Episode 192: Building Better Catastrophes

From climatological calamities to terrestrial tragedies, from magical mishaps to interstellar incidents, disasters can be wonderful plot generators. So if you're going to tear apart the world you've lovingly built, how can you do that and what happens when you do? How do the people in your world deal with disasters? Do they attribute it to an act of an unkind god or to something else? What actions do they take to try to stop it -- or avoid it? And what happens to society in the recovery? And then, how do we apply the elements of sci-fi and fantasy to these disasters? What happens when someone tries to do The Big Magic and rolls a natural 1? Or when space keeps trying to kill everyone who travels through it? We explore some of the common catastrophes particular to genre fiction and their creative uses in narratives. [Transcript TK] Resources:  The Great Courses: The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague The Great Courses: The Black Death: New Lessons from Recent Research The Great Courses: Earth's Great Extinctions

That's right! Former co-host Rowenna Miller is back again to discuss a worldbuilding topic near and dear to our hearts: fashion! How do you take clothing from bog-standard fantasy gear to something unique and specific to your world? We four are all, obviously, very fashionable when we choose to be — but for people who aren’t clotheshorses, why should you care about fashion in your fiction? Well, for one thing, fashion touches on a lot of other parts of a world -- trade, economy, labor, social classes, etc -- and can quickly communicate aspects of those things to a reader. The choice of what to wear also communicates a lot about an individual character: Do they want to blend in or stand out? Are their clothes utilitarian or sumptuous? We examine over- and under-used fashion choices in fiction, including scandalous sleeves, dragging skirts, the dearth of hats in fantasy, and the impracticality of leather pants. Also, learn about the "bloop vs squish" theory of the evolution of clothing! Resources:  Corsets and Crinolines by Norah Waugh How to Read a Dress: A Guide to Changing Fashion from the 16th to the 21st Century by Lydia Edwards How to Be a Tudor and How to Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman Fashion: Explore the Collections from the Victoria & Albert Museum The Fashion History Timeline The Met Costume Institute Fashion Plates NYPL: Costume and Fashion History: A Guide to Resources [Transcript TK] Our Guest: Rowenna Miller is the author of The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill, The Palace of Illusions, The Dancer and the Dream Thief, and the Unraveled Kingdom trilogy. She lives in Indiana with her husband, two daughters, four cats, and an ever-growing flock of chickens, where she teaches writing, trespasses while hiking, and spends too much time researching and recreating historical textiles.

This episode was recorded during LACon V / WorldCon 2026 in Anaheim! At the time of recording, we had about 32 hours left of being Schrodinger's Hugo Finalists. Well, we once again did not win -- but we had a fantastic time at WorldCon nonetheless! And one of the best things about being there, besides getting to hang out with each other, is getting to see some of our listeners and take questions live. We talk about the history of the podcast, what got us into loving and writing fantasy, how research can affect worldbuilding mid-stream, how to create worlds that don't just feel like rat mazes for the protagonist, exploring the sliding scale of magic systems, and more! [Transcript TK]

For a writer, a "better" government doesn't necessarily mean well-functioning or benevolent; it means “more complex and better for your story” -- which may well mean a government that is worse-functioning in interesting ways! But fantasy governments tend to look like one of two things: an absolutist monarchy or a US/UK-style representative government, flattened out in ways that ignore potentially juicy layers of bureaucracy, negotiation, and power struggles. So how can we make choices for our fictional worlds that reflect the wide variety of ways people agree to live in a society together and provide compelling plot hooks and character motivations? To figure that out, we can start by asking: What role does the government play in your story? Where does it intersect with your characters’ lives and with the plot? A political game-of-thrones type plot will need a lot of building out, but even a cozy romcom or an intimate noir will have aspects touched by that society’s government. What are the in-world conditions that led to your world's government having the shape that it does? Economic stressors, rebellions, coups, invasions, ideological shifts -- many factors in your world could contribute to a government's development, maintenance, and fall, and your characters might have their hands on some of those levers. [Transcript TK] Resources: Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer (now a Hugo Winner for Best Related Work!) Council of Foreign Relations: Forms of Government Introduction

