by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
One thing that irritates me and separates the good writer from the bad is demographics.
We’ve seen this all the time, mainly in the RPG system where someone will have a James Bond Fararri that somehow has built in radar, 6 ground-to-air missiles with tracking and guidance systems in the doors, A Vulcan mini-cannon with hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammo under the hood, armor plating, ejection seats and so on, yet is no bigger than a normal auto.
Where the BLEEP did they fit all that hardware? Ever look into your own car? I barely have enough room in my own car for my kayak gear even then I have to mount the boats to the roof. What the movies and RPGs and bad writers do is simply impossible.
Reality check people… An F-16 fighter has only a few rounds of ammo and the missiles are mounted under the wings for all to see and the more weapons it carries, the slower and less maneuverable and shorter range the jet becomes.
Reality check people… Humans have more DNA in common with a squid than we do with a Vulcan or Klingnon or Martian. Human and chimp are separated by only a couple million years, we still have 96% of our DNA in common and STILL we are unable to breed with each other. (There are websites showing these attempts because humans are animals and will f*** anything).
Reality check people, you cannot have a city of 100 people isolated in the wilderness and still be able to support a dozen inns, 6 bars, a hospital, 15 stores and all the other stuff we see in a big city like Tucson. Ok, I’ll give you the bars, people like to drink and even in Saudi Arabia I knew where to find a ‘secret’ bar that served actual booze.
So here is an excellent article on the subject of medieval demographics which is the study of how many people can live in an area and how many people it takes to support a specific business. Medieval Demographics made Easy by S. John Ross.
As an aside, In Tucson, you never see a supermarket on the edge of town. Why? Because it takes 7000 people immediately surrounding a store to support an ABCO or Bashas or Frys or any other chain grocery store. Thus a city that hosts only 5000 people will have to drive to the nearest big city to buy their groceries. Small mom-and-pop stores will abound but a big supermarket? Never. When Green Valley was first settled, all the inhabitants would drive the 20+ miles to Tucson every week to shop for their food. It was only a few years ago when the population of the city grew enough for the first supermarket to open.
So when writing or reading your stories, please keep these facts in mind and creat6e something realistic and thus enjoyable.
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
