The alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo FAQ ============================== The Chatsubo got going in November 1990. I gather that this FAQ was originally put together by Liralen Li (aka Phyllis Rostykus) and Jim Gaynor some time around 1991, but that's long before my time (I've been here since August 95). Ken Stone looked after it for a while, Kane had it for a while, there may have been others. I've given this FAQ a working over to reflect current reality (things have changed in six or seven years) and added some new bits. Please assume liberal sprinklings of "IMHO", "sort of", "usually" etc throughout the text to save me cluttering it up. This is closely related to the text as written by Liralen and Jim (about half the words are theirs), but the word "I" now refers to me, Joel Benford, joelbenford32@gmail.com. Any comments on the FAQ would be welcome. As the last FAQ editor would say, enough static -- here's the deal. * CONTENTS What is alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo? What is Cyberpunk? What's "on topic" here? Are there any rules? This B*ll P*lmer is driving me mad, what can I do? What are these ADMIN postings? What's alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo.d? I'm completely new to this place. Where do I start? Where can I find archives of old stories and articles? Links to advice on writing * What is alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo? "Literary virtual reality in a high-tech, low-life hangout." "The Chat", as a.c.c is also known, is basically about DIY cyberpunk fiction. People post stories here. Some of them are solo efforts but there is also a great tradition of co-operative fiction. This runs the gamut from "somebody posts an intro then watches to see what happens", to carefully co-ordinated efforts with five words exchanged between the authors by email for every one you see posted to a.c.c. You are also welcome to post poetry, song lyrics, plays, you name it... If you're going to post general discussion rather than actual stories you are encouraged to post "in character" -- i.e. to write short snatches of fiction involving your "bar persona" to put the message over. -- FADE IN -- A stranger walks into the bar and signs to the barman for beer. "So, ah, Ratz, what is this place anyway?" "I don't know Mein Herr, I just sell drinks and clean up after the gunfights." "But I heard something about stories..." "It is true. Sometimes people come in here to tell each other stories, or they leave them for other people to read. Sometimes the stories spill out into the real life in the bar, and then you have to watch yourself. My customers seem to get involved in such violent stories..." "Yes, I heard about tha" (commotion) A bunch of corporate thugs in matching body armour chase a lone woman through the bar, hosing sloppy bursts of automatic fire. Everybody dives and yanks their cannons, except a geeky guy in a corner who's too busy with a passionate argument about the practicalities of implant maintenance under battlefield conditions. A white phosphorous grenade halts a promising story about corporate infiltration of the body-politic to keep ever-nastier designer drugs legal. And an old Arab is garrotted under cover of the smoke for trying to start a cultural relativist examination of the moral issues involved. Fifteen minutes later, when the corporate enforcers have been swept up, the Chat returns to relative quiet. Ratz sends out refills and goes back to moving grease around the bar counter. Two regulars in a dark corner exchange glances. "Cultural relativism?" -- FADE OUT -- Well, stuff like that happens. Oh, and Ratz is the Barman. * What is Cyberpunk I swore I would never define cyberpunk... "The Cyberpunks" were a bunch of mid-eighties SF writers who had enough in common to be called a movement. They had a propaganda rag (called "Cheap Truth") and they used it to slag off the long-winded, formulaic, soggy SF which dominated at the time and hype the good stuff. Their own sharp, street-wise fiction came to be known as "cyberpunk". Cyberpunk fiction tends to be near-future. Common themes are the rapid pace of change, the increasing intimacy/invasiveness of technology and the trouble people have dealing with it ("techno- shock"). The information society/economy are fertile ground, and computer hacking in particular is a standard cyberpunk story element. Cyberpunk is also notable for its ruthlessly unsentimental analysis of human, political and corporate motivations - "if there were a devilish drug around that could extend our sacred God-given lifespans by a hundred years, the Pope would be the first in line." (Bruce Sterling). In every society, there are low-lifes and outsiders living on the fringes. These people are not married with two kids, a dog and a mortgage. They would be a bad influence on your children. They may not earn their livings in an entirely legal fashion, and they sure as hell don't pay full taxes. In cyberpunk they are the hackers, muscle, back street implant doctors, dealers in this and that, and the associated wannabees and hangers on. And they come to the Chatsubo to drink, hustle, swap stories and lurk in dark corners. There are many other definitions of cyberpunk, some of them radically different from the above, but that seems to be the one that matters around here. * What's "on topic" here? - Fiction (solo stories, joint stories, poetry, lyrics etc). - Commentary and feedback on the above. - Anything posted "in character". - Discussion of writing, cp technology, world building, storylines etc. - Admin stuff, like the FAQ. - Anything else you can get away with. Discussion which is not posted "in character" is frowned on by some participants and tolerated by others. You will certainly be more popular if you pay lip-service to posting in character. * Are there any rules? "Suffice it to say, if you violate the rules, society will let you know. And