Tag Archives: Worldbuilding

Season 16, Theory and Technique

16.24: Worldbuilding for Games

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Wells, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler

Worldbuilding is one of our favorite topics, and it’s a domain in which game design and novel writing share a lot of territory. In this episode we talk about how much we love it, and how much we enjoy letting other people love it enough to do the heavy lifting for us.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Take a story or game that you’ve written and drop in a few casual allusions to names you’ve just made up—places, people, objects. Don’t try to figure out what they are, just make the names as cool-sounding as you can—soultrees, the Babbling Throne, Kobishar the Unmoored. Then come back a week later and write a page of background on each of them.

The Dune RPG, from Modipheus Games

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.47: Worldbuilding Science Fiction, with Cory Doctorow

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, and Howard, with Cory Doctorow

Worldbuilding is something you do to some degree in everything you write. Cory Doctorow  writes (among many other things) near-future SF, and he joins us for a discussion of extrapolative worldbuilding.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Make a list of transactions in your life which have no reciprocity.

Walkaway: A Novel, by Cory Doctorow

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.45: Worldbuilding Fantasy, with Patrick Rothfuss

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Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, and Howard, with Patrick Rothfuss

Pat joins us for a discussion of worldbuilding, in which we field a couple of challenging questions from readers. Here are the questions!

  • How do you create timeless urban fantasy?
  • How do you create a compelling secondary world fantasy without leaning on a complex magic system?

We ran a bit long with this one, but we have no regrets. Because compelling. And maybe timeless.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

 

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Just change one thing, and then follow the permutations.

Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.35: Tools for Writing and Worldbuilding, with Erin Roberts

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Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Lari, and special guest Erin Roberts

We’ve received a number of questions about the ‘tools of the trade’ for organizing our work, especially with regard to worldbuilding. In this episode we talk about what we use, including some old-school analog tools like sticky notes and ballpoint pens.

Credits: this episode was recorded remotely, and mastered by Alex Jackson

 

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Using whichever tool you would like, examine your favorite worldbuilding elements, and determine what your influences are for them.

The Midnight Bargain, by C.L. Polk (currently available for pre-order)

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.51: A Farewell to Worldbuilding

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard

We’ve spent all year focusing on worldbuilding, and it’s time to move on.

Almost.

In this episode we try to cover some points we may have missed, we talk about what we’ve learned, and discuss some of our favorite recent examples of worldbuilding.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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No homework!

Sakura: Intellectual Property, by Zachary Hill, with Patrick Tracy and Paul Genesse

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.50: Write What You… No.

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard

We’ve all heard the adage “write what you know,” and in this episode we set out to un-misinterpret it. The phrase is fraught, and perhaps the most perilous bit is that it can be used an excuse to not write. Here at Writing Excuses we’re pretty committed to approaching things in ways that let us do MORE writing, so this topic is a great place for us to leave you out of excuses.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Take a thing you’re familiar with, and make it a superpower

Armistice: Amberlough Dossier, Book 2, by Lara Elena Donnelly, narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.49: Customs and Mores

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab

In this episode we discuss how our customs and mores govern our own real-world interactions, and how our understanding of these interactions can be applied to our worldbuilding.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Take a cultural quirk or more that is weird and/or annoying to you. Extrapolate that into an entire culture, a full society of interconnected mores which make sense, and with which you’d be extremely uncomfortable.

The Lie Tree, by Frances Hardinge, narrated by Charlotte Wright

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.48: How to Practice Worldbuilding

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard

The entire year has been about learning how to worldbuild, and we’ve learned a thing or two ourselves while preparing material for you. In this episode we talk about some of those lessons, and try to answer stray questions that didn’t fit into any of previous episode buckets.

Liner Notes: If Dinosaurs Had Body Fat Like Penguins

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Take something familiar to you—something you’ve got expertise in—and turn it into a worldbuilding tool.

The Incomplete Book of Running, by Peter Sagal