly met. I’m Shâzgar the Aerlior-blessed. And you are?”

“Jen— Wait, you’re supposed to be who, now?”

“Shâzgar the Aerlior-blessed.”

Jenna blinked at him. “What kind of name is that?”

Shâzgar looked offended. “It means ‘favored child of the elf-moon prophecy’. It’s been in my family for generations, don’t hate!”

“Not hating,” said Jenna, turning on her heel. “Just walking away.” The last thing she needed was pressure from her mother-in-law to name her future babies after moon elves, or heaven knew what.

The great thing about writing in a genre where names like “Shâzgar the Aerlior-blessed” are par for the course is that you’ve upped the odds significantly that your characters will never share a name. How many Aragorns did you know in school, hmm? Run into many Tinker Bell’s at the office, do you? Exactly. Awesome made-up fantasy name = instant individuality points. Now all you’ve got to do is come up with a stellar character to back it up.

You’re at the Edge of the Map Where There Be Dragons! Or mermaids or minotaurs or moon elves or whatever you want – all those creatures that it would make life so much cooler and/or more dangerous to have hanging around in our world.

Jenna gasped. There he was again – that cute guy from the coffee shop! And he was coming right for her, his dreamy smile punctuated by an adorable dimple, blond hair rakishly ruffled in the summer breeze.

“Hey,” he said. This close, he smelled like cinnamon. Jenna could breathe him in all day. “I don’t think we’ve properly met. I’m Shâzgar the— LOOK OUT!”

Shâzgar slammed Jenna to the ground, glittering hooves galloping through the air where her head had been a split second before. A dread whinny of doom rang out through the sky.

“What is that thing?!” Jenna cried.

Shâzgar looked grim. “It’s a winged unicorn-demon from the Shadow Realms. They were banished from these lands ages ago by the Senate of Aerlior. I don’t know how this one got past the veil…”

“Not listening,” said Jenna, jumping to her feet. “Just running away.” The last thing she needed was to get embroiled in the broken politics of opposing foreign governments, or heaven knew what.

Of course, our world has dangers enough as it is. Salmonella poisoning, worn tires on icy bridges, violently inclement weather… do we really need the impending return of unicorn-demons on top of all? I’d say no, but even so, it’d be a shame not to read about such things happening to someone else. Invasions from the Shadow Realms are best enjoyed from the comfort of one’s own laptop, I find.You Don’t Have to Research a Darn Thing! Except for the bits that are meant to accurately mirror reality. But how much of that does your story really need, anyway?

Jenna gasped. There he was again – that cute guy from the coffee shop! And he was coming right for her, his dreamy smile punctuated by an adorable dimple, blond hair rakishly ruffled in the summer breeze.

“Hey,” he said. This close, he smelled like cinnamon. Jenna could breathe him in all day. “I don’t believe we’ve properly met. I’m Shâzgar the Aerlior-blessed.”

Jenna’s jaw dropped. “The Shâzgar the Aerlior-blessed? The world-renowned brain surgeon?!”

Again, the dimpled smile. “Either me or one of my great-uncles. Outside of my family, Shâzgar the Aerlior-blessed is a rather unique name.”

“Wow, this is an honor! Tell me, Doctor, what exactly goes on in the complicated world of medicine, these days?”

“Magic, mostly,” Shâzgar informed her. “We wave our wands carved from the Trees of Kyoor and speak the hallowed incantations, and boom, no more blood clots in your cerebellum. …Or you’ve been turned into a mushroom. Human error, you know how it goes.”

“Not really,” said Jenna, with a careless shrug. “Just as well, though, I guess, since I’m not planning to ever go into brain surgery.” The last thing she needed was to have one of the Aerlior-blessed learn that she was planning to take her craftily accumulated knowledge of the legendary Kyoor wands to rend the veil separating these lands from her masters in the Shadow Realms, their armies of demons comprised of far worse than winged unicorns, the looming Second Age of Perdition, and heaven knew what else.

This isn’t to say that we authors shouldn’t have a clue about what’s going on in our stories. We want brain surgery and mushroom transformations to be performed by magic wands? Fair enough, so long as our next generation of MDs doesn’t mistake our novels for their textbooks. Your stories, your rules. So…know your rules. Figure out your essential whys and wherefores before the letters from readers pour in, questioning what substance you were abusing when you had what you’d declared impossible in Chapter 2 happening in Chapter 7 with no explanation at all.

