Why It Works: Worldbuilding, Storytelling, and Weaving a Song

For this week’s Why It Works, I pulled together an old-fashioned “philosophy of storytelling” essay, centered on the relationship between worldbuilding and dramatic structure. As usual, this was initially prompted by my perpetual annoyance at people Doing Stories Wrong, but I think it ended up in a fairly approachable place. Exploring the give-and-take of drama and narrative structure is just absolutely fascinating to me, and I’ll be happy if I can spark that fascination for anyone else out there. Here’s the piece!

Worldbuilding, Storytelling, and Weaving a Song