Your TL weakness? or: "Please write my TL for me!"

So, then, what part of a timeline do you find hardest to convincingly write about?

For me, it's a tough decision - war or finances? Both are entirely alien worlds to me. Diplomacy I can handle, that's just lying politely. But military strategy, upon reaching my sensory organs, finds a square saying "GO DIRECTLY TO THE WASTEPAPER BIN, DO NOT ENTER LONG-TERM MEMORY, DO NOT INVOKE GLIMMER OF UNDERSTANDING".

But when you compare this to the black hole in my mind that in other people would be economic knowledge, I immediately transform into a small ginger Corsican. I've been trying to describe economic crises for Astonishing the World, and I can't do it. Not without having an exact replica of the Great Depression appear a few decades early, and I don't want to stoop to that again, after I copy-pasted the English Civil War into sixteenth-century France in A Kingdom and a Horse.

So, I guess this is both a survey and a plaintive cry for help. If anyone has anything to contribute about the state of the economies of the Union and the Confederacy after a successful Civil War, please, PM me.
 
I find economics more difficult to write about more than anything. Describing campaigns in detail is something new to me also (I'm doing it for As Befits a King, really for the first time), but a war is something... substantial, to me. I can describe why people do things and why it would make military sense.

Economics on the other hand, while I understand the presence of a science about the whole thing, feels... well, almost fluid to me. I can write convincingly about it, but I always need to double and triple check to make sure I have all my ducks in a row. And even then I don't feel good about it.

As to your question, both nations would have troubles economically immediately post-war. It depends on how much damage, of course, both nations sustained to their infrastructure. If, for example, the South won really early and there was barely a war, then of course the south wouldn't have to deal with crippling infrastructure issues since in that case the North did not lay waste to economically-important regions.

If on the other hand the Confederacy wins as a sort of last-minute reprieve after a hard-fought struggle, you're going to have problems similar to the Reconstruction period.

As far as trade is concerned, one might imagine that the South would be in a better position to bounce back pretty quickly, provided that the Europeans don't find a cheaper source of cotton elsewhere.

If the Europeans don't, in fact, find that cheaper source of cotton, one could easily see the industries of the north taking a nosedive, as the cotton-starved Europeans would be buying up the cotton en masse (not to mention, I'm sure immediately post-war the Southerners would rather take their business to the world market rather than their neighbors to the north.)
 
I have wrote several Napoleonwar alt histories. Everyone starts when Napoleon gets head of France and all but one ends in a disaster for France. I used the modern maps etc. 2 have been done by pen and paper and 1 on typewriter and atleast 1 on a computer. I just wrote the war because it was intressted idea, then i often had the same peace as OTL.

Before i ever heard of this page btw
 

MrP

Banned
I have a distinct impression of robber barons and railways, but I can't recall too distinctly the post-ACW American economy. But I happily have my books on ships to help out.* Between '61 and '66 prices increased 90% and wages 60%. Ordinary revenue was c. $197 million for 1858-61, and $729 million for '62 to '65 in the North. National debt increased from $65 million in 1860 to a maximum for the North of nearly $2,846 million in August 1865. Population rose to 38.5 million in 1870 and 50 million in 1880. In '73 Jay Cooke, financier of the Northern Pacific Railway, failed, and caused a financial panic, all but stopping railway building for five years, and badly affecting the iron industry. As late as '77 eighteen percent of the railway mileage was in the hands of receivers.

I'm not a great fan of writing about economics myself. That's more P Minor's thing - not that he writes TLs about it.

* Information from p.115, Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905
 

Hendryk

Banned
Two of my weaknesses are military developments and, shall we say, the human and personal side of the TL. In both cases I rely on outsourcing. Tales of the Superpower Empire started out as an attempt to put some human meat on the bare bones of the TL, and thanks to the talent and creativity of my guest writers, it has succeeded beyond my initial expectations.
 
I find economics more difficult to write about more than anything. Describing campaigns in detail is something new to me also (I'm doing it for As Befits a King, really for the first time), but a war is something... substantial, to me. I can describe why people do things and why it would make military sense.

Economics on the other hand, while I understand the presence of a science about the whole thing, feels... well, almost fluid to me. I can write convincingly about it, but I always need to double and triple check to make sure I have all my ducks in a row. And even then I don't feel good about it.

As to your question, both nations would have troubles economically immediately post-war. It depends on how much damage, of course, both nations sustained to their infrastructure. If, for example, the South won really early and there was barely a war, then of course the south wouldn't have to deal with crippling infrastructure issues since in that case the North did not lay waste to economically-important regions.

If on the other hand the Confederacy wins as a sort of last-minute reprieve after a hard-fought struggle, you're going to have problems similar to the Reconstruction period.

As far as trade is concerned, one might imagine that the South would be in a better position to bounce back pretty quickly, provided that the Europeans don't find a cheaper source of cotton elsewhere.

If the Europeans don't, in fact, find that cheaper source of cotton, one could easily see the industries of the north taking a nosedive, as the cotton-starved Europeans would be buying up the cotton en masse (not to mention, I'm sure immediately post-war the Southerners would rather take their business to the world market rather than their neighbors to the north.)

Thanks wrt the Confederacy - that's quite useful. What'd really help is information on the Union - assuming that Virginia and North Carolina stay loyal. (This may seem ASB, but this Civil War is started much earlier, and with a bit less provocation.)
 
I get ahead of myself writing a TL. I'm still trying to redo that damn Dutch Revolt TL, but after the initial divergences I haven't the damndest clue what to do and just skip ahead to the 1800s and write about trains.
 

Thande

Donor
I get ahead of myself writing a TL. I'm still trying to redo that damn Dutch Revolt TL, but after the initial divergences I haven't the damndest clue what to do and just skip ahead to the 1800s and write about trains.

I know what you mean. Why don't you put that one on the back burner for a bit and do something else set in those eras? Just a discussion thread often helps you burn things off a bit.
 

Susano

Banned
War is bad enoughh, but economy is a positively byzantine system. Of course icnreasingly so the nearer one gets to modernity, but apparently always ha sbeen so. Best one can do is trust the words of whatever youre reading on it that xyz "was good for the economy" or "was bad for the economy"... Faeelin really seems to try to include economy in a major way in his 20th century TLs, but I couldnt...
 
Economy, economy, economy. Of course, I've been getting better because SW forces me too, and with the butterfly effect we can just make up stuff.
War was never really a problem for me, at least not the overview and grand campaigns. I'll stumble if you force me to write in-depth stuff on tactics and basically one-battle stuff, but I can easily grasp overall strategy.
Also, I have trouble with royal houses and the middle ages. It annoys me. 1750 to modernity I know well and can do. Before that, it;s too annoying for me. From the Western Roman Empire to ~1600 it's a cesspool of complexity for me. I can do the Diadochi period, but not that.
And I don't like writing excerpts of the human side.
I guess my forte is all the old-school stuff: War, politics, diplomacy, strategy, major technological progress, etc.
 
Thanks wrt the Confederacy - that's quite useful. What'd really help is information on the Union - assuming that Virginia and North Carolina stay loyal. (This may seem ASB, but this Civil War is started much earlier, and with a bit less provocation.)

Oh, no, it's certainly not ASB. In fact, as far as US History is concerned, the real question is not why we had a Civil War, but how we were able to put it off for so long.

North Carolina I can easily see staying in the Union. Big tobacco growers, sure, but then North Carolinians have always had an independent-minded streak. Where in the colonial era Virginia was dominated by tobacco royalty, North Carolina was in many respects a tobacco egalitarian democracy.
 
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