Worldbuilding
Everyday money in fiction is often treated like set dressing, when it does most of the heavy lifting.
A world feels real when you know what a bus fare costs, who pays in cash, who keeps card details in their head, and who can shrug off a small expense because the rent is already doing the damage. Wages matter. Debt matters. So does the quiet embarrassment of being the person who has to check the price before saying yes.
That’s the bit I notice first in a book. Not the grand economy. The ordinary one.
A world feels real when you know what a bus fare costs, who pays in cash, who keeps card details in their head, and who can shrug off a small expense because the rent is already doing the damage. Wages matter. Debt matters. So does the quiet embarrassment of being the person who has to check the price before saying yes.
That’s the bit I notice first in a book. Not the grand economy. The ordinary one.
Money on the page gets more interesting when it’s awkward, not merely mentioned. Someone who can afford the taxi but not the book is doing more work for me than a neat little line about “financial pressure”. The small humiliations matter. So does the fact that people lie about them, even to themselves.