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PODCAST

Worldbuilding for Masochists

worldbuildingformasochists

A podcast by three fantasy authors who love to overcomplicate their writing lives and want to help you do the same.

arts books

All Episodes

66:30

Episode 178: Character and Conflict, ft. CARISSA...

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2026/04/08

It's an oft-cited (though poorly citationed) aphorism of writing that you should “chase your character up a tree and throw rocks at them." Well, worldbuilding is what gives you the tree and the rocks! So how does your world provide opportunities and obstacles for your characters? Guest Carissa Broadbent joins us to explore making the relationship between character and conflict feel natural and organic through the world they exist in.Characters are products of their circumstances – So how has the

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92:11

Episode 177: Getting in Tune: Music in Worldbuilding,...

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2026/03/25

Music is a cultural universal, something human societies have been producing since our very earliest days – So how do we use it when writing novels? How do we put the audial experience onto the page? Guest Mia Tsai joins us to discuss how to go beyond just slapping a bunch of lyrics down on the page! Music is about emotion and communication, so part of the craft of writing it into a book will mean exploring how your characters feel about it, as well as the mental and physical responses they have

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61:40

Episode 176: Atmospheric Conditions, ft. H.M. LONG

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2026/03/11

One of the things that can make a novel memorable is its atmosphere. So what do we mean, exactly, when we use that word, and how do we craft it? Guest H. M. Long joins us to attempt to answer that question amid the nebulous, numinous clouds of vibes and aesthetics.Not every author's going to interpret it the same way, but it's a bit about the mood, a bit about how the setting creates the mood, a bit about the characters' sensory experiences and their memories of those sensory experiences, a bit

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64:34

Episode 175: Folklore Monsters and Their Origins, ft....

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2026/02/25

From creatures to avoid in the woods to superstitions about numbers, folklore not only gives us inspiration for stories, but also stories for the characters in your world to tell. So where do folktales come from, and how can we use them in our worldbuilding? Amélie Wen Zhao joins us to investigate the roots of folkloric monsters and their narrative potential!We talk about the sometimes blurry lines between folklore, mythology, fables, and legends. Sometimes, that distinction is about the scale of

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64:37

Episode 174: Stress-Testing Your Worldbuilding, ft....

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2026/02/11

We often start the worldbuilding process with a lot of exciting ideas, shiny notions, and fun experiments -- so then, how do you make it make sense? Even in an invented world with its own history, geography, magic, and other special conditions, we generally still want it to feel like the society could plausibly have developed as we're presenting it. Guest Andrea Stewart joins us to discuss how we can create systems of power and culture-making in invented worlds that still reflect how real people

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97:53

Episode 173: Talking about Writing: A Crossover...

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2026/01/28

There comes a time in the life of every author when they have to do that truly terrifying thing: Talk about their book. In this special crossover episode with SFF Addicts, we talk about talking about writing!A lot of that involves the beast we all face these days: social media. Branding, marketing, algorithms, trends, parasocial relationships -- It's a lot. How much do you really need to do, and how can you set boundaries around your public and private selves? But there are also times and places an

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74:39

Episode 172: Inquiries and Interrogatives

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2026/01/14

It's our first episode of 2026, and that means it's time for another listener Q&A episode!From nitty-gritty craft details like writing good dialogue and measuring your pacing to broader concepts like "How do you make worldbuilding fun again after burnout?", we answer your burning questions about the work we do and how we do it. And as a sidebar: If you want to be eligible to nominate for the 2026 Hugo Awards -- perhaps, say, for your favorite worldbuilding podcast? -- you need to secure a WSFS

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77:46

Episode 171: Eight Days a Week

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/12/31

As we turn the pages of our own calendars, let's think about how the cultures we build in fantasy and science fiction mark the passage of time! What shapes the patterns of life for your characters? Do they judge years and seasons and months by the movement of celestial bodies, by agricultural phenomena, by winds and rains and storms, or by something else? The lunisolar calendar is a frantic hodgepodge in our own world; how does that change if your planet has multiple moons? Does your month divide

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65:24

Episode 170: Save It for the Patreon

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/12/17

We know we’re worldbuilding masochists – But when is too much really, really too much? Some of us try to do all our worldbuilding at the start of a project -- and some of us do it as we go. However you work, where's the line between worldbuilding that's helpful to you and worldbuilding that's become a way to evade actually writing? And, does that line change depending on what your own intentions and goals are?Often, it's important to consider the difference between the worldbuilding you need as an

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75:44

Episode 169: For the Cartography-Curious

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/12/03

Few things are more glorious than opening up a fantasy book and seeing a gorgeously detailed map right up front. So what goes into making that masterpiece for you to feast your eyes and imagination upon? In this episode, we discuss our love of maps, some of the ways we make maps, and the relationship between the map and the text. We also share some of our favorite maps, as well as exploring some non-traditional types that we'd love to see more of in fantasy and sci-fi novels.Creating a solid map

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67:32

Episode 168: It's Bigger on the Inside... of Book...

