Worldbuilding for Masochists

Episode 112: Whirlwind Worldbuilding ft. JAMES L. SUTTER

This one's for the folks who don't want to spend a few eons building their world before they can start their story. Author and game designer James L. Sutter joins us to share some quick-and-dirty methods for getting the worldbuilding going!

In this episode, we explore the question of how much worldbuilding is necessary -- and when it's necessary. If you already have your plot and want to charge right in, that can be a different beast than if you're still feeling your way around what the story's about but know that there must be one in there somewhere.

[Transcript TK]

Our Guest: 

James L. Sutter is a co-creator of the Pathfinder and Starfinder Roleplaying Games. From 2004 to 2017, he worked for Paizo Publishing, starting out as an editor on Dungeon Magazine, moving on to do foundational work for Pathfinder, and eventually becoming the Creative Director in charge of launching Starfinder, as well as the Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novel line for Paizo and Tor.

James is also the author of the young adult romance novels Darkhearts and The Ghost of Us (coming June 2024), as well as the fantasy novels Death's Heretic—a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel—and The Redemption Engine, which won the 2015 Scribe Award for Best Original Speculative Novel. His short stories have appeared in such venues as Nightmare, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Escape Pod, and the #1 Amazon best-seller Machine of Death. In addition, he's written comic books, essays in venues like Clarkesworld and Lightspeed: Queers Destroy Science Fiction, a wealth of tabletop gaming material, and video games.

When not writing, James has performed with musical acts ranging from metalcore to musical theater. He lives in Seattle.

Episode 111: Let’s Pick a Fight: Balancing Realism and the Fantastical in Martial Matters, ft. S.L. HUANG

Shiny swords, sharpshooting archers, magically-assisted martial arts: all these things are staples of fantasy literature. But how do you do fights right? Guest SL Huang joins us to discuss all the pointy bits!

In this episode, we think not just about the technology and technicalities of fighting, but also how combat fits into (or goes against the grain of) social norms. Is your world one where a citizen can routinely be challenged to a duel? Or expects to be punched in the face if they say something rude? Or is physical violence more taboo? How do societal standards and more tangible concerns shape the style of combat? How do ideas of gender and class play into who fights, where, when, and how? We explore all this and more!

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Our Guest: SL Huang is a Hugo-winning and Amazon-bestselling author who justifies an MIT degree by using it to write eccentric mathematical superhero fiction. Huang is the author of the Cas Russell novels from Tor Books, including Zero Sum Game, Null Set, and Critical Point, as well as the new fantasies Burning Roses and The Water Outlaws. In short fiction, Huang’s stories have appeared in Analog, F&SF, Nature, and more, including numerous best-of anthologies. Huang is also a Hollywood stunt performer and firearms expert, with credits including “Battlestar Galactica” and “Top Shot.” Find SL Huang online at www.slhuang.com or on Twitter as @sl_huang.

Episode 110: In Your Leisure Time, ft. MATT WALLACE

Hobbies and leisure activities aren't just neat ways to give your characters something to do in-between plot beats -- they can also communicate a lot to the reader about the world you're building! Developing hobbies and entertainment in a world also touches on what that culture thinks about work, income, community, and many other components of society. Guest Matt Wallace joins us to discuss the opportunities presented by giving your characters the chance to play, craft, and just muck about with things!

How much of a hobby is devoted to pure pleasure? What changes when it's a side hustle that you monetize, or when it becomes competitive in some fashion? What does it mean when your characters have the money to spend on a hobby -- and who's providing them the goods and services they need for it? We explore these considerations and more as we pull apart what it means to kick back and relax in a fictional world.

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Our Guest: Matt Wallace is a Hugo Award winner and the author of the Sin du Jour series, the Savage Rebellion Trilogy, and the middle grade novels BUMP, THE SUPERVILLAIN’S GUIDE TO BEING A FAT KID, and NOWHERE SPECIAL. He’s also penned over one hundred short stories in addition to writing for film, television, and video games. In his youth he traveled the world as a professional wrestler and an unarmed combat and self-defense instructor before retiring to write full-time. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Nikki.

Episode 109: Seer-iously: Religion, Prophecy, Politics and Tradition, ft. APARNA VERMA

Our discussion of integrating religion and faith into your fantastical world continues! In this episode, guest Aparna Verma joins us to examine the deep connections between religious belief and the choices your characters make. How do they negotiate their relationship with their faith and the stories that go along with it? What happens when, thanks to a prophecy, they become one of those stories?