And for pity’s sake, have fun with it! It should be fun. And it is fun! (Trust me: I’m not such a purist that I’d write anything but billion-dollar casserole romances if it weren’t.)

Danielle can be found at www.everonword.wordpress.com, talking about…all kinds of crazy things. Check it out, and give her a follow.

I’m always interested in hearing from other bloggers, so if you’d like to be my featured blogger in the future, send me an email at thehyperteller@gmail.com.

What would you do in a power cut?

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With so much technology filling so much of our time, what would you have do if there was no electricity?

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The WiFi kettle. You can boil water in a pan over a fire in a powercut, but how on Earth would you update Facebook about it?

I realised the other day that I need a Kindle. I do like them, but I think I’ve said a few times before that I don’t want one at the cost of physical books. There’s nothing like the feel of a new book (or new book smell), or hearing that whispering cackle of the page being turned. Unfortunately, I had no room left in my house for books, and the room that books are taking up, I need for other stuff.

But the realisation that I’m going to have to get a Kindle at some point reminded me of a thought I had the other day. Like most people, I spend all day working in front of a computer. When I finish work, I like to watch a couple of episodes of House or The Big Bang Theory, whatever’s on TV, play something on my PS3, and listen to a lot of music.

Here’s the thing; if I get a Kindle, all of the things I like to do would be electronic. Even my drum kit is powered by electricity. In a power cut, I would have nothing to do. Yes, my Kindle would still have battery, but that’s not really the point.

Batteries not included

I quite like power cuts. There’s something primal about being plunged into darkness, having to resort to fire and flame to see and eat. I said in my last post (Why Do I Play Video Games) that there is no immediate threat for people in the first world. Perhaps being thrown back into feral darkness, where every aspect of our lives has to change, takes us backwards several steps, and I like that.

I’m not sure why all my hobbies being electrical worried me. I think it’s because I’m worried about losing touch with the physical world. Technology has made everything too simple in many cases. While ‘m not in favour of things going backwards so far that I would have to fight wolves in the supermarket for a packet of crisps, technology just seems to have taken us in the opposite direction. It’s made the unnecessary necessary. A WiFi kettle? A knife and fork app for my iPhone? Ooo, interactive carpet.

Those were the silliest examples I could think of off the top of my head. Then I Googled them. Two of them are real.

Do we really ‘do’ things anymore?

I think in a lot of cases, technology is ‘helping’ to distance us from real experiences. Although I’ve never been skydiving, I’m sure that jumping out of a plane in a video game could in no way rival the rush of adrenaline you get from doing it in real life. No matter how good watching videos of your favourite song being performed live might be, it’ll never beat standing in a gargantuan stadium with tens of thousands of screaming fans, hearing the roar of the crowd as the first notes of their favourite song are stuck and thunder out of the speakers.

And no matter how much I love blogging, I’d much rather have a conversation with you all face to face. In some ways, like this, technology has helped us to connect with other people. In others, it’s taken the meaning out of life, and I think we’re starting to forget what an experience actually is.

If the worst comes to the worst

Still, I’ve always got my pen and notebook. That and a candle, and I guess I’ll be all right. Until all pens automatically copy whatever you’re writing and post it on Facebook.

I think that’s partly why I’ve started drawing again. I used to quite a lot when I was younger (mostly as, like writing, I filled the boring hours that were secondary school lessons. Biology? No thanks, I’ll draw a dragon). I was never great, but sometimes I could draw something that was OK. I stopped when I started getting too harsh with myself.

But I found a big pad of plain paper in a drawer the other day, and since then have been doodling and quite a bit. The results are bad, but for once it’s not about achievement for me, just about something fun.

So now I have two hobbies that don’t involve electric. What about you? What’ll keep you occupied if the power goes down?

Ping me – thehyperteller@gmail.com

Tweet me – @RewanTremethick

The content of this post (including images) and the word Hyperteller are copyright © Rewan Tremethick 2013

Why do I play videogames?

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Videogames involve killing imaginary people. Why do I find that enjoyable?

I tend to be quite self-reflexive, and often find myself exploring my views, opinions and motivations. I think it’s a good thing for everyone to do, as it helps us come to terms with who we are as people. Understanding how we work is the first step in accepting the way in which we work; which can’t be a bad thing in a society where so many people are forced to keep who they really are a secret (whether because of their religion, lack of, sexuality, etc) because others can’t accept them.

