The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #586: Thirteenth Hour Sequel Update 29 - Wordbuilding in Fantasy By Adding Some Travel Realism From Our World

This week’s episode touches on something that travel writers inherently know - in order to mentally transport a reader to a different place, you have to include descriptions of the culture, food, smells, sounds, and sights of the locale you want them to imagine.  If they have never been there before, your words may be their first introduction and the very thing that may convince them that they want to travel there in real life.  In a way, fantasy writers are essentially travel writers - it's just that the locale a fantasy writer is describing doesn't actually exist in real life. 

One way to sell that it does, however, even if it's just in the world of one's imagination, is to include things we see in our world - different cultures, different accents, different languages, different foods, and different customs that incite curiosity and perhaps put up roadblocks the characters have to work around.  As long as it helps advance the plot or deepen the depiction of the characters, I'd say, have fun creating your world!  It's basically the imaginary sandbox you have created for your characters to play in.  What kind of play session do you want to give them?  A lot of that will depend largely on the toys you provide.  It doesn't have to make sense in our world.  It just has to make in yours!

I did the picture below on a plane, actually.  It shows Aurora and her grandfather, her one ally in the new world she finds herself in.  They are in his study, and he is showing her (with the aide of an enchanted set of calipers) where they currently are in relation to where her home was - 5,619 miles away!  It's no wonder she has a dismayed look on her face as she imagines how will she ever possibly get back home from this land where so much is different.  

https://13thhr.wpcomstaging.com/2026/11/02/the-thirteenth-hour-podcast-586-thirteenth-hour-sequel-update-29-wordbuilding-in-fantasy-by-adding-some-travel-realism-from-our-world/

More next week!

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Once Upon a Dream, the second Thirteenth Hour soundtrack, is now out in digital form!  

It is out on most major streaming services such as Bandcamp, Spotify, and YouTube Music.  (If you have no preference, I recommend Bandcamp since there is a bonus track there and you will eventually be able to find tapes, CDs, and special editions of the album there as well.)

-Check out the pixelart music videos that are out so far from the album:

-->Logan's Sunrise Workout: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7SM1RgsLiM

-->Forward: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9VgILr1TDc

-->Nightsky Stargazing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S0p3jKRTBo

-->Aurora's Rainy Day Mix: https://youtu.be/zwqPmypBysk

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