onions
July 31st, 2007, 06:47 AM
I found myself ranting about economy in worldbuilding in my blog some time ago and then thought it would be really interesting to hear your opinions.
Also: Hi! :)
*waves*
I've been gone a while but it's good to read all your posts again!
Basically, my question is how important it is for you to work out the economy of your worlds and how you go/went about it. :)
And generally, what you think of the topic.
Here's what I blogged about (sorry about the pontificating tone):
I was talking to Peter earlier who thinks I am too anal and apodictical about the economic aspects of worldbuilding. I think he's just wrong. :p
The important things I need to know if I launch a new world (particularly one with machines in) are surely - what is the main fuel source that enables everything to run? What are sources of wealth and who controls them? With what do people earn money (or whatever it takes to have them fed and warm)? Because this shapes the world people live in.
You think what you eat.
Otherwise you end up with some absurd la-la land like Stephen Donaldson in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. This is, take note, the man who calls his magical land "The Land" and his evil entitiy "Lord Foul". Nobody there actually seems to work or earn anything except for the few dirtgrubbers, yet everyone is miraculously well fed and happy. Knowing Donaldson, the dirtgrubbers are donating their food to the Lords voluntarily simply because they know they are all part of a functioning whole and they are in Utter Harmony with each other.
A world with magic is not simply our world (or a pseudo-medieval world that one writer seems to copy off the other) with added magic. A world with magic would be fundamentally different from ours. Why?
- Because why would anyone bother to make a chair by hand if you could create it by sheer power of will?
- Why would anyone bother to invent writing or even speech if you could communicate by telepathy and store ideas in mental capsules? (In fact, our stone age ancestors would probably have preferred mental communication as it would have given them a benefit in the hunt.)
- Why would the industrial revolution even take place in a world with magic? Why would there be machines and all these mechanical aids that we have created to enlarge our scope of action on earth?
Certainly, it is possible to have public transport and household appliances and writing and speech and whatever coexist with competitive magic. But they would have to have a reason to be there, not just because the author can't fathom a world without percolators and hairdryers.
A world of magic wouldn't just remain happily ensconced in the trappings of medieval Europe, either. The Middle Ages weren't an inevitable milestone that all worlds go through. They happened for a very specific set of reasons in a very specific place and eventually they ended. A world of magic, too, would develop; technically, politically and economically, but on its own terms.
Another interesting economic aspect of world building would thus be: In a world of mass needs and mass production, how would magic be incorporated to service the economy? Would it be?
Can we imagine little wizards perched on their workbenches in a magical production line for telekinetically operated pianos? Would there be pianos in a world where artists can create musical experiences in other people's brains?
(Incidentally, J.K. Rowling makes a valiant effort to explain how wizards and muggles share their world and how their societies and economies differ fundamentally because of who they are. However you feel about the World of HP, it is not a naive thing created out of thin air.)
All things considered, I don't think it at all anal to expect writers to work out the basic economy of their worlds before they carry on with the more gratifying and pleasurable parts. It is not necessary to tell readers each and every detail of the setting he's reading about, but knowing it and letting details of it enter the narrative lends a story depth, realism and intelligence it would otherwise lack.
Also: Hi! :)
*waves*
I've been gone a while but it's good to read all your posts again!
Basically, my question is how important it is for you to work out the economy of your worlds and how you go/went about it. :)
And generally, what you think of the topic.
Here's what I blogged about (sorry about the pontificating tone):
I was talking to Peter earlier who thinks I am too anal and apodictical about the economic aspects of worldbuilding. I think he's just wrong. :p
The important things I need to know if I launch a new world (particularly one with machines in) are surely - what is the main fuel source that enables everything to run? What are sources of wealth and who controls them? With what do people earn money (or whatever it takes to have them fed and warm)? Because this shapes the world people live in.
You think what you eat.
Otherwise you end up with some absurd la-la land like Stephen Donaldson in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. This is, take note, the man who calls his magical land "The Land" and his evil entitiy "Lord Foul". Nobody there actually seems to work or earn anything except for the few dirtgrubbers, yet everyone is miraculously well fed and happy. Knowing Donaldson, the dirtgrubbers are donating their food to the Lords voluntarily simply because they know they are all part of a functioning whole and they are in Utter Harmony with each other.
A world with magic is not simply our world (or a pseudo-medieval world that one writer seems to copy off the other) with added magic. A world with magic would be fundamentally different from ours. Why?
- Because why would anyone bother to make a chair by hand if you could create it by sheer power of will?
- Why would anyone bother to invent writing or even speech if you could communicate by telepathy and store ideas in mental capsules? (In fact, our stone age ancestors would probably have preferred mental communication as it would have given them a benefit in the hunt.)
- Why would the industrial revolution even take place in a world with magic? Why would there be machines and all these mechanical aids that we have created to enlarge our scope of action on earth?
Certainly, it is possible to have public transport and household appliances and writing and speech and whatever coexist with competitive magic. But they would have to have a reason to be there, not just because the author can't fathom a world without percolators and hairdryers.
A world of magic wouldn't just remain happily ensconced in the trappings of medieval Europe, either. The Middle Ages weren't an inevitable milestone that all worlds go through. They happened for a very specific set of reasons in a very specific place and eventually they ended. A world of magic, too, would develop; technically, politically and economically, but on its own terms.
Another interesting economic aspect of world building would thus be: In a world of mass needs and mass production, how would magic be incorporated to service the economy? Would it be?
Can we imagine little wizards perched on their workbenches in a magical production line for telekinetically operated pianos? Would there be pianos in a world where artists can create musical experiences in other people's brains?
(Incidentally, J.K. Rowling makes a valiant effort to explain how wizards and muggles share their world and how their societies and economies differ fundamentally because of who they are. However you feel about the World of HP, it is not a naive thing created out of thin air.)
All things considered, I don't think it at all anal to expect writers to work out the basic economy of their worlds before they carry on with the more gratifying and pleasurable parts. It is not necessary to tell readers each and every detail of the setting he's reading about, but knowing it and letting details of it enter the narrative lends a story depth, realism and intelligence it would otherwise lack.