Because of the recent tragedies in America, and the usual pointless debate that follows regarding the impact of videogames (i.e. that five minutes of Halo is enough to make anyone go out and start killing), I wanted to examine my own views towards the hobby. I didn’t want to just shrug off those arguments and continue gaming, no matter how ridiculous I think they are. The whole debate has raised some interesting questions in me, such as just why do I find killing imaginary people enjoyable?

Survival

I think it’s all down to the fact that, when you look at us objectively, we’re all still animals. As humans we get very uncomfortable with the more animalistic sides of our nature. You can see this in society’s attitude towards sex. Whether it’s a fear of our own sexuality, or someone else’s (homophobia, for example), as humans we struggle with the fact that we are intellectual beings with concepts and philosophies and music and art, yet at the end of the day there are still certain things we do because the ‘base’ parts of our brains still run like animals.

I believe we play videogames for the same reasons we watch films (any films) and read stories (any stories). It’s because, for most of us (i.e. the people privileged enough to count not being able to afford another controller for our PS3 as one of the biggest problems in our life), don’t have to struggle to survive.

Many people are in financially tricky situations, but for those of us with the time to consume media and literature and videogames, our lives are in no immediate danger. If we don’t wash the dishes, a tiger isn’t going to eat our young. If we’re too ill to go to work one day, dinosaurs won’t feed on our flesh. Life is pretty secure, and even if things go wrong, we have doctors and hospitals and medicine and welfare and charities. There is a massive safety net set up to catch the people who, without it yes, may be able to consider their lives to be a struggle to survive.

Life or death by proxy

What stories, films and videogames do is give us that chance to survive. I think the need to fight for our right to be is an important thing that drives a lot of people. Whether it’s a writer seeking validation from the mass market, a child desperate for their parent’s approval and praise, or the sinner who needs their god to forgive them, we all need to justify our existence. And, as with so many other parts and functions of our brain (such as laughter), we have re-tasked them as we have evolved to better fit with the state of our lives and the societies around us. For most of us, there is no need to defend our families with a spear. Most of us go to bed knowing that tomorrow we’ll wake up and there will still be food in the cupboards, that the house will be warm and protect us from the elements, and that we won’t be under siege by hungry panthers.

But we still have that strong need – desire even – to justify our own existence. We need some parts of our brain to operate as though they aren’t sure what will happen in the next minute, or whether we’ll make it through the day alive. Literature, films and television give us the chance to do this by proxy. We become involved in someone else’s struggle to survive, whether that means finding the man/woman of their dreams, or stopping bad guys from blowing up the dolphin sanctuary. We become embroiled in those conflicts because they serve as an outlet for our own need to survive; fight scenes, chase sequences, scenes wrought with romantic tension, or dramatic rows or deaths, all get our pulses races, the adrenaline pounding and our breathing going.

Videogames take this one step further. You’re still involved in someone else’s plight; you are not directly at risk. But this time, their every action is controlled by you. Your skill, your wits, your reactions, are all put to the test, and should you fail, you ‘die’. It’s a cathartic release of our desperate desire to have to fight for what we have. Whether it’s killing aliens or racing cars, videogames give us the chance to have to excel, to beat the competition, and beating the competition used to mean you would be the one who survived. It’s one of the reasons The Hunger Games has been so successful; it’s about a load of people who have to survive.

Romanticising our basic needs

Videogames are no different to many of the other ways in which we serve our survival instincts. We need to eat, but we don’t need to enjoy it. Cookery isn’t about our need to survive, but it is taking that need and embellishing it to make something that the modern human can enjoy. Look at our houses. All they need to do is keep us warm so we don’t die of hypothermia and be solid so that predators can’t get in. But we fill them with ornaments and furniture, we paint the walls, we choose things that appeal to us. We take the basic need to survive and turn it into something enjoyable and agreeable for us, therefore making it something more than that.

That’s what videogames do. They take that desire to succeed, to survive, to beat nature and earn the right to the life we have been given, and make it fun.

If I was to decide that the killing of fictional people was wrong, I would have to stop not only playing videogames, but also reading the kinds of books that I like and watching the kind of films that I like. But I believe that killing a fictional person isn’t to do with death at all; it’s to do with survival. Killing an enemy in a videogame is about that need to win in order to survive.

