Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard Your setting can quickly tell the reader what kind of a story they’re reading, and in this episode we’ll talk about how we make that happen. Think of it as the “establishing shot” principle from film making, expanded to cover whatever worldbuilding details we choose to reveal … Continue reading 14.16: Your Setting is a Telegraph →

• Elemental Genre, 
• Theme, 
• tone

Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab We’ve spent a lot of time talking about magic systems in our worldbuilding. It’s time to talk about  science and technology in that same way. This has been a staple (perhaps the defining staple) of science fiction since before “science fiction” was a word. At risk of opening the … Continue reading 14.15: Technology →

• Hard Science Fiction, 
• Magic Systems, 
• Science Fiction, 
• Technology

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard “Show, don’t tell,” they tell us. Except sometimes showing is not always the best thing to do. Or even the right thing to do. Sometimes we should be telling. In this episode we’ll tell you about telling. (We’d show you about telling, but we still don’t have … Continue reading 14.14: When To Tell →

• Description, 
• Narrative, 
• Show-don't-Tell, 
• Worldbuilding

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard What’s the difference between an obstacle and a complication? Margaret Dunlap takes the lead on this episode for us, giving us the tools we need to create ‘impediments to main character progress’ which will drive our stories across page turns (and commercial breaks) in compelling, twisty ways. … Continue reading WX 14.13: Obstacles vs. Complications →

• Complications, 
• Obstacle Characters, 
• Plot Twists, 
• Writing for TV

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Tempest Bradford, Dongwon Song, and Julia Rios Julia Rios joins us to talk about writing characters who come from one of the many Latin-American cultures or subcultures. “Latinx” is a catch-all term for people with Latin-American heritage, including mixed-race people. In this episode we talk about mash-up cuisine, intersectionality, and how … Continue reading 14.12: Writing The Other — Latinx Representation →

• Code-Switching, 
• Cuisine, 
• Culture, 
• Food, 
• Immigrant Culture, 
• Intersectionality, 
• Latinx, 
• Marginalization, 
• Writing the Other

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard When we say “without rules” we’re talking about stories whose magic is not held under logical scrutiny for the reader. There are lots of reasons why you might do this, and in this episode we’ll talk about not just about the why, but also the how. Credits: This … Continue reading 14.11: Magic Without Rules →

• Numinous, 
• Soft Magic, 
• World Building, 
• Worldbuilding