Putting Fiction into Context: An Archaeological Approach to Worldbuilding by Terence MacManus (@tcmacmanus)

During my first job interview as a graduate archaeologist, I was presented with an assortment of broken rocks and asked how I would separate the natural stones from the knapped cultural artefacts. Eager to impress my prospective employers I dove into the bag, examining each object carefully and placing them in either pile, describing to the interviewer which clues I found to discern their natures.

‘That’s all correct,’ the interviewer said afterwards, sweeping the rocks she’d taken from the car park into the bin. ‘Though it would probably have been easier if you’d just asked me the context they were found in.’