That's right! It's infrastructure week at Worldbuilding for Masochists! So we're talking about the systemic underpinnings of a nation and its economy, the fixed installations that it needs in order to function -- which, admittedly, might sound like the exact sort of overly-detailed, tedious, weighty worldbuilding that people sometimes complain about. Okay, except, so much in your plot probably depends on things like how people, goods, and information move around! This makes infrastructure perhaps the most iceberg-y of the iceberg things that your reader should only see the tip of, but that you might need to think a lot more deeply about. So -- Who builds the roads, bridges, dams, and canals in your world? Who maintains transportation hubs and communication networks? Who controls all those points of access to both utilities and information? Who benefits from these systems? Who gets screwed over by them? And, critically, what does this mean for your plot and your characters? Whether you're riding horses over vast plateaus or zipping around at lightspeed, the logistics of time and space are likely to have some kind of an impact. How easily a message can get passed along -- or delayed -- can have serious implications. (Just ask Romeo). Points of change like revolutions or technological advances can seriously upset people's daily lives and the direction of whole nations. In this episode, we explore the ways that infrastructure can give you plot hooks, character motivations, and complicating factors. [Transcript TK] Resources:  Educational Video from Dr. Esmé Louise James: Was it possible to get finger-blasted inside a Regency carriage? ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Ancient Road UNRV: How Did the Ancient Romans Send Messages? Bret Devereaux's Resources for Worldbuilders (many articles about logistics) History of the Gander International Airport Overly Sarcastic Productions: Trope Talk: Space Westerns

Magic is a lot of what makes fantasy fantasy. So, how can you do it better? What makes magic good and fun to read in the first place? Here at Worldbuilding for Masochists, we feel pretty strongly that magic systems should be more than an infographic, a D&D table, or a Sorting Hat. How, then, do we build magic into a world in a way that makes sense? And, even more importantly (because absurd and mysterious magic can certainly exist), how can we choose our magic intentionally in a way that allows us to explore something interesting both in the invented world and as commentary on our own? We interrogate how things like our world's education system and capitalism may have detrimentally influenced the current vogue for "hard magic" systems, clearly delineated and highly transactional. Magic often seems both ancient and calcified; what happens when you make it something that is still being discovered and learned about, or something in a state of change? What systems of power have been built around magic, and how can navigating those create problems for your characters? In this episode, we poke at a lot of assumptions about magic and imagine some ways to draw out engaging plot hooks and character dynamics. Also! If you'll be at LA WorldCon in two weeks, here are our schedules: Marshall | Cass | Natania [Transcript TK] Resources:  Cass's handout on Making Magic Overly Sarcastic Productions: Trope Talk: Magic

Fantasy protagonists are highly prone to getting stabbed, sliced, impaled, poisoned, bonked on the head, dropped off cliffs, and otherwise wounded. Which means they need someone to patch them up! So who does that in your invented world, and how do they learn to do it? Guest Jesse Aragon joins us to discuss emergency medicine and other issues of healing. How much reality can you -- and should you -- bring into the medical components of your world? Waving a wand and curing all ills is easy, but potentially unsatisfying, but on the other hand, our heroes can rarely spare six months away from their Quest to let bones knit or infections pass. So just how much magic -- or sci-fi technology -- can you bring in to smooth the process along, and how do you make those things fit in with the rest of your world? Are there medical schools, or do you learn in a master-apprentice type system? How much experimentation is there? How well do your characters understand the real workings of the human body? And, most importantly: How do you get plot hooks out of it? [Transcript TK] Our Guest: Jesse Aragon* is a writer of sci-fi and fantasy, usually both at the same time. Her work features morally complicated protagonists, horror, tragedy, the numinous, and deep dives into the darkest, messiest parts of human nature. She grew up overseas, and “home” for her is everywhere from Brussels, Belgium to Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has a Psychology BA, an EMT-I license, and a BSN. She has been an usher, a cashier, a server, a home health aide, an EMT, an ER tech, and a trauma RN—her jobs have consistently been much stranger than any fiction she writes. When she’s not writing, she enjoys weightlifting, video games, and horror movies. She loves cats, green chiles, and UFO lore. Her debut novel, THE DEMON STAR, is forthcoming from DAW/Astra in July 2026! *Yes, this is a real name. No, it has nothing to do with Lord of the Rings. No, she is not (so far as she knows) a descendant of Catherine of Aragon. It is a very common surname for people of Hispanic descent in Mexico and the Southwestern US.