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/11/19

So: Whether it was always intended and contracted, you told the “standalone with series potential” fib, or the public has simply demanded more, you now have to write a second book in the same world. How do you expand the world while maintaining the throughline of your story? And how might you know when you've over-extended? Guest Aparna Verma joins us to discuss the perils and potential of broadening those horizons.One of the most frequent ways to grow the world you show the readers is to literally

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64:52

Episode 167: Spice Up Your Worldbuilding. ft. NIA...

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/11/05

So, you've decided it's time to turn up the heat on your worldbuilding. Maybe you're writing a full-on romantasy, or maybe it's a smaller component of your overall plot, but if your characters are getting down and dirty, how do you make sure they're getting their freak on in a way that reflects the culture they exist in? Guest Nia Davenport joins us to explore all the angles -- and positions.When we're thinking about the culture of sex (and sexy cultures), there's a lot to unpack, particularly

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78:00

Episode 166: The Histo-Remix, ft. ALIX E. HARROW

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/10/22

We use history a lot in our worldbuilding, whether as a direct re-interpretation or as inspiration for a secondary world that we’re creating. So… why do we do that? And what choices do we need to examine as we do so? Guest Alix E. Harrow joins us to discuss weaving historical realities into our fiction.The construction of history is, itself, always the process of creating a narrative through authorial and editorial choices, and so not as wildly different from writing fiction as it may seem. That

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71:05

Episode 165: Pour One out for Your Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/10/08

From beer to gin, from caffeine to tobacco, from mushrooms to hallucinogenic snails, a culture's options for achieving altered states of consciousness through consumables are vast! So when the people in your culture want to get blitzed -- How do they achieve that? The choices can communicate a lot to your readers about your world's technology, climate, and topography, as well as their ideas about health. Alcohol and other intoxicants also tend to accumulate lots of social apparatus around them

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54:36

Special Episode: ArmadilloCon 2025!

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/10/01

This episode was recorded live as a panel at ArmadilloCon 2025!We give a little history of the podcast, re-introduce ourselves for the in-room audience and any new listeners, and discuss the world of the Magical Nude Gates and our individually-cultivated cultures within it. We also discuss a bit of our general approaches to worldbuilding and our "Choose, Don't Presume" ethos. Then, we take some questions from the room!

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35:50

Episode 164: Worldbuilding and the Lens of...

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/09/24

A point-of-view character's experience of the world will shape the information that the reader gets about that world. So, a lot depends on who that character -- or characters -- might be! How can you turn their knowledge -- or lack thereof -- into a plot hook? Does the audience have information before a POV character does? How does their personality affect how information gets communicated to the reader? Guest Martin Cahill joins us to discuss!We also chat about one-off POVs, the context added by

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69:09

Episode 163: Gryphons and Dragons and Owlbears, Oh My!

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/09/10

Mythical and magical creatures are a staple of the fantasy genre, sometimes as obstacles for heroes to face, sometimes as healers and dispensers of wisdom, sometimes fulfilling roles both stranger and more mundane. If you decide to include such beasties in your world, what are they doing there? And how deep you delve into the biology and ecology of these creatures? Do you need to make them make some sort of scientific sense, or can everything be covered by "it's magic"?We also recap our Seattle

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75:40

Episode 162: A Leap of Faith: Worldbuilding Fantasy...

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/08/27

Fantasy religions often feel like reskins either of ancient Greek or Norse pantheons or of the medieval Catholic church. But what more interesting choices can we make when we're building faith within an invented world? Deva Fagan joins us to explore some of the options! How your people envision deities, the afterlife, and the very bones of the universe can illuminate a lot about their overall values and how they self-mythologize their place in the world.It's not all just cosmology, either: religion

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01:01:06

Episode 161: The On Ramp

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/08/13

In this episode, we're taking a closer look at something we refer to a lot when we're talking craft: the on-ramp. Which is to say, at the beginning of your book, as you're introducing your world, how much stuff can you throw at your reader how quickly to get them up to speed? And how much is too much and might cause a reader to get bounced right out of the story?Your readers come in with a lot of assumptions and expectations. Your job as the writer is to adjust those expectations, particularly

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01:07:25

Episode 160: Cozy Worldbuilding, ft. SARAH BETH DURST

Worldbuilding for Masochists ·

2025/07/30

What makes a story -- and a world -- "cozy"? What are the conflicts, challenges, and obstacles like when, instead of taking the Ring to Mordor, you heroes are trying to keep a coffee shop afloat or open a pet shop? Sarah Beth Durst joins us to discuss not just what cozy fantasy is, but how its radical joy can be a powerful act of subversion when the real world tells us to be cynical or defeatist. We also explore how cozy fantasy expands what the fantasy genre gets to be when it refocuses the lens on

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