Episodes
Wednesday Jul 19, 2023
Episode 107: Livin’ on a Prayer: Religion, Worldview, and the Individual
Wednesday Jul 19, 2023
Wednesday Jul 19, 2023
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.
[Transcript TK]
Wednesday Jul 05, 2023
Episode 106: Lighten Up: Making your World a Little Grin-Dark, ft. M.J. KUHN
Wednesday Jul 05, 2023
Wednesday Jul 05, 2023
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!
[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.
Wednesday Jun 21, 2023
Episode 105: We’re Going on an Adventure!
Wednesday Jun 21, 2023
Wednesday Jun 21, 2023
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:
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Natania Barron
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Marie Brennan
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Mike Chen
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Kate Elliott
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Victor Manibo
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Kritika H. Rao
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Mike Underwood
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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!
[Transcript TK]
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Episode 104: Riffing on the Real World, ft. KAT HOWARD
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
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?
(Transcript TK)
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.
Wednesday May 24, 2023
Episode 103: Worldbuilding - It Builds Character, ft. KRITIKA H. RAO
Wednesday May 24, 2023
Wednesday May 24, 2023
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.
[Transcript TK]
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.
Wednesday May 10, 2023
Wednesday May 10, 2023
From sumptuous feasts to the standard stew, food plays an important role in flavoring a lot of speculative fiction. But how do the people living in your invented world think about their food? What's their relationship to eating, mealtime, and their cultural delicacies? Guest Chana Porter joins us to discuss food culture and all the wonderful things it can communicate!
In this episode, we consider elements of scarcity and abundance: How does a relationship to food change if it's always available versus if it's harder to come by? If you could take a pill to sustain your basic caloric needs, would you do that instead of eating? We also explore the intersection of food and status. Are the people who make food possible -- agricultural workers, cooks, wait staff -- honored in your society? Or do they get forgotten? Is there a sliding scale of food respectability? And what does how people eat, when they eat, with whom they eat as communicate status?
[Transcript TK]
Our Guest: Chana Porter is a novelist, playwright, teacher, MacDowell fellow, and cofounder of The Octavia Project, a STEM and writing program for girls and trans and nonbinary youth that uses speculative fiction to envision greater possibilities for our world.
Her debut novel The Seep was an ABA Indie Next Pick, Open Letters Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Book of 2020, a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and a Times (UK) Best Sci-fi Book of 2021. As a playwright, her work has been produced and developed at New Georges, Playwrights Horizons, Cherry Lane, Dixon Place, Target Margin, and many more. She was writer-in-residence at The Catastrophe Theatre in Houston, Texas from 2017-2019. Chana is currently adapting Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed into an opera with the composer Ted Hearne.
She lives in Los Angeles. Pronouns: she/they
Wednesday Apr 26, 2023
Episode 101: All About the Zhuzh
Wednesday Apr 26, 2023
Wednesday Apr 26, 2023
It's time to get specific -- about magic!
When you're building a magical system for your fantasy world, there's a lot to consider. Where does it come from? Who can access it -- everyone, or just some percentage of the population? Does it come naturally, or does it have to be trained? All of these choices will affect how magic is perceived, valued, and used in society.
In this episode, we poke at all these considerations and make some choices for the expression of magic in our co-created world.
Also! If you're eligible to nominate for the 2023 Hugo Awards, then as of the time of posting, you've still got a few days to get your ballot in! We'd love your consideration for Best Fancast.
Wednesday Apr 12, 2023
Episode 100: The Game is Afoot! ft. CATE OSBORN, ANDREW NOME, and SHARANG BISWAS
Wednesday Apr 12, 2023
Wednesday Apr 12, 2023
It's the 100th Episode! Because we know how many of our listeners play TTRPGs and worldbuild for those, rather than for prose fiction, we wanted to celebrate our 100th episode with a panel episode on gaming! We're delighted to welcome Cate Osborn, Andrew Nome, and Sharang Biswas to discuss worldbuilding for and in games. (We usually overload your TBRs, but our guests are guaranteed to overload your To-Be-Played list.)
In this conversation, we talk a lot about how the communal nature of ttrpgs creates a very different worldbuilding process than a writer creating a world more or less in isolation. The great joy of gaming is in the collaboration of the storytelling! We also examine how the worldbuilding can both inform and be informed by the gaming mechanics.
[Transcript tk]
Our Guests:
Cate Osborn / Catieosaurus (she/they) is a certified ADHD sex educator, mental health advocate and full-time content creator. As a professional streamer and TTRPG influencer, she is passionate about opening conversations about neurodiversity and accessibility into the gaming community.
Andrew Nome has been running tabletop games in various systems for twenty years, and is the creator of the Cartesian TTRPG system. He lives in Denver with his terrible cat, who he loves far more than she deserves, and spends his time overthinking things on twitter as @NomeDaBarbarian.
Sharang Biswas: I'm a game designer, writer and artist based in New York City. I have a particular love of role-playing, interactive storytelling and immersive theater. I have a Masters from ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program) at NYU-Tisch, and a B.A. and B.E. in Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering from Dartmouth College. You can learn more about me on on my LinkedIn page, and follow me on Twitter. You can also access some of my games at itch.io.
Wednesday Mar 29, 2023
Episode 99: Connect the Dots
Wednesday Mar 29, 2023
Wednesday Mar 29, 2023
In the midst of a season full of amazing guests, we take a little breather to reflect on some of the recent topics and to apply them to our co-built world! The world of the MNG is complex and interconnected, which makes it absolutely ripe for thinking about matrices of power and privilege.
So, we think about geography and space; we think about gender and gender roles; we think about magic; we think about the intersections of identity that might matter both in our world and in the smaller societies within the world. Then, we ask: How does the existence of the MNG complicate or simplify dynamics of power and identity?
We also would like to take a moment to remind listeners that we are again eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Fancast! Nominations are open until April 30th, so if you were a member of ChiCon 8 or if you are a member of Chengdu WorldCon, we would love your consideration!
Wednesday Mar 15, 2023
Episode 98: Mysterious Worlds, ft. ANDREA STEWART
Wednesday Mar 15, 2023
Wednesday Mar 15, 2023
Is your world so big because it's full of secrets? From lost civilizations to prowling cryptids, from Unidentified Aerial Phenomena to covert cabals, people love a good mystery, in real life and in fiction. So how can you build these mysteries into your world? Guest Andrea Stewart joins us to explore the possibilities!
As you create your world, you might know more of its truths and secrets than your characters. What are you withholding from them? How much of their own world is known to them, and how much is beyond the fields we know, off the edges of the map, or hidden in plain sight? If something strange happens, what tools do they have for explaining it to themselves? Science, technology, religion, magic -- all these things and more may play a role in the mysteries of your invented world!
(Also, because Cass promised: It's spelled "Coelacanth".)
[Transcript tk]
Our Guest: Andrea Stewart is the daughter of immigrants, and was raised in a number of places across the United States. Her parents always emphasized science and education, so she spent her childhood immersed in Star Trek and odd-smelling library books. When her (admittedly ambitious) dreams of becoming a dragon slayer didn't pan out, she instead turned to writing fiction. Her short stories can be found in such venues as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Galaxy’s Edge, and others. Her debut epic fantasy novel, The Bone Shard Daughter, was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, the Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy and Debut Novel, and the BookNest Award for Best Traditionally Published Novel. She now lives in sunny California, and in addition to writing, can be found herding cats, looking at birds, and falling down research rabbit holes.