Creative Writing Through UT Tyler #3

   This blog (previously entitled 'Adventures Through Creative Writing') is being changed up a little but to better apply to broader variety of creative writing projects. While I will still finish my next two World Building entries, the next entries will focus on blogging, poetry, Twitter, Tumblr, using other content forums (like Medium for example) and such things ....

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!

Learning Through Images and Media

    I recently engaged in a dialogue on different learning techniques in my Teaching Creative Writing course that I felt was worth sharing, partly because it involves my favorite subject (comics!). I want to talk about this also because of a concept I feel is that is important for everyone- do we really think about what medium we read our words in/on, and do we also think about who is supplying our words? Are these mediums and authors the source of the 'truth' we all crave, or do they just punctuate it?

---

   Allow me to explain in a little more detail, one rife with silly images and nerd-specific lore. Here is a link (and a preview) of a famous panel from the comic V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. In the comic we see the following text: [While the dialogue below is a part of the whole panel, I omitted the start just to show how the dialogue 'could' feel like it was from any source, although here I *want* you to know it is from a comic]

   Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads though camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. In anarchy, there is another way. With anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope re-instated. They say anarchy's dead, but see ... reports of my death were ... exaggerated.  

The page can be read at a larger size here

   With that example having been given there are many things to consider here with the comic in question:

--- Who wrote it? Alan Moore
--- Did Moore have an agenda with the comic? According to his interview + the forward, yes.
--- Does the comic itself express an agenda with politics?  Yes, it does.
--- Does the art have a purposeful style meant to accent the Author/Comic's 'Vision/Voice?' Yes
--- Are the opinions expressed above my own based on having read the comic? Yes

   Some people will come to certain conclusions about the language/intent of the text based on the medium that they read it in, sometimes with more/less influence given if the author is known or unknown. Given the nature of how (mainly) comics are viewed, many might classify the dialogue above as something worthy only of 'entertainment.' To some the medium defines the content without giving the chance for the content to stand alone. This is not unexpected however, but here is why I am trying to bring it up - so you can/will consider this when you read something next.

   Consider the following - Who is publishing, or who paid to publish, the book or magazine you read. If you get the author's name, Google them. Search them out, find out more! What else have they written? Is their writing consistent in its vision and voice?

   So, here is the last part of my little 'post.' Below is a speech from a popular written medium, one especially famous now on the internet. Read the dialogue and DON'T click on the link with the 'reveal' of who the speaker is until you have 'meditated' on the dialogue, etc...

   Think about if your opinion changes based on the 'reveal' at the end. It is OKAY if it you find the words of less or more importance afterwards. This is only a small though experiment and I'd love to hear your results!

   [ If you already know who is speaking because you recognize the dialogue  imagine it from other sources and think on if it is more/less important that way ... ]

 "Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.

This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree besides the river of truth, and tell the whole world ---- No. You move."

The Reveal