in here they let you know by burning you down, and leaving you to mingle with the wads of gum and half smoked cigarette butts in the bottom of the ash-bin. But there's no pressure." -- Dead End OK, so it seems like the general consensus is as follows: GIVE FEEDBACK. If someone writes something you like, tell them so! If you don't like it, tell them! If there's one thing that people posting here are after, it's feedback. You don't have to provide a detailed deconstruction of the writer's prose. Something like "This is what I particularly liked about it, this is what I particularly disliked, these bits were hard to follow, those bits went on too long" would be massively welcome. You can email the author or post your comments in the bar as you fancy. Everyone writing here is writing to be read. PARTICIPATE. Write something yourself. Join in a conversation, join in a story-line, start up something yourself. BE CONSIDERATE. If you decide to participate in a story-line, be sure to be considerate of the efforts others have made. Don't go whomping on continuity. If you make changes in a story, or use someone else's character, get permission. Basically, use your brain. One additional thing: if someone is inconsiderate, inform them of the mistake in email first. Try not to ascribe to malice what might simply be cluelessness. After that, there is a playground sorta rule in that if someone's stomping on things right and left, they can be very easily ignored into non-existence. Flaming someone that is fishing for the negative response is exactly what they are looking for, so let them wait for it. (Former Ed's note: "Unless it's a SPAM advertisement.. then let them have it!") * This B*ll P*lmer is driving me mad, what can I do? Experience shows that there are two ways to deal with the net.bozo issue: 1) Tackle the problem at source: make him go away. This is best accomplished by not replying to his posts. At all, ever, no exceptions whatsoever, even when you're livid -- especially when you're livid. Don't talk about him in the ng either. Annoyed and anguished replies are what he feeds on, so let him starve. 2) At the point of delivery: just don't read his posts, or the long/boring threads they cause. Many newsreader or browser programs have some facility for "kill files" or "spam filters" that can be used to automate this. In many newsreaders you can hit "ignore" on BP-centric threads, and you won't see any more messages from them. Remember that when a newsgroup expends more energy/angst than the bozo who's winding them up, it means that he's *winning*. People instinctively think that if they get the last word in an argument they've won, but in this case it's the other way round -- if you give BP the last word, *you* win. So don't feed the troll, people. This is much easier when you realise that you're shifting the grief back to him by not lifting a finger. It's actually a downright pleasant sensation. };-> * What are these ADMIN postings? What's alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo.d? As an exact opposite for most other groups, instead of marking story pieces, all things which *aren't* story should be flagged with the string ADMIN in the subject header. E.g. this FAQ. A few years back, alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo.d was created. I have heard several reasons for its formation, some less repeatable than others. It's generally been moribund since then, but every so often somebody tries to kick it into life as an "out of character discussion" forum. Whatever happens, happens. * I'm completely new to this place. Where do I start? A good place to start is with as much cyberpunk literature as you can get your hands on. You could also look at the archives. There are lists later. Some folks like using the background worlds from RPG games for a starting point. Shadowrun used to be very popular and CP2020 is quite common these days. By using a setting most readers know you save yourself some effort and don't have to ladle on heaps of background when you want to get on with the story. Of course for other people the world-building is what it's all about, the plot is just an excuse to tour this wonderful fictional world they've invented. So make up your own world if that's what turns you on, or you don't feel particularly comfortable with what's there already. The one thing that isn't subject to do-it-yourself is the Chatsubo itself, as the bar is a nexus for a number of stories and there is already some consensus on what is there. The keyword is 'some'. If you want to get a feel for what's happened in the bar, check out the archives listed at the end of this article. Or just read the group for a while... * Should I use the bar in my stories? The word 'chatsubo' = 'cha' (tea) + 'tsubo' (pot/bowl). Most of the interactive fiction is centred around the bar, the Chatsubo, as created by William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer and embellished by the folks in the group. Ratz, the Chatsubo's barman and a key figure in a.c.c, is straight out of the book. You'll also come across occasional mentions of Lonny Zone, a pimp who did business around the Chatsubo in Neuromancer. In Neuromancer the Chatsubo is an expatriate bar in Chiba City, Japan, down near the docks. But the location of the bar in this group is TBD by anyone that wants to play in/around/with it. The stories have had it in Boston, along the Eastern Seaboard, in Chiba, in Seattle, in Ohio, in Chicago, and in unknown worlds. The year has been 2050, 2020, 2029, 2035, 2033, etc... usually in the next century plus some, depending on how far along you think your technology is. Since Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash" swept the world, the Chatsubo has also been written as a Virtual Reality hangout rather like the bar in that book. Posters write of patrons visiting a virtual reality bar and later 'de-rezzing' instead of walking out the