Pixel Warriors: E-Coping Characters in Fiction
Way back before the Internet was born, home computers were comparatively few and we had only the most basic video games. Writers wrote about their characters escaping from emotional turmoil and anxiety in traditional ways. They drank, took prescription drugs, smoked, became workaholics, played adrenalin inducing sports, hid in sexual activities, or became inseparable from the television. More interesting ones, preferably the ‘quiet’ types, may have turned into arsonists or murderers to occasionally cool down the boiling emotional lava, they were hiding under their crusts.
These days, life is different. There is more to fear and stress about, as we’re now constantly in touch with global negativity. Who doesn’t know about the Mayan calendar, the London riots or the financial uncertainty in Europe? Plus there is the financial pressure to buy all this computer gear, so we can enjoy the new level of stress from anywhere, at anytime. But look on the bright side, at least with those devices on our credit card, we have a new way to escape the world they bring in!
Yes, that is a contradiction. Humans excel at them.
At the very core of everyone’s internal lava flow is fear. It doesn’t matter what current situation is obviously stressing our characters, underneath they are scared of an event which is going to hurt. The origin of the word ‘fear,’ can be traced back to the Saxon word ‘var, meaning ‘to ambush.’ Few of us live under the pressures of relationships, our past, money, careers and our culture without feeling ambushed at some stage. We worry about what will happen. You can’t buy your way out of a car crash you can’t foresee. Insurances don’t stop bad things, it just patches them up! You can’t buy a vaccine against cancer, global warming, financial catastrophies or heartbreak. Those events will hurt. What if you can’t recover? What will you lose?
If you are writing about characters who are hiding in escapism, here is a little on how fear works in the human heart and mind. Fear is a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness; an uncertainty or dread of the future. It is fuelled by events in your past, knowing that there may be hard or harder times ahead. How are you going to cope? Where are the solutions? Where do you run and find peace? Worry sets in, so you run away: spend hours on social media, play role-playing games, or blast rag dolls into turbines. You have your fear goggles on, or if you’re really in a state, you may have your beer goggles on as well. Through two thick sets of lenses, you can’t see much of the world and you certainly can’t see things for what they really are!
When people become dominated by negative expectations, their fears produce tunnel vision. They become focussed on a narrow view of disaster, pain and pandemonium. Hope is filtered out. As we suffocate in insecurity, we struggle to find a secure place where we can rest. It’s not just for your main character that goes into hiding either. Now all their loved ones can ignore the angst of family relationships and modern living, by practicing synchronised log-ins into their individual techno-cocoons. Entertainment is the new drug for all ages, that makes it all go away…
Oddly enough, for people who are avoiding fear, we tend to move towards situations a healthy person would run away from in real life. Look at the violence level in many games. Is there a need to hurt something in some manner to release stress, or is there a deeper meaning? Electronic games provide self-esteem boosting, scored rewards for achievement; or you can virtually perform deeds of daring and win! The message that appeals to us is that there is a way to survive and get some kind of victory over anything that can pull us down! There is a tool to utilise for every occasion. It’s right there, you don’t need to stay awake at night worrying that there are no answers. If seriously lost, you can Google the cheat instructions or watch the online demos. What a relief!
Fear has a very important part to play in human survival. It alerts us of danger and gets us out of the way. Unfortunately, the number of things we have to fear have increased past many people’s ability to cope. If someone is weakened by past abuse, sickness, unhealthy relationships or financial pressure; overwhelm evolves into anxiety, depression social avoidance or phobias.
Philosophy and psychology both seem to agree that the answer to fear is looking your problems in the eye, then dealing with them. It does not involve anaesthesia by any means. You may not be able to remove stresses, but you can manage how you deal with them. You can try relaxation techniques, counselling, or taking positive steps to address the issues that you can change. Avoidance and escapism are to be eliminated.
It is up to you what healing or deteriorating direction you’d like to take your character in as a writer. Even if they don’t physically freeze when confronted with a threatening situation, they may emotionally freeze and fail to react or communicate. When stress arises, their internal klaxon goes off automatically and mental evacuation commences. Escape the hazard in any possible way! Remember the fear goggles! It is all distorted. There is no clear vision.
If you’d like practical steps which can be used to calm fear reactions, there are some online which may not be useful in every situation, or perhaps advisable (avoiding the fear stimulus altogether.) However, you can always use those elements as setbacks in your storyline. Try http://www.wikihow.com/Calm-Your-Fear-Reactions and http://kate-le-page.suite101.com/how-to-cope-with-fear–overcome-anxiety-a220526
This article is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2012. All rights reserved. It may not be reproduced in any medium, in print or digital format. All the pictures in this post are linked back to their original source. I do not retain Copyright for them.
This post is in the process of being collated into an e-book, “Building Emotionally Realistic Characters” (Book Two of the Four Dimensional Characterisation Series.) It will be available in Kindle, Nook and iBook form before the end of July 2012. For further information, please keep an eye on this blog.
NOTE: Please realise that this post is a very brief, non clinical introduction to the topic of fear. It is in no way meant to be used as advice or guidance in how to get through any fear or anxiety episodes you have had or are now experiencing. No liability will be accepted for your use of this material for any purpose, or any of the material on the linked web sites. Please consider what you read carefully, seek professional help and make up your own mind. Thank you.
Filed under: Fiction and Characterisation, Indie Publishing, Writing Tagged: alcohol, Android, anxiety, avoidance, characterisation, computer, drugs, electronic games, entertainment, family, fear, fiction, games, goggles, iPad, iPhone, pixel, plot, psychology, Ragdoll Blaster, role playing, stress, tablet, techno-cocoon, touchpad, writer, writing
