Ask me about financial concepts

[Matilda777]

Hello, I would like to know if anyone has incorporated financial concepts into their stories. How did you do it and still keep the story plot interesting?

I meant: budgeting, savings, investing, avoiding debt, the value of money, seeking wisdom, and making good choices around money.

 

[pmmg]

Economy does not play much in to my stories. Its there, but way in the background. While its true that payola has a bit to with the raising and marching of armies, I dont spend any effort dwelling on it. I kind of just take as a given that someone is doing that, and the armies are getting paid, or have some other motive. In fact, It rare you will actually find a money changing hands scene in my stories.

Typically, when I see this play a role in stories its usually along the lines of trying to show how money motivates some of the characters (greed), and the difficulty of King's when their treasury is small. But....

If I was to incorporate it, I would want my story to encompass things like the law Supply and Demand, scarcity, the commonness of Silver over Gold, and the dynamic relationship between market forces over the consumer--though I could think of reasons why I might not.

Generally, when coin is a focus of the story, it is not really as interesting to me, as it might be to some others. Greed as a motivator, I dont typically see as a compelling trait.

 

[Insolent Lad]

As I see it, history is mostly economics so, yes, it is always in my stories, underlying the dynamics of any society. That doesn't mean I dwell on it (though many of my protagonists are business people of some sort) but I recognize its importance and try to have a good idea of how things work. Especially, who has economic power, for that always translates into political power. Fortunately, there are plenty of historical models upon which one can draw.

 

[Mad Swede]

Yes, I do incorporate financial apsects in my stories. In my answer to your other question I pointed out the need to think through your setting. The same applies here.

We'll take the example of a business. Suppose your character is successful enough in their trade or business that they want to sell their products in another place. First, we'll assume that they can get their goods to the new place and sell them. But how do they get the money back? Do they carry a big bag of cash and risk getting robbed or is there some system where they can buy a letter of credit and then cash the letter in their home town? Assuming you can get a letter of credit, how is this guaranteed? As soon as you ask that question you need to have a financial system of some sort, and this in turn means you need som form of legal and contractual system in your setting.

A system like that lends itself to a whole load of other things. If someone is on the run and needs to buy help, do they use letters of credit? They might not, it might be possible to trace them through those letters... What happens if someone fakes a letter of credit? Suppose someone uses forged coins to buy letters of credit as a way of laundering the (fake) cash, what then? How do you detect fake coins and forged letters of credit? If someone won't honour a contract, where do you go to get judgement and how (and by whom) is that judgement then enforced? The plot possibilities just pile up...

 

[Prince of Spires]

Two good examples are Going Postal and Making Money By Terry Pratchett.

In answer to the question, realize that they are no different from any other thing you write about. The way to make it interesting is by having interesting characters facing conflicts in which they have personal stakes.

Just as an example, budgetting is widely considered as boring (and rightly so). However, if you have William running the books and he realizes that he only has enough money left to keep the lights on for 2 more weeks, and he faces a tough choice of who he has to fire to keep things going. Does he fire the mother of 2 children who has worked for him for 3 years, or does he fire the love of his life, who has just started to like him after a rough start? And then of course there is the loan he took out from the local mobster which needs to be repaid by the end of next month. If he can't find the money, then who to fire will be the least of his worries.

Now suddenly, that budgeting has become interesting because there are stakes attached to it. Someone made some bad choices with money, and he's now facing the consequences.