Eavesdropping

So the other day, my Creative Writing lecturer told us she wanted all of us to eavesdrop on a conversation in order to get a better understanding of dialogue… and, frankly, just because it’s interesting. That’s right, the secret’s out, writers are listening to what you say on the bus and probably not using any of it, because here’s what I’ve learned:

You’re all incredibly boring.

Okay, that’s a little rude. You’re not. In fact, in the context of talking on a bus, I probably am as much as anyone else. But sometimes I feel like I hear the same speech patterns over and over. Somewhere towards the back of the bus, Roxie is asking, “Is he with you? Is he with you? No no, don’t tell him I’m here, pretend I’m your mum. Yeah, very good. Hey, has he said anything about me? …no you see that’s what I thought but, but not being funny right, that what he said about Janine is bang out of order… yeah, no, I get that. Yeah. No, I do. Look, can you tell him I’m with Harry right now? Yeah. Well no obviously, but… yeah, exactly.” And I’m not making fun of that type of person, because everyone’s entitled to their own way of life. But I hear that exact conversation with different names on different buses. It’s amusing but mostly predictable.

So here I am, still looking out for some interesting tidbit of eavesdropping which I can present to class next week. It’s surprisingly difficult to find anything really juicy and interesting out there. I mean, I heard a heartwarming exchange between an old man and a young woman on a bus (surprise surprise) the other day, for she was genuinely interested in what he had to say. I might use that, if I’ve got nothing else. I just can’t find anything. Maybe I need to be more of a gossip.

I thought I’d pick up something interesting when I went to Devcon this weekend. (Think Comic Con, only much more local and much, much smaller. Big turnout though.) However, I spent most of my attention span on my friends and the possible buying opportunities in front of us. (In the end, I only bought a tiny little Bulbasaur figure. I was frugal!) One amusing moment was heard when we were waiting in line; there were two children behind us arguing as to whether the bounty hunter patrolling the line was Boba Fett or Jango Fett. In actuality he was neither; he was either custom painted or a character from the extended universe, which I know almost nothing about. But it as fun to hear them arguing all the same.

Whilst it’s not quite the same thing, I feel obliged to pick up the topic of people-watching now. I’m an avid person-watcher. People are fascinating. Sometimes they’ll amble along to a window, frown at it, walk away, and then change their minds, awkwardly doing a 180 and hoping that nobody has noticed their sacrilegious indecision. I see people waiting for their friends, pretending to text on their phone because it is quite obviously a social law that one may not wait around for someone without being seen to still be busy talking to somebody else. (I, too, am guilty of doing this.) People-watching at places of transit is especially interesting! Reading the expressions of somebody who is about to get on a train can be fun, so long as they don’t look your way and eye-contact is established. Then it’s the most terrible thing in the world… people-watching is not without danger.

But what’s most amusing about people-watching is that, despite the fact that you’re probably the only person observing them, people are entirely concerned about how everyone in the vicinity is judging them, and thus act accordingly.

Let’s Talk Music!

I have no musical talent (or really any musical sense at all), but this of course does not make me exempt from appreciating music. With the release of two new albums from favourite bands of mine and the amount I’ve been listening to to select dailies for #Rocktober, I felt that it’d be an appropriate time to put my thoughts about music down on paper. Or, ah, pixel paper.

Let’s start with genre. As far as I’m concerned, the stuff I listen to falls loosely under the genre “metal”. There are subgenres and people who say some stuff isn’t metal it’s rock and some stuff isn’t rock it’s metal and some stuff isn’t either it’s tingtangulatia or flobbercore or what have you. I don’t care, it sounds good. And I can never discern differences in genre. Apparently it’s to do with instruments used but honestly, it doesn’t even matter.

Next we’ll talk about stereotypes. People typically assume that if you listen to a particular kind of music, then you’re a particular kind of person. If you listen to dubstep you’re probably a chav, if you listen to rap you’re probably about to damage somebody’s property. In my case, I listen to bands like Five Finger Death Punch and Bullet For My Valentine, so I’m most definitely an edgy preteen. Fans within the genre might raise their eyebrows at that, but I’m fairly sure that that’s how we’re viewed by other people, guys.

The thing people fail to notice is the ability to recognise the shortcomings of the artists they listen to. I am fully aware that Five Finger Death Punch’s lyrics are cheesier than a wotsit bathed in squeezy cheese and wrapped in a processed slice. (Sorry, FFDP fans.) I bet that a lot of people see the utter bollocks that some rappers rap about (for instance, entire songs dedicated about how good their songs are), but they can still enjoy the music. But people get so passionate about this kind of thing, too. I’m sure that some people reading this blog post are already up in arms for insulting their heroes. It’s just music, mates.