door, giving software VR within literary VR ;-). The bar provides common ground for writers, it can save you some work and give you something to riff off. Also, people *like* being acknowledged in someone else's posts and are flattered when they make a big enough impression to be included in someone else's story, even as a cameo. * Can I use magic in my stories? You can do what you like in your stories. Just remember you're posting them in public, and the loudmouth who keeps the FAQ takes the piss out of elves and those who write about them. Sink or swim, kiddies... * What about copyright, publication etc? [Disclaimer: this is my understanding, I'm no lawyer. Corrections welcome.] Copyright rules vary around the world and they have changed in recent years with new GATT agreements. In most places where having copyright means anything, you now have automatic copyright on anything you write. There is no longer some official form of words for claiming copyright. Just make sure you stick your name on your posts. Your real name... A pragmatic view is that by posting you might as well have put your work in the public domain. As Tim Kuehn pointed out, it isn't really public domain, as you still will have all the legal rights to the piece. The trick is in enforcing those rights. A copyright notice informs the honest and the uninformed. It doesn't always work. These days, publishers basically won't want to know about anything that you've already posted to the net. If your name is something like W Gibson or B Sterling they *might* think about it, but don't make any assumptions. Publishers' attitudes are getting harsher as the net gets bigger. You're posting here for fun, feedback, practice or out of a deep seated pathological need to do so. * Some story/character guidelines that may be thrown out if you like: The biggest thing is to Have Fun. Parodies are *WONDERFUL* and are well accepted here, and they break every guideline that follows. Interesting characters aren't ones that are all-powerful. This isn't a place for 'My-character-can-beat-up-your-character-dick-waving'. It's pointless and uninteresting for most readers. If someone asks "What is the most interesting thing about your character?" and the only answer is something like "the 90mm cannon mounted in her ---- " then it's time to think the character over again. The same holds for magic, as well. Unlimited magic is wish fulfilment and makes for a bad basis for a story. A good story has tension, suspense, emotional involvement by the reader. If a character is obviously going to mow over everything in their path, then there simply is no point to it. This goes for groups as well as singles. If a 'group' can pull everyone that it might ever need out of a hat, it gets boring. It's also a good idea to have a designated 'bad guy' if a story is a polarisation between good and bad, because then the bad guys aren't just idiots that can be steamrollered. Again... a playing for style as opposed to munchkinism. One particular thing to be avoided is creating brainless cretins just so that your character can disembowel, slice and dice, and generally make soup out of simply to show how 'bad' your character can be. Again, it's boring and pointless and should bring on the cops or whoever and whatever gang, corp, or organisation that poor shmuck belonged to. Without consequences, any action is pointless. * Fiction Here's a short list for reading. Some people would argue over whether all of these are cyberpunk (including me), but hey... Bruce Sterling, Ed: Mirrorshades The Cyberpunk Anthology. This must be the obvious place to start. The intro has a better answer to "what is cyberpunk" than I can manage. William Gibson: Burning Chrome (short stories); Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive (the Sprawl trilogy), Virtual Light, Idoru. In cyberpunk, WG is *the man* and Neuromancer is *the book*. Bruce Sterling: Schismatrix Plus (novel and 5 shorts); Islands in the Net; Crystal Express and Globalhead (shorts). Many columns, essays, speeches etc are available online (he's known as 'Chairman Bruce'). Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, Lewis Shiner, John Shirley (the other original core cyberpunks): anything you can actually find. Neal Stephenson (a latecomer) : Snow Crash. Richard Kadrey: Metrophage (online, do a search). Walter Jon Williams: Hardwired. Yukito Kishiro: Battle Angel Alita (manga/comic) Many more than I could list here. Some cyber-style Videos/Movies: Bladerunner, Nemesis, Split Second, Lawnmower Man (for Virtual Reality), The Robocop and Terminator movies, Freejack (there's an original cp storyline), Hardware, Akira (anime), Bubblegum Crisis (anime), Videodrome (style not content), Looker (content not style). * Where can I find archives of old stories and articles? Severin and I have built a web archive using a lot of Hubert's material above and some other stuff. It has Chatsubo relevant links, including other regulars' home pages. http://joel-benford.co.uk/teabowl/ The Monkey Doctor now maintains a character database: http://www.beresfordj.freeserve.co.uk/ACC/Character_Database/index.htm (Ed note: Several other archives have existed over the years, but they appear to be gone now). * Links to advice on writing Writers on the net - professional writing teachers, costs money. http://www.writers.com/ Grammar and Style Notes - by Jack Lynch, who teaches writing. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/grammar.html Ellen Datlow's writing tips - from the editor who bought Gibson. http://www.omnimag.com/fiction/datlow/guidelines.html#tips The Standard Deviations of Writing by Roger MacBride Allen http://www.sfwa.org/writing/mistakes_allen.htm SFWA tips page - SF writer's association (lampooned by cyberpunks) http://www.sfwa.org/writing/writing.htm Mary Anne's Quotes About Writing - collected by erotica writer http://users.lanminds.com/~mohanraj/quotes.html #### ENDIT ####