Religion can be a powerful force moving politics and social dynamics -- especially when not everyone agrees on the interpretation of a text or a vision! Both your protagonists and antagonists can use faith to manipulate the ends they desire, although, as many historical and fictional narratives have demonstrated, that can also swiftly spiral out of control. Building a multifaceted religious landscape in your world will give you so many plot hooks and character motivations to weave together, helping to make your world feel fuller and more lived-in!

Editor's Note: In the intro, Marshall calls this episode 110, but we apparently forgot how to count. It's 109!

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Our Guest: Aparna Verma was born in India and immigrated to the United States when she was two-years-old. She graduated from Stanford University with Honors in the Arts and a B.A. in English. The Phoenix King is her first novel.

When she is not writing, Aparna likes to ride horses, dance to Bollywood music, and find old cafes to read myths about forgotten worlds. You can connect with Aparna on Twitter and Instagram at @spirited_gal.

Episode 108: The Myth, The Legend, The Cultural Impacts, ft. EHIGBOR OKOSUN

What role do myths play in culture and tradition? Often, mythology is, itself, a form of worldbuilding, a way that people use story to make sense of the world around them. So how do we incorporate all of that into our fictional worlds? Guest Ehigbor Okosun joins us to discuss!

Myths and cultural stories can speak so much about the people they originate with: what they value, what they assume about life, what they overlook. Myths can also reinforce power structures, or challenge them -- and that's as true in the modern day as it was for the ancients! How can myths influence what people think about their place in the world -- or inspire them to change their stars?

We also want to remind you that our Kickstarter for Traveling Light, the Magical Nude Gate anthology, is ongoing! As of time of posting, we have one week left!

Editor's Note: In the intro, Cass calls this episode 109, but we apparently forgot how to count. It's 108!

[Transcript TK]

Our Guest: Ehigbor Okosun (Eh-hee-bor Oh-koh-soon), or just Ehi, is an Austin-based author who writes speculative fiction, mystery thrillers, and contemporary novels for adult and YA audiences. Raised across four continents, she hopes to do justice to the myths and traditions she grew up steeped in, and to honor her large, multiracial and multiethnic family. She is a graduate of the University of Texas with degrees in Plan II Honors, Neurolinguistics, and English, as well as Chemistry and Pre-Medical studies and is a Cynthia Leitich Smith Mentorship Award finalist. When she’s not reading, you can catch her bullet journalling, gaming, baking, and spending time with her loved ones. 

Episode 107: Livin’ on a Prayer: Religion, Worldview, and the Individual

What do your characters believe? Like, really truly deeply believe? Is it part of a codified religion? Is it a faith without much external structure? Do they trust entirely in science, or in magic, or in a code of ethics?

In this episode, we explore the interplay of religion and point-of-view. The role that religion and faith play in your world can exist on a wide spectrum. In some societies, religion is so woven with life that some degree of faith is just a given, inextricable from other parts of how a character goes about their day. Other societies might be more secular on the whole, but people in them can still have deep spirituality. What your characters believe might fit them in line with their society -- or set them at odds with it. Either way, you can hang some great plot hooks on the choices that their deeply held believes cause them to make!

We also spend a bit of time building some religious beliefs for the nations of our co-built world. From the highly-disorganized but community-focused ethics of Griasta to the holy act of debate among the Fjallaniri to the personalized virtues of the Al'notliri, we apply some of our considerations to our peoples!

Additionally, our Kickstarter has 21 days to go! We're about halfway thorugh our time and not quite halfway to our goal, so please, if you want to read a collection of short stories set in the world of the Magical Nude Gates, spread the word! Convince your friends and family that they need this collection in their lives.

Editor's Note: Marshall calls this episode 108 in the intro, but... we forgot how to count. It's 107.

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Episode 106: Lighten Up: Making your World a Little Grin-Dark, ft. M.J. KUHN

In our continuing exploration of aesthetic and its interplay with worldbuilding, we're thinking about one spectrum with labels that often get applied to fantasy novels: the darkness and the light. Guest M.J. Kuhn joins us to discuss the societal components and cultural standards that can make a world feel further toward one end or the other of that continuum.

What's the difference between a dark world and a dark story? How much do the characters' attitudes and the writer's narrative voice shape the reader's experience of a book as either light or dark? Does a high body count automatically make a book dark? We explore these considerations and the craft of shaping these elements.

