Dark Worldbuilding: Bringing the Shadows to Your World with Michael Williams

World Anvil Worldbuilding Podcast

Welcome to a special Bonus Season! Enjoy these sessions from this year's Worldbuilding Con!

Tone, mood and aesthetic are all elements that can be used to differentiate your world. Join us for a lively discussion on how to add a darker edge to your worldbuilding efforts. Learn how careful placement of the shadows in your world can add depth, and help your world feel more realistic - or more fantastical.

• Does genre affect worldbuilding? Are some naturally darker than others?
• What lures us to dark worlds as authors, readers & gamers?
• How do we create reader experiences in dark fiction that feel familiar?
• What elements of worldbuilding can establish a dark tone?
• How to balance a dark, gritty setting with lighter elements? What are some mistakes in dark worldbuilding?
• Examples of great dark worldbuilding settings?
• How to handle sensitive subjects in worldbuilding?
• To swear or not to swear? Do made-up swear words lose impact?
• Tips for adding humor in dark or horror stories

🎙️Speaker: Michael Williams | The author of fifteen novels, a number of stories and poems, and the late, lamented “Mythical Realism” travel blog, Michael Williams has been writing and publishing over the last thirty years. His most recent work, the City Quartet—four magical realist novels set in a city that is/is not Louisville, Kentucky—has received widespread critical acclaim. A native of Louisville, he has lived in a number of far-flung spots, but now dwells in sleepy & domestic Southern Indiana. Recently retired from a professorship at the University of Louisville, he is currently drinking bourbon and at work on a long narrative poem that ties to the novels in the City Quartet, because what is a quartet without a fifth?