It’s nothing to do with inflicting harm on another individual (although of course there are games in which this is the point, and I think all gamers do, at some points, get a little aggressive and involved in this), it’s to do with the fact that those pixels were trying to kill us, and we have a strong desire to stay alive. That’s why in games things get more difficult as they go along. They are testing your commitment to staying alive. More difficult games/levels wouldn’t add or detract from the enjoyment of killing virtual people. But more difficult games do make it harder to survive, making you want to fight harder to preserve your virtual life.

Videogames are cathartic. Whether blowing up government troops with a missile launcher in Just Cause 2, or desperately trying to find a way out of a burning building as it collapses around you in Uncharted 3, videogames make you take hold of the moment and use your wits to come out on top. They immerse you into a world in which nothing is certain, in which the comfort of your armchair means nothing, and they test how much you really want to live.

For a species that is desperately trying to subdue the fact that they are animals, videogames serve a vital purpose in letting us be animals in a controlled way.

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Guest Post: Does Music Still Carry a Message?

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It’s over to my good friend Sonney Stelling today, who is rather troubled by the state of popular music.

The other day (I say the other day, it was quite a while ago, but let’s roll with it!) I listened to the latest Anti-Flag album The General Strike and I asked myself the above question. Now obviously for a band that call themselves Anti-Flag, the question is somewhat answered already; of course they do. For bands such as them and other modern punk bands like Rise Against, Against Me and Bad Religion music will always carry a message. For roughly eight years that message was simple, ‘We hate George W Bush.’

Now he has gone, the punk scene seems less inclined to attack Obama (interestingly Obama, in a recent interview spoke about he wished there was more political music out there nowadays) and now seem more inclined to attack the banking system, Wall Street or the materialistic society we currently live in. I guess the only downside of Mitt Romney not winning the election is that we have missed out on four years of fantastic punk albums! But by very definition punk rock has always carried a message and always will. Also it will never be all that popular, a few pop-punk songs in the late nineties/early 2000’s being the exceptions.

The problem I have is, when it comes to popular music, there doesn’t appear to be any message there anymore. This is something that never used to be the case. Music used to always be the place that people could find messages about the world they lived in. Anti-war songs were always in the charts during the Cold War, and songs about the wrongs of society and governments were in the charts even in the nineties, (Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony being one example). In fact it can be argued that certain genres of music were born out of the need to carry a message.

Ignoring the aforementioned punk rock but there is also jazz and rhythm and blues that can trace their roots back to slave songs; early rap and hip-hop stems from oppression and prejudice towards ethnic groups in the seventies and eighties; even certain types of folk music find their roots in singing about harsh regimes and hard times (Irish anthem Fields of Athenry for example is about the famine and how harsh the British government were at the time).

So how come it all changed this century? It’s not like this last decade or so has lacked for things to write about, from the War on Iraq, 9/11, the alleged rigged election in America, not to mention the current economic climate and our government’s constant failings to remedy the issue.

I looked at a list of songs about 9/11 the other day (seriously, this time it was the other day) and on the list I noticed a few things. Firstly a lot of the artists I had never heard of, so either they are not mainstream acts or perhaps they are only big in the States; I’m assuming for most of them it’s the former. Secondly of the artists I had heard of, most of the tracks in question were either album tracks or B-Sides. There have been a few songs this century that are politically charged; examples being Black Eyed Peas’ Where is the Love and Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind but these songs are usually relatively thinly veiled songs that can interpreted in different ways or one-off tracks that are completely juxtaposed to anything else in that artists back catalogue (Pink’s ‘Dear Mr President’).

At this point it would be easy to place the blame at shows like the X Factor, that saturate the popular market with meaningless songs, written by third parties, aimed entirely at selling records and making money. The modern pop music is created melody first, catchy chorus second, lyrics last. Although that statement, however biased it may be, has some truth, there is a more worrying reason in my opinion. People do not want a message in their music anymore. In my line of work, I have come across a frightening number of people that are incredibly ignorant of the world around them. Ignorant through choice, these people are not stupid or simple by any means, some of them are very intelligent, or could be if they wanted. The very idea of ignorance through choice is the most tragic thing I could think of.

