It's the Economy, Stupid!

[Author's notes] So, as I'm falling asleep last night, I try and figure out the next bit of the plot. (Part of my problem with blogging my thought processes here is wondering how much to tell you since I want the story itself to be a surprise for you all.) All of a sudden, it hit me that with the length I'm thinking of writing, I should really work out the economy and the governments a tad. Why you ask? Well, this is where I'm wondering what should I tell you.

Okay, for starters, there will be a slave economy. That's what kicked off my fretting about developing a believable, viable economy for this realm. After all, I'm making up a mythical realm here so have to start everything from scratch. Okay, so now you know. There's slaves in this story. How do they factor in then?

Do I make this a more feudal world? That means little merchant class. (One thing that bothers me about fantasy stories is how they don't really address these issues. They'll have slaves and a healthy merchant class, as well as feudal lords - if so, how does it all work?) If there's a healthy merchant class, then should there be slaves?

I have four schools representing four regions. One school is going to be The Three H Foundation. That will be... hmm. Four regions, one symbolizing balance. Perhaps the other three should represent the individual H's? One for Hand, one for Heart, and one for Head? Or is that too contrived?

Okay, let's run with this idea for now. If I have four regions, how does their economy drive each others? Where do slaves fit into this? (By the way, this is part of the reason Nobody [WriterBoy's and my comic book] worked well was this type of questioning, AND this is part of the reason WriterBoy won't write with me anymore. I'm way too anal about background.)

Okay. let's just settle on the four schools representing four regions. Let's develop the background for the four regions in another post.