Let's Build a World: Day 8 - Economics and Politics

[ladyseishou]

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all
those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

- Thomas Sowell



It's Day 8 for Nano Writers's Let's Build a World. Read over Day 8: Economics and Politics from Stephanie Bryant's 30 Days of Worldbuilding. Time for those notebooks, maps and today's exercise:

Just as you examined your timeline for events and pressures,now examine your map for resources and deficits. For five minutes, make a few notes on the map to mark places that have more of a type of resource, and jot down anywhere that has a definite deficit of something needed. Also check your timeline; some of your pressure-point conflicts in the last 100 years may have resulted from an unexpected increase or decrease in the resources of one area or another.

When you're done with the resources, take another ten minutes and identify which major groups in your civilizations care about which resources. These factions may appear in your story-- they may be opposing the hero(es), or even helping the villain, or they might help the hero or at least get out of the way, depending on how each faction perceives and responds to the various characters in your story. If you are aiming for a political story, you'll want to flesh this out with descriptions of how the factions perceive each other as well as the hero and villain, key people in the factions, and their tactics in dealing with others.

Natural resource - from Wikipedia, includes classification and examples

Natural Resources Maps - commercial site but maps are viewable online

How resourceful were you today, Nano Writer? Be sure to check in tomorrow for the next installment of Let's Build a World!