These people just don’t care enough to learn about anything, and as a result the music they listen to is listened to because of its beat; how it sounds not what it says. For me I listen to music that reflects how I feel, and it teaches me that I’m not alone in my thoughts and fears. For the majority of people out there, they listen to charts that are based purely on record sales and the ever enduring popularity of shows like the X Factor and the music it produces. They listen to music purely so they can sing and dance along and that’s why popular music, sadly, no longer carries a message.

3 shows that prove television doesn’t need to dumb down

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There’s always an argument going on regarding the media. One of the many points of contention is that some people are concerned that television, books, newspapers and the like need ‘dumbing down’. For example, that newspapers should target their content at the person in their readership with the lowest reading level in order to be understood by all.

From somewhere, the media have this idea that everyone is arrogant, illogical, stupid and touchy. They think that if we see a word in a news piece or book that we don’t understand, we’ll sue everyone within five miles of the place where the book was printed for discrimination. I’ve said before that this world is one in which a misogynist could successfully sue his mother for being a woman; today the media are spending more time and effort on covering their asses than they are on making and writing quality products for us to consume.

The industry now thinks that if any of us reads a word that we don’t understand, we’ll throw down the book/turn off the television in a fit of rage, and presumably go out and do a graffiti, kill a policeman or just drag our Neanderthal knuckles along the floor as we lope around trying to find bananas or a tyre swing.

In reality, I think, most of us would just look up the meaning of the word. Most of us would think reaching for the dictionary is a floccinaucinihilipilification, not a massive insult to our intelligence. By the way, are you still reading, or eating a banana in your tyre swing? Just testing. And by the way I had to look that word up before I put it in. I’m not ashamed to admit it.

House, Bones and The Big Bang Theory are three great examples of why the average television viewer is much more capable of thought that than industry likes to believe.

All the series, medical drama House, crime drama Bones, and science comedy The Big Bang Theory are about very clever people with lots of specific knowledge, doing very technical things. They all feature a ton of terms and concepts that most people, unless they are trained doctors, forensic anthropologists, or experimental physicists, won’t have a clue about.

And the best thing about House, Bones and TBBT? They don’t really bother to explain it to you. They make sure you understand what’s happening, but if the characters use a word the audience doesn’t know, and doesn’t really need to in order to understand the story, they don’t bother stopping in order to do this:

Character 1: I don’t know, I can’t help thinking it’s just a floccinaucinihilipilification.

Character 2: What, you mean some people might think it’s trivial?

Character 1: As I said, a floccinaucinihilipilification.

Of course the difference is that most of the time, House and Bones are talking about medical things (I’m including Bones in this because, and feel free to disagree, I think death counts as a ‘medical thing’; if I was dying I’d much rather go to a hospital than a taxidermist), and TBBT about specific scientific terms. Floccinaucinihilipilification is just a long word that any idiot (like me) could find.

Also worth mentioning (in my mind) are the films of my favourite director, Christopher Nolan. His Batman trilogy, and Inception, Memento, and The Prestige, show that you can have intelligent action films. The Batman films and Inception feature both ‘thinky bits’ and explosions. I think Nolan’s Batman films explore on a much deeper level what being a hero is really about, and the toll it takes on a person. It’s much more than ‘Oh no, I’ve fallen into this magic acid. I should put a leotard on now and save people’, but each film still manages to have big action sequences as well as something for the audience to think about.

The Matrix proves this as well (thank God they didn’t make any other follow ups and wreck the whole thing). It’s packed full of references to art, literature, the Bible, etc. Every time you watch that film, you pick up on something else. It’s an incredible example of thoughtful and intelligent writing, yet still manages to feature incredible action scenes and things being blown up.

House, Bones and The Big Bang Theory all draw you in to an incredibly complex and technical world, in which, by the very premise of the shows, you are unlikely to know anything about. While we may not understand some of the direct scientific ideas and concepts that The Big Bang Theory often bases its jokes around, we know enough from their context in the surrounding sentences to infer the relative meaning and understand the gag.

These shows prove that audiences are fine with being bombarded by terms and ideas they don’t know or understand, and can still identify with characters who are much cleverer than they are.

