Christmas Greetings

It's that time of year again, where frenzied buying and sales become the normal course of affairs in the run up to Christmas. Many people have started early, but in case you are yet to do your Christmas shopping, please bear this in mind: retail workers are people, too.

Everyone, from the person stocking and arranging displays to the till worker selling you your items and the barista serving you your drink after a long day; they are all worthy of your respect. They, like you, are working a job they don't necessarily like in order to pay the bills.

If you've had a long day of frantically buying gifts for everyone in your life, and you feel a bit weary and snappish, please remember that a single day for any of these positions typically lasts eight hours. Eight hours of not being allowed to sit down or rest. Eight hours dealing with the tired and stressed shoppers. Eight hours of the same repetitive phrases and motions. And then they have to do it all over again the following day. For about two months. Then they have to gear up for a month of post-Christmas cleanup and sales.

They are probably only just getting minimum wage, or a little over, to deal with all of this, too. You're likely ringing up more money with one transaction than they will get per day of dealing with this nightmare. They often can't guarantee which days (if any) they'll have free in the run up to Christmas. They might only have a couple of days off over the entire Christmas period. They may not be able to visit family however much they want to.

Trust me, no one hates Christmas more than people working in the retail sector. So before you complain about queues or some tiny imperfection that you wish to rant and rave about in the hopes of some small extra management may be able to give you for the inconvenience, consider just not doing it. It saves you time and effort, it saves people from literally lying to your face in order to placate you, and it just makes things generally more pleasant for workers, other shoppers and ultimately, yourself.

Next time you're out, try saying please and thank you, even when you feel really tired/stressed/hungry/whatever. The gratitude you will get for basic human decency might just be the pick me up you need.

Writing Research: How to Write Fight Scenes

As a writer, I'd consider my biggest weakness to be fight scenes, and I know I'm not the only one. It's one of the reasons I like to write scripts and screenplays, where you can describe the fight itself in a couple of lines, and leave the detailed scuffle up to the storyboard artists, directors and cinematographers as and when it's needed. However, as I write short stories and novels, too, it is a necessary part of what I do. So this post is a bit of a brief how to, for myself and other writers out there who struggle with this.

First of all, the basics of sentence structure. This is vital. Short, sharp sentences give the immediate feel of every impact, whereas longer, bloated sentences will drag out the action. At best, sentence structure will serve to enhance a fight scene, but at worst, it will confuse and disorient the reader.

Research is a must. To make your universe credible, it must follow it's own internal logic. If swords are used, research different types of swords and the styles of combat they are used in. If a character has trained with a specific type of weapon, improvising with a different weapon will put them at a disadvantage. If they have sustained injuries, that will also impact the fight. If magic is a force, what are the rules around it and how easy/difficult is it to wield in a combat situation?

A tavern brawl will be very different to a duel. The brawl will be chaotic, people are unlikely to be seasoned fighters, there will be little to no concept of 'fair' fighting. People might not know the initial cause, but stuck in the middle of the fray, they have no choice to fight back to escape or survive. In a duel, the fight will likely be more organised, with a form of judge ensuring some form of rules. The stakes will be more personal, and more complex than simply 'fighting to survive'.

Every fight should feel unique and different. You wouldn't repeat the same section of dialogue for no reason, so why should you write the same type of fight scene twice? What would be the point?

Different characters will respond differently to battle. The character who is willing to survive at any cost would have no qualms taking the easiest route out of a fight, even if that is to avoid it completely. The character who values personal honour over pragmatism may rush into ridiculous situations without really considering the outcome of their actions.

Do not disorient the reader. Fight scenes can easily become a blur and make it difficult to work out what exactly is going on. Many readers will skip them if they become too challenging to follow. Make sure that the fight is easy to read.

Alternatively, consider deliberately making it disorienting. Battle can be overwhelming, especially if the characters aren't trained for combat. Reflect that in the characters. Make them confused. What are the consequences? Injury? Losing a character or important item behind in the chaos?

Above all, practise. If you are aware that fight scenes are a weakness for you, go out of your way to write a few fight scenes. Writing, like any art, is a craft you hone over time and hours of practise. There's no shame in admitting that this element of your craft needs more work.

A few extra resources for additional reading:

Vary your sentence length to make your writing more interesting: A good primer on how and why to vary sentence length with some specific examples in both text and audio, talking about the musicality of the written word.
Here's how to write a damn good fight scene: More about the specifics of language used in a fight scene and specific techniques to try out.
Writing Fight Scenes: Specifically for fantasy writers, and covers a little bit of everything, including suspense and build-up before the fight has truly begun and how to develop characters through fight scenes.
5 Essential Tips for Writing Killer Fight Scenes: More about the motivations behind specific fight scenes - understanding why they are (or aren't!) necessary for your plot is the first step to tackling them.

