14.37: Outlandish Impossibilities
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard Some science fiction and fantasy stories arise from a premise which, under even just rudimentary examination, appear utterly ridiculous. And some ...
15 Sep 201922min
14.36: Languages and Naming
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab How do we come up with names? How do we do it in ways that enhance our worldbuilding? What are the elements that give our invented naming schemes (even th...
8 Sep 201919min
14.35: What You Leave Out
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard The advice commonly given to writers is to worldbuild an iceberg, but only to show the reader the tip. This is still too much work. Icebergs are b...
1 Sep 201918min
14.34: Author Branding
Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, Dan, and DongWon Authors have brands whether they want to have them or not. It's a simple principle of marketing, and the better we understand that principle, the ...
25 Aug 201923min
14.33: Writing Imperfect Worlds
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard How do you write a setting in which the status quo is one with which you deeply disagree? How do you create a conflict of this sort without b...
18 Aug 201920min
Worldbuilding Gender Roles
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard Let's talk about worldbuilding with gender roles. Most of us have grown up with a very strongly defined binary, that distinction need not be ...
11 Aug 201933min
14.31: Cultural Setting as Conflict
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab In this episode we talk about how to put characters in conflict with their setting, and how to structure our work so that these conflicts arise organicall...
6 Aug 201919min
14.30: Eating Your Way to Better Worldbuilding
Your Hosts: Piper, DongWon, Amal, and Maurice We like food, and we like to talk about food. Our hosts this week talk about how this influences their fiction, (not to mention how incredibly complex [a...
28 Juli 201925min