I like fight scenes, I really do. And I like watching things blow up. It’s great. But I don’t want a film like Avatar that just goes ‘Look, pretty colours, things happening’. I want something that can astound me visually, but engage with me on a deeper level. I want to be provoked, I want to have to question, I want to need to discuss things afterwards with my friends because we’re all unsure of what we’ve just witnessed.

And I think the popularity of shows like House, Bones and The Big Bang Theory proves that, contrary to what some in the industry seem to believe, the people who like a little bit of brainwork with their entertainment aren’t the rare creatures they think them to be.

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The content of this post and the word Hyperteller are copyright © Rewan Tremethick 2013

The legacy of recession

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HMV has just announced that it is going into administration. It’s just the latest in a long line of big brands to finally lose their struggle. In every high street legacies are crumbling into dust. Businesses (some of which opened in the 19th century) are finally having to close, having outlived the women and men who worked so hard to keep them alive during their lifetimes. As a kid growing up, you don’t necessarily appreciate the history of these places. What you do appreciate, is a street full of shops.

The town where I live is a ghost town now. Windows that once gleamed with displays, behind which staff and customers mingled in the dance and conversation of capitalism are now blocked off with thick, white paint, or hardboard. Every day, the streets seem to become darker and more oppressive, as light and movement are replaced with still darkness. Shop signs are removed, leaving ghostly white images of themselves, no more shops than the chalk outline of a murder victim is a person.

This is what a recession really means. Jobs get lost, people struggle, things get harder, and places die.

I’m starting to wonder what will be left of the world I knew as a child by the time I reach 30. It seems that every few hours, the physical world disintegrates like unsteady cliffs tumbling into the ocean. I imagine in a few years it’ll be nothing more than a road, lined by the husks of places where people once bought and shopped and lived their lives and made their livings.

That’s the real legacy of the recession. They talk about the ‘tough economic climate’, but the economy is made of people and places, all moving together in synchronicity like the delicate cogs in a grandfather clock. GDP, Inflation, Stocks, Bailouts. They’re all words that mean things on a global scale.

But recession is global in the sense that it affects everyone on the planet. From the richest to the poorest, no one is immune from waking up one day to find themselves walking in the debris of what once was a rich and thriving town or city, now dead and deserted, home to pigeons, rubbish, and memories.

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Muse: My ultimate album

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Do you have an album that you love, yet you still find yourself skipping a couple of tracks? I find this happens for me with each of Muse’s albums, not necessarily because I think the tracks are bad, but simply because I know that there’s gold after them.

On Blackholes and Revelations, I find it hard to listen to the opening track, Take a Bow (despite it being a great song) because I know that after it are the power trio: Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole and Map of the Problematique.

Similarly, on Origin of Symmetry, I skip over New Born (a borderline blasphemous idea of most Muse fans) in order to get to Bliss, which is, in my opinion, a much better song.

In the search for perfection

When thinking about Muse’s latest album, The 2nd Law, I found myself thinking that Big Freeze would fit very well on Blackholes and Revelations (read my review of Muse: The 2nd Law here). This got me thinking about mashing the albums together.

So, in my attempt to create what I believe to be the perfect Muse album, I’ve come up with the following track list:

  1. Uprising
  2. Hysteria
  3. Supermassive Blackhole
  4. Follow Me
  5. Bliss
  6. Undisclosed Desires
  7. Butterflies and Hurricanes
  8. Citizen Erased
  9. Madness
  10. Stockholm Syndrome
  11. Panic Station
  12. Fillip
  13. Knights of Cydonia

Beginning

I like Uprising because it is a punchy, driving force to kick off an album. It’s attention grabbing and full of attitude. Hysteria continues in that vein but introduces the traditional Muse chorus element with it’s uplifting combination of melody and lyrics. Supermassive Blackhole then demonstrates Muse’s ability to cross genres and add a range of influences to their sound, without ever losing that key ‘essence’ which is Muse.

Follow Me, a track from their latest album, is a great example of how the band manages to build upon a song, raising it from a bare, minimalist beginning to an epic anthem by the end. It also reinforces the cross genre idea, with its chorus featuring dubstep elements. After this, we revert back to a classic. Bliss combines a brilliant piano riff with stadium filling guitar and choruses. Perfect for the diehard fans who want to jump up and down in an area and make ‘rock’ symbols with their fingers as though it means something.

