Michelle Lyons McFarland, Monica Valentinelli, and Shanna Germain join Howard and Dan at GenCon, and talk about the craft of world building for role playing games.
Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
We answer questions about consistency, alternate histories, and the Great Spoke Plague of ’77
How do you describe water from the point of view of a fish?
Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard talk about fictional ecologies.
Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mary discuss communications technology, and how the ability for characters to communicate is a critical piece of your world-building, whether you’re writing science-fiction, fantasy, or pretty much anything else.
Let’s get back to world-building, and dig into a tough one: government. In this case we’re talking about government as part of the backdrop, rather than political intrigue as part of the plot. Are you going to create a monarchy, a democracy, or perhaps some crazy, experimental sort of rigidly…
We’ve spent the last month talking about “A Memory Called Empire, and now, we are so excited to welcome the author, Arkady Martine, to the show! On today’s episode, we talk with Arkady about the origins of her novel, and dive into how she navigated the dense and intricate world-building.…
Today, the gang talks about their final thoughts on Martine’s “A Memory Called Empire.” We conclude with some lessons we’ve learned through analyzing her work, and we share our favorite bits! Thing of the Week: Pasión de las Pasiones Homework: Find a piece of world building that you love and come…
The imago technology lies at the heart of this novel thematically and narratively. How does this technology create a world, delineate Mahit’s culture from Teixcalaan, and ask enormous questions about identity and empire? Thing of the Week: “Rotten” (Documentary Series available on Netflix) Homework: Come up with three technological or magical…
What cultural and worldbuilding information is embedded within the smallest of word choices? Today, we dive into three specific sections from throughout Martine’s “A Memory Called Empire”: the word for empire, assimilation and naming, and learning the word for bomb. We unpack how Martine uses language to establish important principles…