inscape and the lay of the land

[marycatelli]

Come to think of it, if the heroine is an agricultural wizard, and her story revolves heavily about her work in agriculture -- even if the actual conflict spring from the things she stumbles across -- it would help to have a better idea of agriculture's effect on landscape and vice versa.  If only for the descriptive prose.


Had something like this once, a character who was a gardener by hobby, and on revision of the novel, I was pleased to notice that the description of greenery chiefly came from his POV.  (I added some filigree about his noticing that flowerbeds need dead-heading.)

A boatman is going to notice how a boat would -- or would not -- float down the river sprawling there.  A builder is going to notice the buildings, and whether they are well-built, and what sorts of maintenance have been stinted on.  And an agriculturally minded wizard is going to notice northerly slopes where orchards can go, and water flow, and ditching. . .and probably lots and lots more.

You know, most works that touch on medieval agriculture deal heavily with what the men do, and not with what the farm land itself looked like.

Comments

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I like this whole "character's specialization" idea. There's so much information encoded in what such a wizard would see, too. Not just a diagnosis that "late winter damaged the fruit set on the apricots" type of things, but how local trade must be affected by all that bagworm infestation, and what things will be expensive because they're running short in the markets from the flooding a year ago, you can still see the silty marks on the buildings and the boulders shifted in the river banks.
One of the biggest jobs for such a wizard might be softening the impact of bad weather if they can, but on a more humble daily basis, to ID and limit crop damage from pests and disease.
The wizard might have some rituals that seem very strange to the locals, too. One of my plant pathology professors said a major vector of new strange pests could be the boots and trucks and gear of those very people brought in to diagnose this stuff, like a doctor with dirty hands spreading it elsewhere. So they tried to put the trucks through a thorough wash often, and scrub off their boots, and so on.
One of the more famous examples would be the massive loss of French wine grapes to the root-destroying phylloxera insect that came over with American grapes tolerant of that pest. Any given insect is tiny, an easily-overlooked bit of fluff, but they end up coating the roots so thickly it's like cotton. It took a long time for all the vineyards to be replaced with new tolerant rootstocks, there was no stopping that pest with what pesticides they had.
"We used to be famous for X, but you just can't grow it well enough to get a decent crop any more."
Which would drive the more stubborn and innovative farmers to seek out other crops that like those same conditions and encourage them taking risks to travel to somewhere known for those crops, and learn all they can.

[marycatelli]

Her particular specialization happens to be fighting back the sorts of magic that caused Mordor.

Much to the annoyance of her parents because it means she spends years studying beyond the level needed for such spells as you describe, with which the rest of the family has gotten quite prosperous.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, yes indeed! Also, starting to tangle her (and her family) with the sorts of powerful who profit from Mordor...

[marycatelli]

That gets a little complicated.