Dear Reader,
World building is easy after you've decided that you have a world to build in, right? Just slap some characters in there and you're set. One problem, somewhere in the story, they have to eat. You can have characters running, jumping, and sword fighting on some monstrously terrifying precipice. But there is going to be down time between scenes of epic battles. Some of those down time scenes are going to include mundane details like food. As strange as this sounds, food can be an important element of your story line.
What's Game of Thrones with out that mysterious stew known as 'bowl of brown'? What's the entire Lord of the Rings with out lembas? A story that loses some of its hold on the reader because reality can only be suspended so far. And the question of food doesn't just mean you have to keep reality consistent within your book, it also asks what motivates the big monsters in your story. Seeking food and the basics needed to survive can make your story have depth and add interesting subplots. (Gollum tossing the lembas off the cliff and sprinkling crumbs on Samwise Gamgee, anyone?)
Honestly, having a rampaging dragon because they're hangry is far more disturbing than a rampaging dragon because it is Tuesday in the third week of October. How do you appease a gigantic fire breathing creature that is as prone to roast and eat you as it may be to verbally pin your ears back for daring to wear its least favorite color when you came to call? We have all experienced hangry at some point in time. It's a mild form of insanity that can be taken to horrific scale with a little bit of clever writing.
So, when you're doing your world building, pause a moment to consider the food chain. Because it can prove a really nifty bit of backstory plot development and something to draw on when you hit a snag in writing.
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