Spice Up Your Writing 🌶️
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2022
- Despite the importance of spices in our history-the fact explorers crossed oceans for access to cinnamon and wars have been waged over nutmeg-I don't often see spice mentioned in a lot of fiction. Aside from the obvious. So let's take a look at spice, the worldbuilding and plot impacts it could have, and see how we can use it in our stories.
Script and VO by Adam Bassett
Animation by Cole Field
#spice #history #writingcommunity #authortube #writingadvice
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-References-
Antimicrobial Functions of Spices by Jennifer Billing and Paul W. Sherman (PDF): canvas.harvard.edu/files/4435...
The Nutmeg Wars (National geographic): • The Nutmeg Wars | Nati...
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Dude! You are my hero! I’ve been struggling for over a year as to what the final straw that breaks the camel’s back could be in the conflict between my two main people groups, and the salt trade is totally it. Thank you!
A pretty good (and always overlooked) trilogy that revolves around the spice trade and spice routes is The Forsaken Lands, by Glenda Larke. Spice isn’t just used for food, but also for religious and superstitious reasons, since the people believe spice wards off a particular plague. It’s a fascinating look at how the spice trade influences the entire world she built, and adds a whole other flavour to the world (pun intended.)
I remember watching a streamer play Triangle Strategy, a tactics/strategy game from Square Enix from a couple months ago. The main conflict in the game is the salt trade, and a previous bloody war had been fought over it prior.
When the streamer found out the main plot was literally about salt🧂, they laughed it off as being dumb.
As a history buff I already knew about our own world's long bloody history over spice (and trade in general). It's not a bad premise by any means, but most people are so removed from the history and conflict, if you're making it your premise you need to properly lay out the world and character stakes for the average person to understand and enjoy your story.
Just my two cents, really enjoyed the video.
I also thought of Triangle Strategy during the video
But who in their right mind would find the premise dumb? I'd imagine even the dimmest among us could recognize the value of salt, heard of ancient times where salt was worth more than gold, and can know that salt preserves meat in the winter
@@SerFloortje I had a similar reaction, but to fair they probably saw a Square Enix fantasy strategy game, and thought it would be about crystals or a magical artifact. The game didn't get alot of attention or adds on it.
I wasn't familiar with the streamer, I was curious about the game and just happened to see them streaming it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@SerFloortje totally agree. And Triangle Strategy also goes to HUGE lengths to explain just why the salt is so important to their world.
Well put. Most of us in "developed" nations are so far removed from our primal activities these days... Where does beef come from? The grocery store of course.
I think you're right: If a story started maybe with a more personal character conflict, then as we learned enough about the world and understood the spice wars, the larger plot could unfold =)
Triangle Strategy is a great game! Kinda funny how generic the title is tho lol
Interesting take. Especially the history is fun to know, but let's be real: People be warring over everything =P
I like either 1) the spice playing some integral role in magic/power/conquest, maybe a secret ingredient that requires deceit and subterfuge to maintain, and 2) the spice representing clear class structure, adding vivid and potentially fun worldbuilding.
Thanks!
Fantastic video! Campfire = ❤
Dragons fighting over cinnamon is not so weird if you consider all the cocoa that Aztec and Mayan gods were hoarding.
Very true! As for me Spice also mean luxery/exotic goods pretty much becuase Sid Mier's Civilisation has it built in that way... Which I have in my novel set 500 years in the future had 2 of the character share a milshake topped with something called a star droplet a new kind of fruit cutvated sometime in the future. It's main fuction in the story is showing how things have changed yet stayed the same as they are haveing a very normsal date with this out of this world drink that is the guy's favoite and his favite cafe.
And another where one of those character is getting their back story fleshed out and the other is getting their story progressed. So I added a nice dark hyper dense/heavy wood that grow as tall as Earth's red woods but on high gravity world called Peter Chipnmy. Again for this otherworldliness but also to stress how heavy the wood must be and with magic it floats like the airship it's suposed to look like. Which I could have easly have just used a normal cerry and have the other be marble or something... But the new distant future fruit and wood really spiced it up.
It's the little details like that which I think really make a setting feel special. Thanks for sharing!
-A
What’s that music playing around 6:24? It’s really cool! It doesn’t seem to be credited in the description :/
The track is titled "MA_Originals_Metamorphosis." I'm having some trouble finding the source, though.
Does anyone know the background music around 2:08