philosophic observation about markets

[marycatelli]

The heroine has reached a market.  Besides having Events occur at it and being a wonderful place to foreshadow as she restocks and to fill in backstory as she hears gossip -- what a place to develop all that economics stuff that is so lacking in so many fantasy worlds.

What it strikes me as, is a wonderful chance for excessive description.  There's the question of what the heroine sees -- especially since she's been to market many times before.  And the matter of not slowing down the story with irrelevance about how the butcher got the animal carcases that he's hawking.

Enough to make the vigor of the bustling market clear, and that it's selling a lot, but the economics of the world are not the story's turning point.

Comments

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

Market scenes and festival scenes are a wonderful way to ground the world. A tight couple paragraphs can disclose pieces of economics, foreign relations, social/class structure, religion, climate, and the laws governing behavior.

As a reader, I like them muchly--though that might be because I love local markets and fairs in real life. :)

[marycatelli]

A lot of which appears to our heroine as a life being life-like 0:)

Subtlety, that's the trick and a half.