People and animals have lived together in lots of ways for thousands upon thousands of years -- and humans, as we know, will attempt to pack-bond with anything. But what does the domestication of animals mean in worlds that might have fantastical creatures or critters who can talk? Guest John Wiswell joins us to discuss the friend-shaped beings that inhabit our fantasy worlds. When did your culture domesticate animals, and which ones, and why? What distinguishes a merely domesticated animal from a true companion? Which creatures might be normal pets, and which ones are more off-beat or even taboo? What does it mean if you can tame a dragon, or if your kitty familiar can talk to you? And then, of course, writers also need to consider what role these animals play in the story: Do they serve a narrative purpose? Or are they just there to fill out the world and acknowledge that, yes, humans generally love animals and want them around? [Transcript for Episode 185 TK] Our Guest: John Wiswell is a Nebula-winning and Locus-winning author who lives in the middle of the woods. His debut novel, SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN, was released from DAW Books in the U.S. and Arcadia Books in the U.K. in April 2024. John's work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Tor.com, LeVar Burton Reads, Nature Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Weird Tales, the No Sleep podcast, Nightmare Magazine, Cast of Wonders, Podcastle, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and other fine venues. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. His fiction has been translated into ten languages. He graduated Bennington College in 2005, and attended the Viable Paradise 17 workshop in 2013. He has multiple disabilities including a neuromuscular syndrome, and thinks healthy people's capacity to complain is very funny. He finds a lot of things very funny and would like to keep it that way. He is frequently available for interview and for talks at conferences. He has done panels at places such as Worldcon, the Nebula Awards Conference, and the World Fantasy Convention.

So, you're building a fantasy city: Plunk a castle in the middle, put some houses around it, make sure there are some inns and taverns, maybe a church or temple, slap it on a nice body of water, and call it a day, right? NAH. We can do better than that. In this episode, we explore ways that you can create cities that feel natural, lived-in, and unique. Cities are idiosyncratic creatures. So many factors contribute to the development of a city, whether intentionally planned or chaotically organic: the climate, the geography, natural disasters, wars, disease, social priorities, governmental and administrative needs -- They all mean that every city has its own personality. So how can you use those various factors to make sure that your fantasy cities don't all feel like they've been copy-pasted from one very basic mold? We've got thoughts, and we share some of our favorite resources about how cities come to be. Also: Hugo Award voting is open until August 8th! Learn more, register to vote if you haven't already, get the massive voter packet crammed full of goodies, and submit your ballot on the LA WorldCon website. Resources:  Collections: The Lonely City, Part I: The Ideal City – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, by Bret Devereaux Collections: The Lonely City, Part II: Real Cities Have Curves – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, by Bret Devereaux Great Courses: Cities of the Ancient World by Stephen L. Tuck Also on Audible Great Courses: London: A Short History of the Greatest City in the Western World by Robert Bucholz Also on Audible Cities that Shaped the Ancient World, John Julius Norwich The Great Cities in History, John Julius Norwich A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, Alberto Angela On the Map, Simon Garfield The Map of Early Modern London Boston garbage map Largest Cities in the World (3700 BCE - 2050 CE) Time Lapse Growth of New York City

It's the start of our eighth season! And we thought this would be a good time to examine what, exactly, we mean when we say "worldbuilding". There's been a lot of Discourse about it recently, and... yeah, we're a little spicy and spiky about it! So we're addressing, head-on, what we think are some popular misconceptions about what worldbuilding even is (hint: it's not tomes of lore, and it is in every story, whether SFF or not), shifting definitions of "good worldbuilding", and how we have Some Kind of Feelings about the extent to which these trends (or at least the perception of them) are shaping publishers' choices. And then we try to figure out: What does an author do with all of that? How do we frame worldbuilding for ourselves? What's our relationship to it as it helps us discover our stories and our characters? And what hills are we willing to die on? We also take a little time to explore the state of the podcast, looking back on some favorite past episodes, and the state of the podcasters! [Transcript TK]