Your Hosts: Piper, Dan, and Tempest, with special guest Nisi Shawl
Whether you’re writing about a real-world religion, or one you’ve created for your setting, there are numerous factors to be aware of. In this episode we discuss a few good and bad examples of depictions of religions, and the ways in which these examples can inform the way we approach our own projects.
Credits: this episode was recorded by Ross Smith, and mastered by Alex Jackson
Choose an aspect of culture that ties into religion (dealing with death, for instance), and explore how specific religious beliefs have influenced that culture.
We often worldbuild religions and rituals for the stories we create. In this episode we discuss the decisions surrounding this, and our approaches for doing it well.
Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson
Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, Dan, and DongWon
We invited attendees at WXR 2018 to ask us some general worldbuilding questions. Here’s what they asked:
What cultural stuff do you need to know during the writing process?
How do you treat overlaps between real-world religions and fictional religions when the fictional religions are part of the story’s fundamental conflict?
How much worldbuilding do you have figured out before you start your first draft, and how much do you discover on the fly?
What’s the point in a book beyond which you shouldn’t introduce big worldbuilding elements?
How do you ensure that the world comes through as a character of its own?
How much change to terminology is too much?
Credits: This episode was recorded live by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson
Marie Brennan took a break from her book tour and joined us for this discussion of Polytheism in fiction. (Note: Marie recorded several episodes with us, and we’re posting them out of order.)
We begin by looking at the pitfalls and common mistakes that people make, and then dive into how we can make a polytheistic setting work well in support of our stories.
What sorts of things result in holidays? Historically we see them at the solstices and the equinoxes, planting and harvest, and commemorations of important events. We talk about all of these, and how to work them into your own writing without sounding like you’re just filing the serial numbers off of Christmas, Halloween, and Mardi Gras.
So of course we also talk about how to do this wrong.
Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week:METAtropolis: Cascadia, by Jay Lake, Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, Ken Scholes, Karl Schroeder, and Tobias Buckell, and narrated by Rene Auberjonois, Kate Mulgrew, Wil Wheaton, Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, and Jay Lake.
Writing Prompt: Make up a holiday that isn’t based on anything you’ve seen.
Exclamation Howard Thought He’d Never Use: Bone Puppet Day!
This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.
*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!
Audible® Free Trial Details
Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation.
Special guest Bree Despain of the Dark Divine trilogy joins us for a ‘cast on character quirks.
A character quirk, avoiding the tautological definition, is something that makes your character memorable. We talk about good quirks, bad quirks, and how to tell the difference. We also laugh a lot because it was late and we were punchy.
We also discuss ways in which stereotype-breaking quirks can be employed without delivering humor, and reasons why we might do this.
Regarding That “No Spoilers” Shouting-Match: If you haven’t seen Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated) in its entirety yet, it’s possible Bree gave something away in the last two minutes of the ‘cast.
Writing Prompt: A physical attribute that in some way influences the character’s religion
This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!
Audible® Free Trial Details
Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation.
