Worldbuilding for Masochists

Episode 141: More Perfect Unions

Government is a set of rules agreed upon, and politics is how a society determines those rules. So how do you create the systems by which civilizations negotiate those levers of power in your fantasy or sci-fi world? On the sliding scale of representation to authoritarianism, where do the civilizations in your world fall -- and why? What pressures have shaped society to behave in the ways that it does? How centralized or de-centralized is it?

So much of this can depend on the matrix of identity: the question of who gets to participate in government. Sometimes that's the official government, and sometimes that's the back-channels and shadow governments. And -- how much sense does your government really have to make, considering the real-world examples we have to draw from? Dysfunction can be every bit as authentic as function -- and often a lot more interesting for your plot!

[Transcript for Episode 141]

 

Episode 140: Practical Magic, ft. ROWENNA MILLER

As with the last two “back to basics” episodes, we thought we’d spend some time looking the thing that (usually, though there are exceptions) makes fantasy fantastical – the magic! How do we build magical systems, and what questions do we ask ourselves while doing so? Guest and former WFM co-host Rowenna Miller joins us to discuss how, exactly, we make magic!

With magic being a foundational element of a world, when it exists in one, how does it touch all the other things that are in your world? Where does it come from (and is that the same thing as where your characters think it comes from)? Who can use it? Does that confer power -- or draw persecution? What are the limits on what magic can do -- and how might your characters push those boundaries? Magic is such a powerful force, and there are so many exciting ways to build it into your story!

(Transcript for Episode 140 -- thank you, scribes!)

Our Guest: Rowenna Miller is the author of the Unraveled Kingdom trilogy and The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill, as well as short fiction. She is also a prior cohost of this podcast! And also an English professor, and a fairly handy seamstress. She lives in Indiana with her husband, two daughters, four cats, and an ever-growing flock of chickens.

Episode 139: 2 Crunchy, 2 Curious

We’re spending a couple of episodes going back to the basics of worldbuilding, talking about the questions that it’s often fruitful to ask oneself when you’re doing this wild thing. Last time we did the physical world, so now it’s time for the world of people!

What are the building blocks of a human life? (Or an alien one, or draconic, or elven, or whatever you've got?) From the most intimate relationships out to the way societies grow and govern, there's a lot to consider and make choices about. So what questions can help you crack open all the different things that shape your characters' lives? And how can the answers help you throw interesting problems and roadblocks at them?

Cass's Choose vs Presume Handout

(Transcript for Episode 139)

Episode 138: Crunchy Questions

Every once in a while, it's good to go back to the basics. And for us, that means the basics of worldbuilding!

When you're getting started out with a new project, building a world from the ground up, there are a lot of things you can take into consideration! This episode is not so much about finding the answers as figuring out how to ask the questions and what kinds of questions you want to ask. How much do you need to know before you start? And how might that be related to how much the people in your world know? How weird do you want to go, and when is it perfectly okay if the simplest answer is the one you stick with?

The basics are so big, though, that this ended up being a two-part episode! In part one, we're focusing on the literal physical world: your cosmology, your geology and geography and topography, your suns and stars and moons. If you're playing god, how do you make an actual literal world?

(Transcript for Episode 138)

Episode 137: Smile and Be a Villain, ft. CHLOE GONG

A villain may not have excuses for their behavior -- but they probably have reasons. How can worldbuilding feed those reasons? Antagonists are often those characters who are both the most willing and the most able to seize control of power structures and take advantage of their privileges. So what pressures in your world have created those structures, and how does your Big Bad maniuplate them? Guest Chloe Gong joins us to explore how to build a world that fits your villain and a villain that fits your world.

We also poke around the idea of villainy itself. Is it always the same thing as antagonist? How do you worldbuild differently for a story with an unambiguous, moustache-twirling capital-v Villain versus a story with far more shades of gray? Perspective plays a large role in communicating this to a reader. After all, the villains are the heroes of their own stories, and sometimes we love characters who are very clearly committing crimes! How do we as writers negotiate all of this in balance with genre expectations, reader moralizing, and the veracity of the worlds we're creating?

This one's for all of you out there whose comfort characters may or may not have* committed war crimes.

*definitely have

[Transcript for Episode 137]

Our Guest: Chloe Gong is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Secret Shanghai novels, as well as the Flesh and False Gods trilogy. Her books have been published in over twenty countries and have been featured in the New York Times, PEOPLE, Cosmopolitan, and more. She was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 for 2024. Chloe graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in English and International Relations.  Born in Shanghai and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, she is now located in New York City, pretending to be a real adult.

Visit her online at thechloegong.com and on Instagram, X, and TikTok at @thechloegong. She is represented by the wonderful Laura Crockett at TriadaUS Literary Agency.

Episode 136: Live from WorldCon in Glasgow!

We were all in the same room! And that room was in Scotland! In this episode, your WFM co-hosts were able to record a special episode at WorldCon. We chat about ourselves, our works, the Traveling Light anthology, and our favorite components of a world to build.

And then, we take some audience questions! (We apologize that some of them are a little hard to hear; they had a mic, but it seems it was not always picking up super-well) We discuss political worldbuilding, neurospiciness in characters (and their authors!), questions we ask ourselves while worldbuilding, building different cultures within a world, worldbuilding in prewriting & editing, and more.

