Today the A to Z Challenge continues! I’ll be posting about one letter/word on every weekday in April. Don’t want the barrage of posts? Sign up for my newsletter and I’ll let you know when I start doing new stuff next month!
G is for Gold.
Gold was used as currency for such a long time that on top of still using the gold standard in real life, us writerly types inject it into just about every fantasy world as currency. It’s admittedly lazy, but it’s also admittedly logical–in a world based off of pretty much any ancient civilization, or a world that mixes up influences from all of them, so basically every fantasy world.
Today we’re moving away from the gold standard but gold is still highly sought after and gold jewelry is supposedly a big deal. I personally prefer silver and always have(I also prefer colourful stones to diamonds).
I’ve been thinking a lot about gold lately, specifically about stepping away from it in my own writing because it does feel like lazy worldbuilding. Why can’t my fantasy society use something other than gold as money? What about sea shells? Precious stones? Maybe they even use their own type of paper money, or money made out of a material very similar to paper. Why not? Why fall back on gold?
To be honest I haven’t actually done away with gold in any of my novels yet, but it’s definitely been on my mind as I delve further into the world I’m working in right now.
What do you think of the gold standard? If you write otherworldly fiction, do your worlds have gold? Tell me all about it in the comments below!