I’ve also realised that I prefer not to know the true meaning behind songs. I enjoy painting a portrait of what the album is about in terms of reflecting the artist’s life. I felt cheated, for example, when I read some behind the scenes stuff for Bring Me The Horizon’s latest album, That’s the Spirit. I’d listened to the album a few times, and through half-heard lyrics and general tone I’d decided that the album was speaking a somewhat happier tone, especially in relation to its predecessors. Now that I know the story behind every song, I can make less out of it regarding my own personal thoughts. Still, it doesn’t lessen the awesomeness of the album, which I very much enjoy despite its departure from heavier roots.

Anyway, before I end this blog post I might as well list my favourite bands / artists for those interested. They are, in no particular order, Avenged Sevenfold, As I Lay Dying, Beartooth, Architects, Bring Me The Horzion, Bullet For My Valentine, Five Finger Death Punch, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and for miscellaneous genres, Pendulum, Chipzel, Eminem, Gorillaz, and The Killers. There are plenty of others, but those would be the main ones, I suppose.

Finally, if anyone’s reading this and thinking, “this guy doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about!” then I heartily invite you to re-read the opening sentence of this blog post.

Let’s Talk About Feminism

The most important thing I must stress before I begin this blog post is that I am for the equality of men and women, and believe that the current state of the world weighs too heavily in the favour of man to be labelled as equal for both genders.

The one debate I always attempt to stay away from is feminism, because there it seems there is so much venomous hatred being flung at everyone involved in the discussion that I decided it simply wasn’t worth it. So bearing that in mind, the obvious first course of action to take would be to write a blog post about feminism!

As far as I’m aware, unless I’m horribly mistaken, the main cause of feminism is exactly what I put in the header of this post: the movement for equality between woman and man. And, as I’m sure anyone who has read anything within this mess of a debate is fully aware, this movement has been echoed in the worst possible way by those who think that being a feminist means to turn the prejudice towards men and hate them. For the purposes of making things easy to understand, I will be calling this group of people “feminots” for the rest of the blog post. Because that’s exactly what they are. Whilst I can’t entirely blame women for wanting to turn the tables and let men be the unfairly-treated ones for as long as we’ve been shitty ourselves, this is not equality and goes against everything the true feminist movement stands for.

The above paragraph is my personal understanding of the current state of affairs. Feel free to let me know if I’ve gotten anything wrong; as someone who tries to be as fair and level-headed as possible, you’d honestly be doing me a favour. And yes, I am tiptoeing around this subject, as it’s laced with all too many hatred-mines. (What a god-awful metaphor.) Before moving on, I’d quickly like to add that calling the feminots “feminots” is actually a terrible idea, as labelling always leads to stereotypes which leads to ignorance of individuality. It is purely for making things easier in this post.

So, what’s bothered me enough to speak out? Well, as of late I’ve heard of a video going around in which a woman walks around New York City for ten hours – check it, ten hours – and edits two minutes worth of people being sexist towards her into a video. And immediately I must state that yes, these people were ignorant and rude. (More on the sleaze-aspect of it later, it’s awful). But ten hours for two minutes seems a little excessive. If anything, walking around my home city, I’d expect to get five minutes out of two hours; far more if I was picking up on stuff not directly aimed at me. Speaking in general, there are so many different people in one city that your chances of coming across an ignorant, self-obsessed person is highly likely. This doesn’t make it right for people to be this way, but it’s the current state of society that is, if I’m not mistaken, known by most people already. To put it in simpler terms, there are always scumbags.

There are two things that anger me about the feminist debate, and yes, I’ll step on that landmine. (How could he be angry about feminism, ignorant non-progressive asshole!) The first one is that most of it, at least from what I’ve seen, is centred more around feminots (the minority) than feminists (the majority). The cloud of hatred and negativity blinds even well-doers. The swing of hatred from the feminots brings with it a backlash just as unjust from people like “Men’s Rights” (excuse me if I just insulted a domestic abuse support group, I can’t remember the actual name – I mean those who are basically for the downfall of women). True feminists then see the uprising of these men and become angry with them (rightfully so, in my opinion). And the triangle of confusion, anger and hatred continues. Mostly on Tumblr.

I won’t get started on Tumblr.