MCM Expo: The Good and the Bad

I've been going to MCM London for about 6 years now. It's a biannual comic, video game and manga/anime convention in the heart of London's docklands. I've worked there as a member of staff on stalls and attended as a regular fan, amateur photographer and cosplayer. It's a couple of bright spots in my year, and one of the few times I really make the effort to get out there and be sociable.

In terms of sheer size, it's the biggest convention in the UK in the number of attendees - and it keeps growing every year! The last con in October 2015 boasted 130,560 con goers, in comparison to May 2015's 122,600. This growth in numbers is fairly typical of MCM, and as the expo expands in terms of contributors, stall holders and guests, it's draw only increases.

 

With such a large community, some of whom have been attending year after year, you are always bound to find someone with similar interests to you. Cosplay has always been an integral part of the event, from amateurs simply displaying their love of a franchise or character to professional cosplayers competing in EuroCosplay. It's common to see people travel to the event in cosplay over the weekend, sometimes leading to very amusing sights on public transport. It's not uncommon to see zombies on the Tube, trolls on the buses and Stormtroopers on the DLR!

 

Of course, the draw of MCM isn't wholly about community, although that is a large part of it. Stalls boast hard to obtain collectors items and geeky goods, signings with celebrities are always available, and panels from television's most popular shows run throughout the weekend. 

However, as MCM has grown larger, a couple of issues have come up, and chief amongst those is one of communication. I understand that running a convention of this size and scale is never easy, however important announcements of guests and attractions are left until the last minute. This is difficult for those who have to travel great distances to attend, and makes buying tickets difficult as when it is so close to the event, online tickets are limited, if they are indeed even still available.

The rising cost of attending is also becoming prohibitive. In May 2014, an early entry/priority entry weekend ticket cost £29.50. In October 2014, that rose to £35. In May 2015 it became £45, and October 2015 is the highest yet, with £50. Over one and a half years, a price increase of 69.49% seems pretty steep. On the one hand, people can obviously still afford it, if the increase in attendees is anything to go by, and the extra money does appear to be going to more floor space inside, more time within the center and more events and signings over the weekends. However, the cost of attending is making me question how frequently I'll be able to attend in the future. I'm sure I'm not the only long-term attendee facing that choice, either. In addition to the event itself, availability and cost of hotel rooms, the cost of travel and food, and a spending fund for any merchandise you might want to buy and MCM expo starts looking very expensive indeed.

There is often an issue with communication within the event itself. Many of the staff working at MCM are volunteers, and the security bought in for the event are an external company. In the past, this has lead to unscrupulous security staff 'confiscating' attendee's personal items, general misinformation over how to enter and renter the venue, where to go for specific events and what tickets you need to access them. In my experience working on a stall, stall holders are given very short set up and take down times in comparison to other similar events, and admin errors regarding staff passes issued aren't uncommon either.



Outside space - a boon for everyone in hot costumes or needing some air - has become increasingly limited over the last couple of expos. In October 2015, this was due to temporary railings to keep only those with wristbands inside and keep people who hadn't bought tickets outside. While there are people every year who do not buy tickets and enjoy the atmosphere from the outside, it seems suspect that this system was implemented the year when ticket prices became £50 for the weekend.

Despite all this, I have a soft spot for MCM Expo. They do try and fix issues, even if not always in effective ways. Every time attending over the past few years has resulted in a different method of obtaining wristbands, a different queueing system each day, a different door to renter by (often using three different doors on the same day). After the fiasco with the security firm, MCM hired a different firm. MCM has diversified and invited more guests over a wide range of fandoms. MCM is certainly improving, and on balance, I will probably wind up attending as long as I am able to afford to. At the end of the day, I've made and kept more friends through the event than any other single source in my life. So, despite all its flaws, I'll keep coming back to MCM for the community.

MCM London Comiccon's tickets and event info can be found here. 
Pictures © Amelia Springett

Nintendo NX: Speculation on a new console

All of this is pretty pure speculation, as is every other article around right now. We only know a limited amount of information, but if it is to be believed, Nintendo are going to release a new home console by the end of 2016, and it currently goes by the working title, Nintendo NX.

The first major point is that it may have the possibility to be as much handheld gaming as home console. The Wii U already features the ability to play games solely on the handheld gamepad, as long as you are within range of the console itself, allowing you to not use the television as your main screen. If the NX allowed internal processing in the 'gamepad', then it could become a handheld console for use out and about, and a home console, all in one.