Middle

Undisclosed Desires used to be my favourite Muse song, but I think Madness, Panic Station, and Follow Me have all surpassed it. What this does have is a stripped back yet catchy 80’s Hip Hop influence, combining slap bass, electronic drums and a keytar to make a seemingly simple yet sophisticated singalong classic. Butterflies and Hurricanes is a real rollercoaster of a track; quiet verses laden with anticipation building to ecstatic, scream along choruses. The beautiful piano and strings interlude provides a nice contrast to the rest of the song, a perfect lull before the storm of the final build up and chorus.

Citizen Erased is the perfect example of three musicians working in close harmony; the bass, guitar and drums are all playing the same pattern. It’s catchy, it’s chunky, it’s powerful. After something so loud, aggressive and bold, it’s nice to send things in the complete opposite direction. Madness makes for the perfect contrast, like the piano interlude in Butterflies and Hurricanes. This song is stripped back to its bare basics, allowing Matt to strut his stuff with the brilliant vocal melodies and catching lyrics. The bass is unique and infectious, and naturally it builds to a brilliant Muse style ending. Contentious amongst fans, I like it for the reasons many hate it; it’s so pure and simple in it’s construction.

End

As the piano interlude bridges the gap between two powerful song sections in Butterflies and Hurricanes, so Madness offers a moment of calm between two powerful Muse offerings. Stockholm Syndrome is Muse at their most pure; no cross genre influences, no experimentation, just three guys doing what they do best. In my mind this is a more interesting and addictive song than either New Born or Plug in Baby, and while I love the experimental and eclectic sounds of The 2nd Law, in my mind (and the minds of many others) Muse could do nothing better than to regress back to Absolution for their next album.

It’s addictive, it’s funky, and it’s proud. Panic Station is a song that hits you from the start as something so very unlike Muse, until you listen closely, that is. It’s a bold step away from their usual spheres of influence, but proves that their rhythm section knows what it’s doing; providing chunky, foot tapping grooves that could get even statues moving to the beat. Fillip is an early classic, with an interesting intro as Muse really begin to step comfortably into the shoes of uplifting, stadium animating choruses.

There is no more perfect ending to an album than Knights of Cydonia. Some people call this over the top and ridiculous: I call it epic rock at its greatest. A truly unique song, it was a powerful and jaw dropping end to Blackholes and Revelations. It is a true testament to the power and originality of Muse that they used to start their tours by playing this song, such is their back catalogue that there was never any concern that the gig might climax before it had even started.

What do you think? Which songs would you have removed or added?

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And now it’s all real

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Most writer’s crave publication. Not just for the success, maybe not for the money, but I expect all of us want to get published for one reason; validation. Being published means that someone has read your work and said ‘Yes, others will want to read this’, it also means that professionals in the publishing industry believe that your writing is worthy of being bought.

Publication has several stages, but the stage where it all becomes real, when you truly allow yourself to believe it has happened, is when you get your author copies. Mine arrived on Christmas Eve. Could there have been a better Christmas present?

Death at...Fronts

These are my two hardback, linen bound copies of Death at Castle Spire, the book I announced just before Christmas in this post. I’ve been reading them, simply because I wanted to be able to sit there and look at the words I wrote, and the story I devised, in an actual book. I got to turn the pages of my own narrative, pause at chapter breaks I crafted, all the while feeling the weight of a book with my name printed on the dustjacket.

Also, and this will sound weird to anyone who isn’t a big reader, they have that New Book Smell, and it’s amazing.

Death at...both

It’s a great way to start the New Year, and of course the validation it has given me as a writer is priceless. Here is something I have worked hard on, that someone else has recognised as being worthy.

I think perhaps the thing I’ve enjoyed most about having the author copies is the way they’ve inspired me. I think every aspiring novelist like myself goes through two stages. First, they ask ‘Have I got what it takes to write a novel?’, and secondly, once they have written a novel, stage two is ‘Can I write more than one?’

Five minutes after unwrapping my copies of Death at Castle Spire, I was excited. Here were two copies of a book I had written. But instantly my thoughts went from getting a shelf to display them on, to filling that shelf with other books I had written. It’s inspired me to go back to my NaNoWriMo project and get that redrafted, edited, and sent out.

This is a big step towards my dream of becoming an author. Here’s to a year that moves us all even closer to achieving that goal.

Happy New Year.

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The content of this post and the word Hyperteller are copyright © Rewan Tremethick 2013