The second is how it spreads. This video, for example, about the woman in New York. I don’t know if this was filmed with honest, good-hearted intention, or whether it was feminot propaganda. What matters is the negativity in which it portrayed men via cherry picking. (Side-note: A friend rightfully pointed out I might be cherry-picking myself by bringing up this video instead of the incredibly positive Emma Watson speech.) What bothers me is this:

One time when I was fourteen or fifteen, our teacher showed us a video. It was CCTV footage of a street-corner in New York City. In this video, there was a mugging at knifepoint. A passerby decided to help and stepped in front of the knife, and was stabbed fatally; the mugger and potential victim both fled. The man then bled to death on a busy street corner, passed by too many people who just ignored the bleeding man. The amount of time it took for someone to eventually phone for an ambulance was astounding, and by the time it arrived he had died. I believe this is the news story.

While I’m sure this got some coverage at the time, it didn’t exactly go viral. This story, which raises such massive issues with the moral compass of the average human being, was rather quickly lost and humanity learned nothing from it. Yet meanwhile, this other video that has a negative message – most importantly, a skewed message, because positive intention or not this was purposefully edited out of ten hours – about men blows up. Having watched the video, I’ll admit, the harassments were sleazy and made me feel uneasy just watching. The video does raise serious issues that need to be addressed with how we treat women in this society, and that’s what the positive feminist movement is all about. The removal of ignorance; equality. But there are people – these “feminots” – who take that video and extrapolate it into fuel for their kill-all-men blog posts. And as a man who is on your side, I can’t help but feel affronted by this.

I guess my real problem isn’t about the issue itself but about the debate, and how people will go out of their way to misinterpret something to add to the steamroll of hatred that plows through the internet every single day. A movement built upon the foundations of hatred is no better than the original point in which it set out to change.

That’s just how I view things, anyway.

In Defence of Clichés

Anyone who’s been taught anything about writing is told to avoid clichés at all costs. They’re treated like some monstrous disease that will infect your entire work and render it useless if used at all, in any quantity. Personally, I think that’s unfair.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for originality. The biggest fear I have with my writing – besides not succeeding – is ending up writing about another single mother who has a secret tragic past that comes back to haunt her in an explosive turn of events. Or writing about the young man whose father escapes from prison and wants him dead. You know, the typical thriller. Dean Koontz is one of my favourite authors and he has some really great original ideas but some of his books can be a bit like that.

But I digress. I was talking about clichés having a bad reputation. It’s not that I would like to write a story with a million cliché lines in it, it’s just that I’m wary of the formation of a cliché itself. Thinking about this logically, it would seem that every cliché once started off as an original idea or saying. It would be safe to presume that between it being original to it becoming cliché, it would have become popular; so much so that it got worn out. For the idea to become popular it had to be revolutionary, or effective. If this is the case, then perhaps clichés are just ideas or concepts that have gone out of date. Take the shower scene in Pyscho, for instance. What once terrified audiences has now become a roll-your-eyes type scenario.

This worries me. It feels like writers now have too many potholes they have to avoid in order to spare themselves from being cliché. Just how many different ways of phrasing things are there left that won’t flag up this crucial criticism? I mentioned about the almost stereotypical thriller story earlier; how long until tragic pasts become cliché? Are they cliché already? Must writers really avoid telling certain stories simply because they’re too similar to older ones?

Typically, constructive criticism doesn’t frustrate me. It’s useful and helpful, and nowadays is given to me by people far more experienced than myself. But I do feel a slight pang of annoyance when someone points out that one of my characters is being cliché. I wrote that character acting that particular way because it benefits the story, but because that particular aspect has been done before, I have to work around it.

This isn’t supposed to be a whinge. It’s just interesting to me that the concept of the cliché exists, and how it can undermine writers at times. I suppose my concern about this is a variant of the classic fear that writers are going to run out of original stories to tell. Look at soap operas and cheap dramas, and pay attention to how often they repeat storylines with different characters. I’m willing to sacrifice the knowledge that I enjoy Waterloo Road a little too much, if it means I can use it as an example. While I love the show, I have to admit that they repeat the same stories every few seasons, just with different characters. A few examples are the students with terminal illnesses, the personal life of the head-teachers going haywire, and the constant teacher-student misunderstandings that could cost somebody their job (but somehow never does).

I’m not sure this blog post really has a point. Maybe it is a whinge and I’m too proud to realise it. One could say that it makes sense for certain ideas, phrasings and genres to become stale and overdone. I’m sure I’ll disagree vehemently with my stubborn defence of clichés, a few years down the line. Stay tuned for my self-contradiction!