What’s the right amount of worldbuilding for your story? Maps, architecture, magic, religion, language, myth? The answer… it depends.
In this clip from our last episode of the Ask an Anthropologist About Worldbuilding livestream, I break down how to decide what’s essential for your story, whether you’re writing a 6,000-word short or the first book in a multi-volume epic.
Want help with your worldbuilding? Join us on February 3rd and I’ll field your questions. Can’t make it that day? Put your questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to address them. Click here for the next livestream episode (or watch the replay if you’re seeing this after February 3rd)
Tonight at 7pm (Denver, CO Time), I’ll be livestreaming and fielding questions about how to use Anthropology to build fictional worlds.
If you’re a writer or creative struggling with worldbuilding or, if something in your fictional world doesn’t quite fit, this is the place to bring all your questions. You can join live and ask questions in real time, or if you can’t make it, drop a question the comments ahead of time, and I’ll do my best to address them during the livestream.
• Building believable cultures and societies • Using anthropology in fantasy and science fiction • Worldbuilding through dialogue and character interaction • Power, resistance, and social systems in fiction • Avoiding shallow or stereotypical cultures • Making fictional societies feel real without exposition dumps
This livestream is about all of you. Quite of few of you have followed my work over the years, and I wanted to do something to give back. And, if people find this useful, I’d love to do a recurring thing.
It’s been a minute, so I have a few pieces of news and they kind of involve most areas of my creative work, as well as a book chapter I wrote in an Anthropology book.
First up is that for the second year in a row, I will be teaching a session at the Creative Colorado Writer’s Retreat run by the incredible small press, Twenty Bellows. I have to say, I think this year has some of the most talented teachers of both poetry and prose in their line up. You can find out more about it here.
For my part, I’ll be teaching a session titled: Worldbuilding Without Info Dumping: How to Master Reader Immersion in Your Writing. My session will be on Saturday September 20th starting at 2:40 Pm.
The goal of the workshop will be to explore worldbuilding without exposition and instead looking how to build through dialogue and action so that your reader connects more deeply to your characters in the middle of the flow of the story.
But wait! There’s more!
At 11am on the second day of the writer retreat, we’re having a book fair. The book fair runs 11 am to 1 pm. I’ll have a table there if you want me to sign your books or pick up a copy of one of my 7 books. Again, there are many very talented authors at the book fair and It’s gonna be a ton of fun!
In other news, Resistances Reads Episode 8 goes live Monday September 15th at 7pm over on YouTube. And if you haven’t seen yet, we’re now on all the major podcast services. Episode 8 will cover the book, Black Empire by George S. Schuyler originally serialized in the 1930s, and is an early example of Afrofuturism. Literatura Obscura will air it’s 3rd episode this week as we discuss the book Ishamel by Daniel Quinn. It’s a novel about a telepathic gorilla who teaches a man the secrets to saving the world.
In terms of book updates, I have something to admit… I’ve been working on a secret project and it’s been distracting me from other things. But, I’m not quite ready to discuss that 8th and decidedly stand alone novel just yet. I am also working at building some of the lore right now for Shades & Shapes in the Dark universe. For those of you who read the first book that came out last may, you might suspect that it’s not really just a horror novel, but also edging into something more. In Through and Endless Darkness Dreaming (Book 2) Clarissa will discover that there’s more creatures out there, than just her own tormenter, Demon and that the world of magic is so much bigger than she realizes.
I am, also, slowly spending time in the world of The Chronicles of the Great Migration. I promise, I am still working on The Children of AEIS, and the final two other books of the series. They will get done.
One final announcement. This one is in the world of Anthropology. I recently published a chapter in the book, Exploring Digital Ethnography: From Principles to Practice. My chapter is titled: Worldbuilding as Pedagogy: Teaching Anthropology and Diversity in Contentious Classrooms. Now this is an academic volume, so while it’s not cheap, you absolutely can purchase it here. There are some great chapters in this book covering a variety of digital and interactive approaches to anthropology.
But if you just want to read my chapter… well… if you contact me, we might be able to find a way…
You read that right. Everything I’ve published since 2018 is free for the next seven days on Smashwords. Trying to kick your amazon habit lately? Well, you can buy all of my books on Smashwords instead… or rather, just add them to your library because they are totally free. Even if you already have copies elsewhere, why not pick them up on a different service?
Wednesday Night October 9th I had the good fortune to share some of my ideas at the live event, Ignite Denver #41. My topic? Stories Will Save the World.
You may have heard the phrase uttered by Neil Degrasse Tyson and others, “We Are Made of Star Stuff”. It’s true, we’re made of the things born at the beginning of the universe. But my talk was about something else. We’re Also Made of Story Stuff. But we’re not just our story. We’re characters in countless stories, those of your parents, your friends, your family, passing acquaintances, that jerk who cut you off on the highway, and yes, you are the villain in someone else’s story.
We Are Made of Story Stuff and that’s why, It will be stories that save the world.
Hey all, I know it’s been a while since I have had updates so I have several things to post about today. Sorry for the long message, but I’ve broken things down so you can easily skim to the information you want.
The first is the reason that things are so delayed. This summer I joined Teach for America and last month I officially became a High School English and Language Arts teacher for 11th and 12th grade. Let me tell you, that’s an extremely busy job.
Despite the very long hours I am working right now, I’ve managed to make a lot of steady progress on my forthcoming novels. I am currently on a streak of 574 days or writing without skipping. 500 or so of those days had a minimum of 1000 words a day. So I make progress on something every single day (though I must admit at least 50 of those days I deleted the words right after I finished them but hey, you gotta get those bad words out of the way for the good ones to shine).
