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(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Fiction doesn’t generally spend a lot of time on what characters do in the restroom. I’m all in favor of this: a few years ago I read a bestselling fantasy … Continue reading
Category Archives: Worldbuilding
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Historical cities were hideous, open sewers, their streets clogged with human and animal filth. . . . or were they? Two groups of people would have you believe that’s true: … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series. And many thanks to my faithful patrons, who have funded two years of New Worlds: with this, we embark upon Year Three! Look for the ebook collection of Year Two … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) After the wedding comes the honeymoon . . . maybe. Unlike many things I discuss in this series, where I talk about how the idea or the practice is older … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) When it comes to beautifying our bodies, we haven’t stopped at the visual. For millennia, people have sought to improve the way they smell, too — for a whole host … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Downtime note: Because of BVC’s recent site difficulties, the last two New Worlds essays, on how to fight a duel and (changing tacks completely) tattoos were hosted on my own … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Welcome back! If you missed last week’s New Worlds post due to the BVC outage, you can find it here on my own site, discussing “codes of honor” — chivalry, … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Honor a powerful concept, both in the real world and fiction. We love knights who cling to their ideals, and villains who spit upon the concept gain an extra patina … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) The last time we had a bonus essay, I railed against monolithic worldbuilding: settings where there is only one religion that everyone practices in exactly the same way, or only … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) To wrap up this discussion of time, let’s leap back from the micro level of seconds and minutes and hours to the extremely macro level — which is to say, … Continue reading