Lying fallow
In regions of the central highlands of New Guinea, the swidden agricultural population leave fields fallow for anything from 15 to 45 years...
Just one of the facts I've learnt while reading, reading, reading (and reading) about anthropology, ethnography, history, religion, and political science in a bid to make my worldbuilding less off-the-peg and western-centric.
I don't read as much fiction as I would like to, but when I do I'm often struck by how the cast of characters could have been pulled from my local coffee shop in terms of outlook and behaviour. You can see why people do this: all writers are told to make their characters relatable for their readers (feels like 'relatable to' would be better, but either phrasing is ugly), and the easiest way to do that is to make characters Just Like Them. Historians argue about how different e.g. the mediaeval mindset was from our own: not very, many believe, and I'd join them. The basics are the same anywhere and anytime - it's what makes us human. But all the same, it's vital to consider how the world might look to someone who lives in a very socially stratified society where economic ambition counts for nothing, or where slavery is commonplace (which would be just about every non-hunter-gatherer culture on the planet - we all have slaves and slavers in our DNA; it was the only way to get stuff done in a subsistence society lacking modern technology). Twists and nuances are what I'm after, just to give things a more realistic edge.
Religion is a case in point. Turns out Abrahamic religions are very unusual in many ways, and most people's beliefs for most of human history have been much simpler and more akin, on a daily basis, to horoscopes and rabbit's feet; in other words, keeping Fate on your side rather than burning the Unbelievers in the name of the Universal Truth that your own prophet of choice happens to have had revealed to them.
Writing-wise, stuff is bubbling away, I have plenty of ideas, sometimes I'll write a scene or two - I have a couple of shorts (maybe 50-60k) I wanted to put out in 2024, but that probably won't happen now unless I get cracking.
I'm hoping the fields will be ready for the next sowing in less than the 15 years that the Enga people often have to endure, and when that crop comes, I hope it will be all the better for a bit of time lying fallow.
Just one of the facts I've learnt while reading, reading, reading (and reading) about anthropology, ethnography, history, religion, and political science in a bid to make my worldbuilding less off-the-peg and western-centric.
I don't read as much fiction as I would like to, but when I do I'm often struck by how the cast of characters could have been pulled from my local coffee shop in terms of outlook and behaviour. You can see why people do this: all writers are told to make their characters relatable for their readers (feels like 'relatable to' would be better, but either phrasing is ugly), and the easiest way to do that is to make characters Just Like Them. Historians argue about how different e.g. the mediaeval mindset was from our own: not very, many believe, and I'd join them. The basics are the same anywhere and anytime - it's what makes us human. But all the same, it's vital to consider how the world might look to someone who lives in a very socially stratified society where economic ambition counts for nothing, or where slavery is commonplace (which would be just about every non-hunter-gatherer culture on the planet - we all have slaves and slavers in our DNA; it was the only way to get stuff done in a subsistence society lacking modern technology). Twists and nuances are what I'm after, just to give things a more realistic edge.
Religion is a case in point. Turns out Abrahamic religions are very unusual in many ways, and most people's beliefs for most of human history have been much simpler and more akin, on a daily basis, to horoscopes and rabbit's feet; in other words, keeping Fate on your side rather than burning the Unbelievers in the name of the Universal Truth that your own prophet of choice happens to have had revealed to them.
Writing-wise, stuff is bubbling away, I have plenty of ideas, sometimes I'll write a scene or two - I have a couple of shorts (maybe 50-60k) I wanted to put out in 2024, but that probably won't happen now unless I get cracking.
I'm hoping the fields will be ready for the next sowing in less than the 15 years that the Enga people often have to endure, and when that crop comes, I hope it will be all the better for a bit of time lying fallow.
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GGK's stuff is an acquired taste, for sure. Character and setting-wise: Jared Diamond PH D in The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? points out that most people who live in subsistence economies (I mean, we all do ultimately, but in urban societies we don't have to catch or grow our own food) don't view killing an 'enemy' who comes raiding as a bad thing - you saved your family and clan's resources and therefore potentially saved them from starvation: you're a hero! Guilt and PTSD don't come into it. Ditto, I would guess, any European serf or knight from the Middle Ages. Even the most pious* would kill to stop someone stealing the family pig... The flipside is that 50%+ of deaths among males were due to violence, and men were too scared to go outside the village perimeter to answer the call of nature in case an enemy was lurking, but hey: women had childbirth. So, yes, scope for some different takes on attitudes, but the characters still have to resonate with readers - not always an easy line to walk.*In the Albigensian Crusades against the Cathars in Southern France, one knight was concerned about killing non-Cathars as well as Cathars during the massacre of an entire town's population: how would you tell Believer from Heretic? "Kill them all," the Priest replied. "God will know the difference."
Even in a European-inspired setting, what you said about characters from your local coffee shop - I hate that. You don't have to go back very far (which means you don't need to go into the future very far) for people to have completely different ways of living, which shapes attitudes, values, pictures of how the universe works, 'the past is a foreign country' and all that.
I'm just finishing Guy Gavriel Kay's fantasy trilogy (Fionavar),, and I loathe it for many reasons, not least that the central characters are four intensely bland University of Toronto students, just beige incarnate.