Recently I had a few experiences with culture and media that made me thoughtful:

Seeing a Hong Kong action film wherein I was about the only person in the theater to get a reference to classic Chinese Taoist tales and jokes.
When writing a story using two gay characters, a joke between them was taken wrong by an editor due to cultural differences.
What does this have to do with writing and worldbuilding? A great deal.

You can build a world as detailed as you want, or use a historical period. You can know the finest details ...

A few columns ago, I wrote about "Timeline Based Writing, which works in the following way:

It's been nearly a year since I started "A Way With Worlds," and I figured that for the anniversary, I'd get philosophical.

For a year, I've written about creating worlds and populating them, on writing about them and exploring them. You, my readers, have written and planned and crafted and told tales in the last year.

So, why did I do it? Why do you do it? Why are we spinning worlds and universes? What's the point?

Well, I've asked myself why I write and why I write this column, and, ideally (note, ideally) why people write and create. What is it, at ...

An hour after the Polar Lander was due to have sent its long-awaited first signal from the surface of Mars, I couldn't take the suspense any longer. I logged-off and fled from my PC. ...

The five ways of creating a fantasy world

Create a good idea of your fantasy world
Naming characters, places, and religions.
Knowing when not to go too far
Remembering what you created
Creating a history of your world.
It would seem that writing fantasy would be easy, but yet there are an abundance of challenges that the writer must face. This article will give you a better grip on tackling the aspects of creating worlds, and the people who populate them.

CREATE A GOOD IDEA OF YOUR FANTASY WORLD

No world that is to sustain life exists without water, unless the people who inhabit it are completely bizarre in design. I’ve ...

We’ve certainly come a long way since Blaise Pascal invented the calculator in the 17th century. Newton discovered that apples and anvils descend upon toads at the same speed. Franklin incinerated an unnamed assistant ...