Worldbuilding for Masochists

Author: worldbuildingformasochists

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

Genres: Arts, Books, Performing Arts

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Episode 174: Stress-Testing Your Worldbuilding, ft. ANDREA STEWART
Episode 18
Wednesday, 11 February, 2026

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 really behave. [Transcript for Episode 174] Our Guest: Andrea Stewart is the daughter of immigrants, and was raised in a number of places across the United States. Stewart is a Sunday Times Bestselling author whose short stories can be found in such venues as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Galaxy’s Edge, and others. Her debut epic fantasy novel, The Bone Shard Daughter, was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, the Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy and Debut Novel, and the BookNest Award for Best Traditionally Published Novel. She now lives in sunny California, and in addition to writing, can be found herding cats, looking at birds, and falling down research rabbit holes