The Adventure of World Building Part #2

In the previous blog I spoke about one of the foundational elements of world building - weather! Weather is more than just set dressing, it allows us to explain food and crops, religion, and it can also impact the mood. This next blog will deal with another foundational element - money! While you don't need to completely grasp economics, the following thoughts might help you along ...

So, this one might seem a little weird, but bear with me. In settings that rely on a re-creation of the modern world economy, the US dollar or other forms of currency might be used. This is only logical. Still, other kinds of settings might not only require different fashions of currency, they might also not even use money at all (ala Star Trek) or they use things we might not consider 'money' at all.

The larger point here is that you need to understand what it is your characters do, how they justify their living, and (if you are doing a non-typical setting) you need to account for what/how things get done. Does your awesome photo-journalist investigator drive a Focus or a Jaguar? Do we actually see your main character, the free-lance captain of a space-ship ever get paid when we keep hearing he is debt? For all its faults, Star Wars at least showed what happens when you default on your loans to criminal space slugs.

EXAMPLE: Seeing as how I mentioned I was basing some of my own novel's ideas/plots on a setting very
much like ancient china, I had to be aware of how people paid for ... anything at all! I found out (very interestingly) that silk was so prevalent at a certain point in the history of the Han Dynasty that people actually used it as payment. Sheets of silks were historically a kind of "bond" people paid to other people for goods. I decided an interesting plot point was two different kingdoms use different dyes for their silks (red and blue) to distinguish one kingdoms "money" from another. Each kingdom guards its silk production facilities and the trees that feed the silkworms. This sets up awareness of where/how money is set up. It's not meant to be the biggest point but it is meant to afford the setting some kind of verisimilitude.

In the end, focus on knowing how your characters and how money works. I can't work for free and unless your character happened to inherit a staggering fortune which is held in a goblin bank, know how he/she gets paid. Work from there to see how your character acts when he/she looses his or her job, or when their globe trotting adventure to save the world from space ants has them return to an eviction notice.

The Adventure of World Building Part #1

As an English Major one of the things I am confronted with is the dreaded question - what do you want to do with your life? I long ago decided on Academia as my passion, but I have other passions to vent desires and needs that grading papers and academic level writing cannot fill. What might that be? Writing books!

What Is "Human?"

What Makes People “Human”?

   This is a bit of a “deep” question, but recently we have had a series of events here on campus at UTT, one being the BACCHUS Area 6 Spring Conference and the other a group of students who were supporting various Human Rights Bills.

   This question then of  “what are human rights” has been prevalent on my mind, so I've decided to make a small blog about it here.

   When somebody says “human rights” we might immediately think here in the West of apart of our Constitution…

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

   Something else to think about – in many other countries, concepts of what is or is not human are different. While the concept is very, very broad, Confucianism and later doctrines/philosophies that evolved from it maintain that to be a true human, you must love others and actively attempt to be engaged with others, either as family or as apart of a group.

   Some people don’t consider a person even real until they are old enough to understand the importance of raising children.

   One benefit of the “college experience” is that we can expose ourselves to new ideas, concepts, and we can test our theories with others in a safe space.

   What would you say is a “human right,” exactly? Is it apart of our culture or is it personal? These are obviously big questions, however I am glad UT Tyler allows our students the venue space to talk about these things at conferences, activity events, and more.

Friendships with a Time Difference

My high school friends and I knew this day would eventually come. We are all literally on opposite sides of the world. At first, I dreaded the idea of making new friends. After moving 37 times before high school, I was not looking forward to moving again and losing these people.

The three of us learned thick lessons of love and money by trial. We sometimes learned by luck. We examined our desperately human parents, and learned to understand our own weaknesses. Fighting hurdles with heart, when other muscles lacked. I was scared I was losing a wonderful support system.

I was worried for my friends, too. Specifically, I would worry about my friend who was always more timid than me. She is studying in South Africa, and we are so proud of her! After seeing how much she has come out of her shell, I've contemplated how I could pay for it, and UT Tyler seems to have it covered. I want to travel, too! Maybe I want to go to France or China? I could go anywhere else. I could do anything.

Before she left to study in Africa, we traveled to Hawaii to see our other friend. She is married now and completing her degree. No matter how drastically things have changed, the three of us are closer than ever, and truly appreciate our maturing friendships. Our worlds are only expanding. So far, I have a vacation home in Hawaii and a couch to crash on in South Africa~