Worldbuilding for Masochists

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 o...

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?...

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...

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, reli...

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 ...

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...

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 world...

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 despera...

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...

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 a...

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 y...

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 thin...

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 yo...

When you're building a world, how do you think about all the different levers of power and privilege that your characters may encounter -- or manipulate, or be manipulated by? Guest Suyi Davies Okungbowa  joins us to think about the matrix of identity and its potential in speculative storytelling. Intersectionality gives us a framework for examining the pluralism of existence. Exploring these conc...

In worldbuilding, we think a lot about the cities and towns that populate our worlds, as well as the enchanted forests, the treacherous mountain ranges, the gloomy swamps, and all those other terrains that adventurers on a quest find themselves trekking across. But what about the feature that makes up over 70% of our own planet and likely a significant percentage of the one you're creating? Darcie...

When you're building a society's conceptions of gender and gender roles... where do you start? Do you want to draw from historical precedent (for good or ill), or try to create something from scratch? G.R. Macallister joins us to discuss thoughtfully incorporating ideas of gender into your world, whether or not you're making it a cornerstone of your premise. We also discuss where gender intersects...

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 rea...

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...

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 w...

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...

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 aut...

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 appr...

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 discus...

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 w...

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, decidi...