If it keeps similar hardware to Wii U, and is more a cosmetic or extra functionality upgrade (eg DSi compared to DS, or new 3DS compared to old), Wii U games would be cross compatible with NX, developers working on Wii U titles wouldn't be left in the lurch and people who have a Wii U wouldn't need to upgrade immediately. As unlikely as this is, it would be a smart move by Nintendo, as long as the upgrade to functionality was enough to warrant buying the new console, but small enough that current Wii U owners were able to keep their existing hardware.

There are rumours that the Nintendo NX may return Nintendo to using 'cartridges' to sell their games physically. However, they wouldn't be the bulky cartridges of the N64 and earlier. It would be using digital media, like SD cards (similar to existing DS/3DS cartridges). This may seem strange at first, but considering that with Blu-Ray style discs, we have just about explored the limits of how much information can be stored without increasing the writeable surface area of the disc, and that SD cards are becoming increasingly cheaper, physically smaller and are capable of holding more information every day, and it suddenly makes a lot more sense. This could be alongside downloading games from their internet-based store, as it is currently.

Pricing is set to be lower than the Wii U and competitors. This has always been a good selling point for Nintendo consoles, both for within the home and handheld. It has led, along with it's first party titles, to the reputation Nintendo has for being family friendly, and was one of the driving factors behind the success of the Wii.

However, the timing is way too early - the PS4 and Xbox One have only just gotten out of their launch title slump, and the Wii U has only just received its first batch of really influential titles - Mario Maker, Splatoon, Yoshi's Wooly World. The Wii U will only have been out for 4 years by late 2016, in comparison to the 6 years that the Wii was the main console for, and the 5 the Gamecube was available for. If it winds up being a more cosmetic upgrade, this may be a moot point, but in the event that it is an entirely new console, fans would have to invest in new hardware sooner than they were expecting - even with cheaper price point, they may lose trust that this console will be useable longer than a handful of years. It's that broken trust that would be the worst thing for Nintendo; people buy their platforms for their unique IPs (such as Mario, Legend of Zelda, Metroid, etc.), but if a platform fails to deliver on those IPs because the next platform is being rushed into development, then fans will feel cheated, and wonder why they should invest in a new platform if the same will happen again.

If third party developers don't adopt it, then it will be the same situation as the Wii U currently faces - good first party support, but no games other than Nintendo's unique IPs to choose from. There are a number of reasons why third party developers may choose not to develop for the Nintendo NX, including investing in learning and testing an entirely new coding language, expenses of developing on the new platform, the risks of developing on a new unproven platform, especially after the premature ending of the Wii U's retail cycle.

If dev kits are already in hands of developers, then it may get decent 3rd party support at launch. Most of the rumours currently circulating are due to developers who already have a kit. We aren't currently aware which developers have dev kits and what titles they are currently working on, but at the very least, it is a decent hope.

At the end of the day, though, this is all wild speculation based off a handful of facts. Speculation where Nintendo are concerned is risky at best, due to the unpredictable nature of the company. Wide speculation of the Wii condemned it to failure, yet it became a ridiculously successful console. The same can be said of the idea of the DS. So at this early stage, all we can say for sure is that whatever Nintendo do wind up doing, it is sure to be a surprise, despite our best efforts to guess at it.

Linkle

It's been a big week for Nintendo news. With Cloud announced for DLC on Super Smash Bros, rumours of a new console coming out next year and...Linkle.

Linkle will be a new playable character for Hyrule Warriors Legends, but it has people speculating over just where she may fit in the Legend of Zelda universe. Could she be a player character option in the new home console Legend of Zelda? A star of a new game completely?



I'd love to see more female playable characters in games as a whole, but Linkle is...well, I have my fair share of criticisms. Not least regarding the name. 'Link', to me, sounds gender neutral enough that it could have been used for this character, too. I understand not wanting to label her as fem!Link (and thus the idea that male is intrinsically default), but if that was their reasoning, why give her a diminutive form of the name? If she is meant to be a totally different character, maybe reflect that in the roots of the name?

Her outfit design is questionable, too. Link has iconically worn a green tunic since his inception, but over time, his design has adapted to being more complicated, incorporating elements like chain mail, pouches, weapon sheaths and decorative patterns. He still wears the green tunic, but we can see how practical and useful it is, while still remaining true to those roots. Linkle, by contrast, is simply wearing what seems to be a short riding cloak over some basic clothing.