Here is the current status of my books that I am actively working on:
Shades and Shapes in the Dark is currently in it’s final pass before it heads off to the editor. ETA for book 1 is either October 17th or November 17th depending on the amount of edits required (How much red pen my editor uses).
The series is now 4 books with the following titles and progress level:
Book 1 “Shades and Shapes in the Dark” is in final edits with an ETA in October or November.
Book 2 “Though An Endless Darkness Gleaming” is 75% of Draft 1
Book 3: “An Illumination of Extraordinary Madness” is 50% of Draft 1
Book 4: “The Nature of Twilight At Dawn” is 30% of Draft 1
I currently expect to finish draft 1 of Book 2 by November 1st and to use NaNoWriMo to finish (or get close to finishing) the first draft of book 3
The Children of AEIS and The Chronicles of the Great Migration final two books, A War For the Heavens and A Hand to the Stars are still on their way. The Children of AEIS is sitting at around 75% first draft completion. The largest reason for the delay was a major concussion only two months after the release of Serah of the Runners. This derailed me pretty solidly and right now, when I have free time on top of writing, I am working through creating notes of the 4 books because my memory of them appears to be a little lacking from first the injury and then the passage of time. But, they are in progress and they absolutely will get finished sometime in the near future.
Welcoming the Muse
My poetic essay, Writing is Living was selected for publication by Twenty Bellows Press this summer. The piece is about life as an author in the 21st century. There will be a release party sometime this fall and I will provide more information as the date approaches. Needless to say, I’m thrilled to have another short of mine published this year. That makes 2 short pieces of writing picked up by publishers.
How to Write for the Future Podcast
I also recently appeared on a second episode of Write for the Future. This podcasts covers some basics of worldbuilding. The host also spent time across several episodes highlighting some of the key features of Kyra Wellstrom and I’s book, Build Better Worlds. I have linked the second episode where I guest starred as well as the episodes that surround our book below.
My last piece of news is that back in July I was asked to teach a session at the Creative Colorado Writers Retreat hosted by Twenty Bellows Publishing Company. I feel so honored to be a part of this retreat as it includes some of the most talented and knowledgeable writers in Denver.
That’s it for updates (I know there were a lot). I’m confident my next update will be release news! I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend (if you’re American and reading this).
A few months back I went on the How to Write the Future Podcast, to talk about my co-written book, Build Better World: An Introduction to Anthropology for Game Designers and the process of creating fictional worlds. This will be the first of a two part podcast.
For the last ten years I’ve been teaching college courses in Anthropology and Geography. But last month I signed on to join Teach for America where I will transition into teaching middle school or high school. Sometimes at the end of the semester I would recite this poem for students, to try and capture everything we’ve learned in the entire term. Also, I wrote this about two years ago, and I realized recently that I never actually posted it even though it’s one of my favorite pieces that I’ve written.
This spoken word poem is inspired by the core message of Anthropology so artfully put by Horace Minor many years ago. he said that anthropology is, “Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange.” This poem also appears in my book, A Luminous Liminality: A Collection of Poetry and Art
It’s All Relative
It’s all about relations,
No I don’t mean sexual intercourse,
I mean how people build their foundations
How they relate to causation, or build a nation
And what they consider freedom and liberation
The tracks of humanity don’t just stop at one station
The imagination is filled with endless destinations
Everyone has hopes and dreams, sorrows and frustrations
Everyone wants to experience the sensation of cessation of suffering and damnation
Options
We are a range of cultural options
Our choices are the result of a kind of cultural adoption
Humans are a wonder to be sure
We explore, go on tour, only to identify what we consider pure and impure
We fight wars because we are insecure, but wait there’s so much more.
For every detour we endure, we can also find the cure
For our madness
For every act of hate, there one of love pushing back against the sadness
The thoughts people carry are the result of causes and conditions
A steady diet of enculturation a kind of cultural brain nutrition
Of what’s clean and dirty, right and wrong
How best to gather food or sing a song
How to unify a community and get along
Culture is about adapting and understanding where you belong
So much of it is arbitrary but we claim tradition is important because it has. Gone. On. So. Long.
But tradition is selection of past perceptions
Rooted in imagined past and cultural objections
There’s nothing inevitable about the paths we choose
The things we keep, the things we loose,
Or how we use and abuse one another
When we forget that all beings have once been our mothers
And we yell and scream and blame one other.
For our problems
And so it’s relative, the way we know
Our goals, dreams, aspirations, the places that we go
Flow below the assumptions and you will find a place to grow
But take it slow.
Because if you think you know,
You’re wrong.
Relativism is a practice,
lifelong
And that beginners mind, keeps you from getting too headstrong
Don’t assume right or wrong
Just be curious, instead of furious.
Cultural relativism is poison, a disease?
Oh please, I’ve got no interest to appease
The keyboard warriors whose agenda is to throw feces
Like our primate cousins…
Relativism doesn’t mean you allow ignorance to thrive,
It means you contrive to understand what it means to be human and alive
The things we do to survive and strive for
Opens the doors to more
Possibilities
Because every culture is a library of wonder
They all have lessons and wisdom bright with lightning and thunder
So shut up,
listen,
and put down your hands
You don’t have to like, but you should try to understand
A few weeks ago I went on the UK based Open Minded Podcast to talk about Anthropology. On Episode 36 titled “What It Means to Be an Individual” We covered a variety of concepts and it was fun and very organic conversation. You can find it below.
This last fall I was a guest on three podcasts. Two of those podcasts have gone live already. The final one just came out yesterday and is live on YouTube. I had a lot of fun on this episode. We talked about a whole host of different topics on life, culture, anthropology, art, AI, change, and the future. Check out our conversation at the link below
Loridian's Laboratory 