[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum at at MuseHack. It focuses on worldbuilding as a writer or setting designer and is included here to help our readers who craft fictional settings]
We’ve talked origins, ecologies, and sentient life in your settings We’ve discussed the culture that your intelligent life will have (again, if your story has intelligent life). Now it’s time to get to economics which, much like real life has a lot of impact, but isn’t something we often think of (or think of fondly).
My guess is that upon hearing that “it’s economics time”, you’re probably not filled with enthusiasm. If you are, great, but in general I find that, when he subject of world building and economics comes up, most people’s reactions are less than positive. Sometimes they’re pretty negative.
Most people’s reactions to anything involving economics is usually not positive, often a mix of regret, ignorance, and understandable rage. I could go on about the why of that for awhile, but that’s best for another time. Let’s go forward with the assumption that, in general, you need a bit of a boost and guidance on writing economics in your world.
If you do enjoy this (like me), then read on anyway just in case, and welcome to the club.
Now let me say off the bat that if you don’t get into the economics of world building that with the right perspective it’s interesting, informative, and even fun. I also would note that it can’t be avoided at all because, like real life, economics is everywhere. But I’ll focus on the fun part.