Linkle isn't actually a new idea. Concept art for her was displayed in the Hyrule Warriors art book last year. In these designs, we get a little more of an idea of a practical heroine; covered legs and arms, sword sheaths and gauntlets. Especially in the top right example below, we see the possibility for a 'Link who happens to be female' as opposed to a feminised Link.



I don't mind that the current design for Linkle is 'cute'. It's better than a fan service character in a ridiculously skimpy outfit being touted as female representation. But I want to actually believe that this version of Link can get stuff done. That she can save the day just as competently as her male counterpart. If nothing else, I'd like to know how she's going to reload those duel crossbows she's wielding with no spare hands!

In short, I love the idea of Linkle, but the execution has been pretty poorly done. It may be that over time, Nintendo will adjust designs according to feedback and their future plans for games, but if nothing else, I'm reasonably certain we are stuck with that name. Sighs all around.

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds are a very useful and yet almost completely overlooked feature of the Internet. It's a real shame, since I love the way in which they work and can be used to track many different sources of information without subscribing to a million different websites, all with individual accounts and logins.

So, what is an RSS feed? In really simple terms, it's a way of collecting and displaying posts from the Internet in one feed 'reader', usually as shortened links. In more complicated terms: "RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it."

Some computers have RSS readers built in, and many web browsers can have them installed. If you would prefer to use a browser based reader, there are sites like Feedly (which I'll be using as an example).

RSS feed URLs typically look like: http://www.[website name].com/feed. They can sometimes be tricky to find, and don't always follow this pattern, but luckily for us, Feedly is a little more user-friendly.

To add a feed to Feedly, take the URL of the blog and paste it in the searchbar, like so:



And pick 'RSS' from the choices given (Atom will also work, and in practice, they are very similar).

You will then see a collection of posts from that blog in a shortened format, like this:



All you have to do is press the green '+feedly' icon, and then you're done!

Now you can track content from your favourite blogs, news sites, forums, webcomics etc. without joining a mailing list. What's more, since they're all collected in one place, it's much easier to check for new updates than loading a lot of different webpages whenever you remember to check!

Let's Talk Tea

I have always been more of a coffee person than a tea person. The richer flavours of coffee appealed to me more than the 'posh hot water' of my mother's teas. Over time, though, I came to a very important realisation:

I have been drinking the wrong kinds of tea.

Enter Beastly Beverages, a creator of fandom-inspired luxury teas. I must admit, I was first drawn in by the fandom aspect, with the beautiful artwork on the labels, but as I was encouraged to smell the bags by the wonderful staff at an MCM expo stall, I realised that maybe I could give tea another chance. I am so glad I did.

Every tea I've tried has a series of layers of taste, some more unusual than others, yet all satisfyingly refreshing. It's what I imagined tea should be, and why more generic brands simply felt bland and boring. From 'The Trickster' (sweetly butterscotch) to 'The Morning Star' (fruity and sweet with a slight chilli tingle) to 'Exit Stage Crowley' (smoky and complex) and 'The Boy King' (calm and soothing), you can be sure there's something to suit everyone's palate. Personally, I've not encountered a tea from Beastly Beverages that I didn't like.

Which makes it all the more amazing for me that this all comes from an independent tea creator based in London. The way in which teas and flavours complement each other is handled so skilfully that I would have imagined a team with centuries of experience behind them had I not known! They also only use organic ingredients, which is wonderful news for those of us who enjoy our luxury without putting aside our ethics.

The Patreon for Beastly Beverages can be found here, and offers rewards such as samples of new teas, money off coupons, the chance to get a tea made especially for you and many more goodies. The Etsy store is here, and while the selection of teas is gradually being restocked, there is still a vast range of beautiful fandom teas to buy!

If, after all this, you are still more of a coffee person, I have good news - Beastly Beverages does also sell flavoured coffees. They are a little rarer, as each batch takes time to flavour fully, but they are crafted with the same care and attention to flavour as the teas are, and well worth keeping an eye out for.

A Note about NaNoWriMo

Ah, NaNoWriMo, that time of year when the writers go into deep hibernation and start wondering how to stretch out their word counts without resorting to too much purple prose. This year, I will be attempting to hit the 50,000 word mark, along with my fiancée.

This means one of two things: there will either be much more blog activity, or much less. More, if I procrastinate on fiction writing to write blog posts (and still count it within my wordcount) or less if I focus solely on my fiction project.

It's no easy thing to commit to writing a small novel's worth of words in a month, especially with the pressures of everyday life, but this year is looking to be the most likely one yet!

For everyone else participating in NaNo this year, good luck!