Worldbuilding for Masochists

Episode 94: Natural and Supernatural Disasters

Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, volcanoes... unstable wormholes, hellmouths, murder hornets, sharknados... When you're writing speculative fiction, the scope of disaster can be wild!

Do the local wizards cause occasional hails of turnips? Does Gondor have a tornado warning system? After a thousand-year flood, does magical FEMA show up to rebuild? Decisions about how your society plans for and reacts to disaster can imply a lot else about their infrastructure, government, religion, and other societal constructs.

Then there's the question of: Is the disaster the backbone of your plot, or just one plot element among many? That decision may shape the tone and even the subgenre of a book!

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Transcript for Episode 94 (tk)

Episode 93: Queries and Quandaries

Happy new year, listeners! In this episode, we take some questions from you! But not just any questions -- questions that probe specific worldbuilding conundrums you're facing, either in your own work or in popular media.

In response to your prompts, we discuss imaginary friends, villain tropes, the deficiencies of sci-fi obstetrics, cultural shifts, and grappling with originality.

Transcript for Episode 93 (tk)

Episode 92: Ringing in the New Year

As 2022 draws to a close, your WFM hosts take a moment to celebrate winter traditions, especially those commemorating the start of a new year! But... what is a year, even? Does your culture have that conception? Is it tied to seasons, to floods, to the stars, or something else?

And if they do recognize a regular rotation of time, how do they mark the observation? Is it a time for gift-giving and wild parties, or for somber reflection? For cleansing and spiritual purifying, or for hedonistic indulgence? The decisions may say a lot about what a particular culture values, about how they relate to their history, or about their religion!

This episode also includes a few year-in-review highlights, as well as the excitement we've got coming up in 2023!

 

Transcript of Episode 92 (tk)

Episode 91: Making the Incredible Credible, ft. CHARLAINE HARRIS

When you've added a fantastical, super-science-y, or paranormal element to your world, how do you make that feel well-integrated, baked-in, and totally normal for that world? Guest Charlaine Harris joins us to discuss using history, society, and your imagination to fill in the corners of a world and make it feel like a place you could actually go visit.

Sometimes, that work is about making sure a world is internally consistent -- and sometimes, it's about giving your werewolves fast food restaurants. What choices will make your reader an active participant in co-creating your world?

(Transcript tk)

Our Guest: 

Charlaine Harris is an American author who specializes in mysteries. She is best known for her book series The Southern Vampire Mysteries, which was adapted as the TV series True Blood. The television show was a critical and financial success for HBO, running seven seasons, from 2008 through 2014. A number of her books have been bestsellers and this series was translated into multiple languages and published across the globe.

Harris was born and raised in a small town in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States. She now lives in Texas with her husband; they have three grown children and grandchildren. She began writing from an early age, and changed from playwriting in college to writing and publishing mysteries, including several long series featuring recurring characters.

Episode 90: The Editor’s Take ft. BRIT HVIDE

We're big believers in doing all the work when it comes to the worldbuilding, but when it comes to putting it in the book, how do you know how much you need to have in the text?  What do the readers need to know, and what goes in the ephemera or appendices?  Who can help you figure that out?  An editor, of course!

So we sat down with Orbit Books executive editor Brit Hvide-- who's worked with authors like N.K. Jemisin, C.L. Clark, Django Wexler, Andrea Stewart and many more-- to get her thoughts on what really works in fantasy worldbuilding.

Our Guest:

Brit E. B. Hvide is a writer and Hugo Award nominated editor. She studied creative writing and physics at Northwestern University. Originally from Singapore, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband, their son, and their dog. Follow her on Twitter @bhvide or visit her website brithvide.wordpress.com.

Episode 89: Stealing the Best Parts of History, ft. LAURA ANNE GILMAN

Many fantasy authors draw from history to shape their worlds and inform their worldbuilding choices. Where do you draw the line between hewing to the record and just using it for inspiration? How much do accuracy and authenticity matter? And, when those research rabbit holes are so very alluring, how do you make yourself stop?

Guest Laura Anne Gilman joins us to talk about the various ways to approach historical research and integrate it into your worldbuilding, as well as what to do with the many, many tidbits of knowledge that end up in your head, taking up space. From antiquated toilets to questionably decorated tapestries, this episode explores some gloriously weird historical tidbits!

Transcript for Episode 89 (tk!)

Our Guest:

Laura Anne Gilman is the author of more than twenty novels, including the Nebula award-nominated The Vineart War trilogy and the award-winning Devil’s West series from Saga Press/ Simon & Schuster.  Her forthcoming projects include the Gilded Age historical fantasy, UNCANNY TIMES (October 2022),  and a series of paranormal romance novellas focusing on non-traditional partners, starting with SOMETHING PERFECT.

She has also dipped her pen into the mystery field, writing as L.A. Kornetsky (Collared, Fixed, Doghouse, and Clawed).

Episode 88: Hashtag Aesthetic, ft. MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL

We throw the word "aesthetic" around a lot on this podcast -- but we've never really slowed down to talk about what it means. How do we define the aesthetic of a work? Is that different from the aesthetic of a world? How do subgenres and plot structures intertwine with those ideas?

