Sing a song of worldbuilding

Let me sing you songs from the worlds,
To make you feel much better than you could know…
–not quite Jethro Tull

When I was in Singapore last fall, I gave a 3-hour workshop on worldbuilding. I was super nervous beforehand; I had hardly any teaching experience, and as far as worlds go, I’ve really only built the one, which I started at twelve years old.

It’s not viable writing advice to say, Go back in time, and when you’re twelve years old, dream up a world…I would blame my physicist husband...