We also want to remind you that our Kickstarter for Traveling Light, the Magical Nude Gate anthology, is ongoing! As of time of posting, we're about one-third of the way to our goal, which is an awesome start. This anthology will only happen if we get fully funded, though, so if you want to see the amazing stories emerging, buck-nekkid, from the MNG, then become a backer and persuade your friends to do the same!

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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 105: We’re Going on an Adventure!

Welcome to the fifth season of Worldbuilding for Masochists! And we've got some big news in this episode!

After many episodes talking about the Magical Nude Gate, we are diving fully in and launching a Kickstarter anthology! We want to tell some of the stories for which the MNG provides such glorious opportunity. We’ve solicited stories from former guests (see a full list below) and will open the anthology to submissions, as well. We hope to bring you an ebook anthology in summer of 2024!

Contributing authors include: 

• Natania Barron
• Marie Brennan
• Mike Chen
• Kate Elliott
• Victor Manibo
• Kritika H. Rao
• Mike Underwood
• Valerie Valdes

But of course, that will only happen if our Kickstarter meets its goals! Because we believe in paying people for their work. (Wild idea, in publishing, we know!)

To learn more (and to see the rewards!), check out the Kickstarter! Then tell a friend! Tell all your friends!

But that's not all! In this episode, we also give thanks to all the amazing guests, and then we explore some of our personal worldbuilding highs and lows -- our surprising wins and our epic fails. We've all taken "Choose, Don't Presume" to heart over the past few years, and that has paid off in wonderful ways -- but it also sometimes leads us to painting ourselves into corners that we then have to contort out of!

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Episode 104: Riffing on the Real World, ft. KAT HOWARD

Sometimes, the world you're working in is already built... because it's the one we live in! But that doesn't mean you don't still have choices to make. Guest Kat Howard joins us to talk about what happens when you flick one of reality's dominos and see what changes.

Maybe you've added magic -- but is it a secret, hidden society, or something that's out in the open? One will lead to different worldbuilding considerations than the other! Or maybe you've added dragons, werewolves, fairies, or some other paranormal or supernatural force. How do they fit it -- or not -- to life as we know it?

And then, when you know you're changing the world, how do you prepare for -- or dismiss -- the Authenticity Police who may start to nitpick?

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Our Guest: Kat Howard is a writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror who lives and writes in Minnesota.

Her novella, The End of the Sentence, co-written with Maria Dahvana Headley, was one of NPR's best books of 2014, and her debut novel, Roses and Rot was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel. An Unkindness of Magicians was named a best book of 2017 by NPR, and won a 2018 Alex Award. Her short fiction collection, A Cathedral of Myth and Bone, collects work that has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, performed as part of Selected Shorts, and anthologized in year’s best and best of volumes, as well as new pieces original to the collection. She was the writer for the first 18 issues of The Books of Magic, part of DC Comics' Sandman Universe. Her next novel, A Sleight of Shadows, the sequel to An Unkindness of Magicians, is coming April 25, 2023. In the past, she’s been a competitive fencer and a college professor.

You can find her @KatwithSword on Twitter and on Instagram. She talks about books at Epigraph to Epilogue.

Episode 103: Worldbuilding - It Builds Character, ft. KRITIKA H. RAO

We sometimes see people complain, "Worldbuilding is just pointless background info; I want to know about characters!” But what are your characters without the world they exist in? Guest Kritika H. Rao joins us to examine how world shape characters and how characters can, in turn, change the shape of their worlds.

Characters are typically shaped by their environments, whether they're trying desperately to fit in or beating their wings against the bars of their cage. Maybe they're defending the status quo; maybe they want to smash it with a hammer. In this episode, we explore the interplay of these elements, as well as the difference between building a world that feels like a maze created specifically for your protagonist and building a world that has room for lots of characters in it.

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Our Guest: Kritika H. Rao is a science-fiction and fantasy writer, who has lived in India, Australia, Canada and The Sultanate of Oman. Kritika’s stories are influenced by her lived experiences, and often explore themes of consciousness, self vs. the world, and identity. When she is not writing, she is probably making lists. She drops in and out of social media; you might catch her on Twitter, Tiktok, or Instagram @KritikaHRao. Visit her online at www.kritikahrao.com. Permission is granted to use this picture for promotional or press purposes.