Writing Excuses 4.30: Worldbuilding the Future
Writing Excuses
Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 August 2010
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Writing Excuses crew explores another angle on the massively multifaceted gem of a topic known as "worldbuilding." We've touched on governments, religions, and magic systems in the past. This time we're looking at a more exclusively science-fictional aspect of worldbuilding: extrapolating a future setting from what we know about the present.
We start with Howard explaining why and how he went about it all wrong, and then managed to salvage it in spite of that. We move on to strategies for doing this sort of future prediction, and how to employ them in concert to worldbuild underneath your next novel. Strategies include "worst-case scenario," "best-case scenario," "the human factor," and "what's cool?"
Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Empire of the East, by Fred Saberhagen
Writing Prompt: "were-cuttlefish," courtesy of Dan Wells.
Courtesy of Howard Tayler: those popping noises made by (we assume) the were-cuttlefish.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This year my family will be having our 67th annual Christmas Eve dinner. |
| 0:04.8 | It's a menu passed down from my grandmother through my mom to me. |
| 0:08.8 | The entire family shows up. |
| 0:11.8 | I'm talking fourth cousins once removed and this is not an |
| 0:15.1 | exaggeration which means that during the lead up I don't have time to menu plan or |
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| 0:42.0 | So if you want to cross meal prepping... while tackling all my holiday to-do's. |
| 0:42.6 | So if you want to cross meal prepping off your list |
| 0:45.8 | this holiday season, consider factor. |
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| 1:01.4 | a meal. |
| 1:02.4 | He has no idea. The point is, all you have to do is heat and enjoy. |
| 1:07.0 | And if you're trying to squeeze writing into the holiday press, it might be useful to know that Factor isn't just for dinner. |
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| 1:27.2 | lunch to go, grab and go snacks, or ready to eat cold-pressed juices, shakes, and smoothies. |
... |
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