[Transcript TK]

Episode 135: Philosophical Acts of Translation, ft. KEN LIU

What can translation and transmission of ideas and stories over time teach us about a society -- and about storytelling? Guest Ken Liu joins us to talk about the intertwining of philosophy, imagination, and translation. As writers, we can never fully translate the story that plays out in our heads onto the page, because every reader will imagine something a little different. How do we embrace that and celebrate it as a lovely part of the human condition?

This plays into how we construct our fictional worlds as well. The stories a culture tells about itself and its past are also always acts of translation, taking "what really happened" and putting a spin on it. Why do the people in your invented societies frame stories in the way that they do? How can thinking about the relationship between words, power, leadership, and culture help us build more creativey and inventively?

 

[Transcript TK]

Our Guest:

Ken Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards for his fiction, he has also won top genre honors abroad in Japan, Spain, and France.

Liu’s most characteristic work is the four-volume epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers, not wizards, are the heroes of a silkpunk world on the verge of modernity. His debut collection of short fiction, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. A second collection, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, followed. He also penned the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker.

He’s often involved in media adaptations of his work. Recent projects include “The Message,” under development by 21 Laps and FilmNation Entertainment; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode in season one of Netflix’s breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC’s Pantheon, with Craig Silverstein as executive producer, adapted from an interconnected series of Liu’s short stories. 

Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Liu worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. He frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, machine-augmented creativity, history of technology, bookmaking, and the mathematics of origami.

In addition to his original fiction, Liu also occasionally publishes literary translations. His most recent work of translation is a new rendition of Laozi’s Dao De Jing.

Liu lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

Episode 134: Print The Legend: Weaving Myth and History into One, ft. NALO HOPKINSON

Where does mythology come from? How does it tie us together? What does one world's mythology tell us about its people, how they view themselves, and their interactions with the divine? We speak to Nalo Hopkinson about myths, mythologies, folklore, and the stories that we tell each other as well as the stories we invent.

[Transcript TK]

Our Guest: Nalo Hopkinson is the award-winning author of numerous novels and short stories for adults. Nalo grew up in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Guyana before moving to Canada when she was sixteen. Visit her at NaloHopkinson.com.

Episode 133: The Devil in the Details, ft. M.J. KUHN

A perennial question that our listeners often have is: How do you organize your worldbuilding? Do you have templates to use? Charts to fill out? Once you start imagining all your fantastic choices, how do you keep track of them all and then weave them along with your plot? Well, the answer to all of this, as with so many writing questions, is "do what works for you" -- but how do you even figure out what that is, or if it's the same from one project to the next? In this episode, guest M.J. Kuhn joins us to share tips, tricks, and tidbits from her new worldbuilding workbook!

Whether you start world-first, character-first, plot-first, or some hybrid, it can be useful to put some structures around how you develop your worldbuilding ideas. Those structures might be particularly useful when you get stuck or lost within your project! They might help you find the world-related obstacles you want to put in your characters' paths, the trees you want to chase them up, the rocks you want to throw at them. Careful attention to how you worldbuild can also help you revise your ideas over time, from project to project. Many tools can be adapted to your individual writing style and habits!

We also want to remind you that, at the time this episode goes up, you still have two days to submit your ballot for the Hugo Awards! And we would love your consideration for Best Fancast.

[Transcript TK]

Our Guest: M.J. Kuhn is a fantasy writer by night and a mild-mannered marketing employee by day. She lives in the metro Detroit area with her husband Ryan, a dog named Wrex, and the very spoiled cat Thorin Oakenshield. 

Episode 132: Just a Small Town Worldbuild, ft. CHERIE PRIEST

A lot of the time, fantasy worldbuilding invokes huge maps, spanning civilizations and continents, with characters traversing vast distances on their epic quests. But what about the worldbuilding that happens with a tighter focus on an intimate, even insular location? Guest Cherie Priest joins us to discuss creating small towns just ripe for gothic mysteries, peculiar traditions, and weird, haunting circumstances.

What does isolation -- either naturally developing, imposed by larger-scale conditions, or willfully chosen -- do to a group of people? What sorts of lore and habits will spring up in such areas? And how do you, as a worldbuilder, think about their infrastructure -- or the lack thereof -- and how that might affect your characters and your plot?

[Transcript TK]

Our Guest: Cherie Priest is the author of two dozen books and novellas, most recently the Booking Agents mysteries Grave Reservations and Flight Risk. She also wrote gothic horror project The Toll and haunted house thriller The Family Plot – as well as the hit YA graphic novel mash-ups I Am Princess X and its follow up, The Agony House. But she is perhaps best known for the steampunk pulp adventures of the Clockwork Century, beginning with Boneshaker. She has been nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, and the Locus award – which she won with Boneshaker.

Cherie has also written a number of urban fantasy titles, and composed pieces (large and small) for George R. R. Martin’s shared world universe, the Wild Cards. Her short stories and nonfiction articles have appeared in such fine publications as Weird Tales, Publishers Weekly, and numerous anthologies – and her books have been translated into nine languages in eleven countries.

Although she was born in Florida on the day Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, for the last twenty years Cherie has largely divided her time between Chattanooga, TN, and Seattle, WA – where she presently lives with her husband and a menagerie of exceedingly photogenic pets.