Episode 174: Stress-Testing Your Worldbuilding, ft. ANDREA STEWART
From Worldbuilding for Masochists by worldbuildingformasochists
February 11, 2026 · 1h 5m · Season 7 · Episode 18
About this episode
The episode discusses how to create plausible systems of power and culture in worldbuilding with guest Andrea Stewart.
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…
People in this episode
Guest: ANDREA STEWART
Topics covered
- worldbuilding
- storytelling
- cultural systems
- power dynamics
- fantasy writing
Keywords
- worldbuilding
- fantasy
- cultural systems
- power
- storytelling
- Andrea Stewart
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Bone Shard Daughter
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