Guest Mary Robinette Kowal joins us to explore the crafting of aesthetics in worldbuilding and storymaking! We discuss pacing, word choice, set dressing, the theatre of the mind, the "breath" of the written word, and so much more. We also examine how aesthetic can be a shorthand to help your reader with an on-ramp into your story -- but how you may also need to teach your reader where your particular world deviates from what aesthetic may lead them to assume.

Transcript for Episode 88 (in-progress -- email us if you're interested in joining the scribal team!)

Our Guest:

Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author, Mary Robinette Kowal is a novelist and professional puppeteer. In 2008 she won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer and her debut novel Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor 2010) was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel. In 2019, the first book in the Lady Astronaut series The Calculating Stars (Tor 2018), won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards, becoming one of only eighteen novels to do so. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies, as well as in her collection Scenting the Dark and Other Stories from Subterranean Press. Her short story collection Word Puppets was published in 2015, and includes both of her Hugo Award-winning stories in addition to fifteen others, running the full range of speculative fiction. In 2016, her World War I fantasy novel Ghost Talkers was published by Tor books, followed in 2018 by her alternate history Lady Astronaut series.

From 2019-2021, Kowal was the President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

In 2011, after several appearances as a guest star on the podcast Writing Excuses, Kowal became a permanent member of the cast. In 2013, the seventh season of the podcast won the Hugo Award for Best Related Work. Her involvement in the podcast also contributed to the creation of the Shadows Beneath anthology, in which Kowal and her three co-hosts contributed short stories alongside materials charting the unique creative process of each author.

Kowal is also an award-winning puppeteer. In high school, she took up puppetry as a hobby, but as Kowal says, she “never thought of it as something you could get paid for.” Instead, she went to East Carolina University to pursue an art degree, minoring in theater and speech. While performing as Audrey II in a performance of Little Shop of Horrors, she learned that a professional puppeteer had come to the show. It was a turning point. Kowal went on to intern at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA. With over twenty years of experience, she has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures, Sesame Street, and founded Other Hand Productions. Her designs have garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve.

Her career in puppetry consumed much of Kowal’s creative energy for over ten years. Although she wrote in high school and college, it wasn’t until her brother moved his family to China that she began writing again. Like Lewis Carroll and J.M. Barrie, she started creating children’s fantasy as a way to stay connected to her young niece and nephew. Reminded of how much she enjoyed writing, she began submitting short stories and made her first sale in 2005, and her first professional sale to Strange Horizons in 2006.

When she isn’t writing or puppeteering, Kowal brings her speech and theater background to her work as a voice actor. She is a member of SAG/AFTRA. She has recorded audio books and short stories for authors such as Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi. She likes to describe voice acting as “puppetry, without the pain.”

Mary Robinette lives in Nashville with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Sometimes she even writes on them.

Episode 87: Building Up Hope, ft BRANDON CRILLY

Can you see the climate fiction for the trees? In this episode, Brandon Crilly joins us to discuss solarpunk, cli-fi, hopepunk, and the places where these concepts overlap and intertwine.

How do you build a world with a deliberately optimistic outlook? How much of that is about technology, and how much is about social paradigms? What other considerations go into storytelling from this particular worldview?

Transcript for Episode 87 (in-progress)

Our Guest: An Ottawa teacher by day, Brandon Crilly has been previously published by Daily Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Fusion Fragment, PULP Literature, Flame Tree Publishing and other markets. In 2021, he co-founded Bag of Giving, a monthly Twitch series where authors play TTRPGs for charity. He’s also an Aurora Award-nominated podcaster, conference organizer for Can*Con, a reviewer, and regularly has too many D&D campaign ideas than he could ever fit into his schedule. His debut novel Catalyst will be published by Atthis Arts in Fall 2022.

Episode 86: Live at WorldCon!

This episode was recorded in a panel session at WorldCon/ChiCon 8 on September 4th, 2022. Many thanks to everyone who attended in-person! We had a blast, and it's so great to get to field your questions in real-time.

We discuss favorite bits of worldbuilding from our own projects -- and the things about worldbuilding that we love less! Then, we answer questions about world-generating seeds, deciding on tech levels for our worlds, intentionality in designing magical systems, and more!

Transcript for 86 (in-progress! If you'd like to join our scribal team, please send us an email to learn about the process!)

Episode 85: Falling in Love Again… with Worldbuilding Ft SARA MUELLER

Where's the love? It makes the world(building) go 'round and 'round and 'round... At least, it does when things are going well! In this episode, guest Sara Mueller joins us to discuss how to get yourself re-engaged with your fantasy worlds when you've drifted away from them, for one reason or another.

When you've gotten jaded, what can bring you back in? Do you cling to a particular detail of life that fascinates you? Return to the map and start filling in the blank spaces? Pivot to another project, read a book outside your genre, or binge a TV show? And when might it be important to allow yourself to have a fallow period rather than trying to force productivity?

Transcript for Episode 85 (in-progress -- to join our scribing team, email us!)

Our Guest: A seamstress and horsewoman, Sara A. Mueller writes speculative fiction in the green and rainy Pacific Northwest, where she lives with her family, numerous recipe books, and a forest of fountain pens.

In a nomadic youth, she trod the earth of every state but Alaska and lived in six of them.

She’s an amateur historical costumer, gamer, and cook.

The Bone Orchard is her debut novel, from Tor Books.