On Writing and Worldbuilding - Volume I cover art

On Writing and Worldbuilding - Volume I

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

On Writing and Worldbuilding - Volume I

By: Timothy Hickson
Narrated by: Larissa Thompson, Merphy Napier
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

Writing advice tends to be full of "rules" and "tips" which are either too broad to be helpful or outright wrong. In On Writing and Worldbuilding, we will discuss specific and applicable ideas to consider, from effective methods of delivering exposition and foreshadowing, to how communication, commerce, and control play into the fall of an empire.

On Writing

  • Part I: Prologues
  • Part II: The First Chapter
  • Part III: The Exposition Problem
  • Part IV: Foreshadowing
  • Part V: Villain Motivation
  • Part VI: Hero-Villain Relationships
  • Part VII: Final Battles
  • Part VIII: The Chosen One
  • Part IX: Hard Magic Systems
  • Part X: Soft Magic Systems
  • Part XI: Magic Systems and Storytelling

On Worldbuilding

  • Part XII: Polytheistic Religions
  • Part XIII: Hidden Magical Worlds
  • Part XIV: How Empires Rise
  • Part XV: How Empires Work
  • Part XVI: How Empires Fall

Exclusive Content

  • Part XVII: How I Plan a Novel

Dozens of sidenotes and extra thoughts on all these wonderful stories

©2019 Timothy Hickson (P)2020 Timothy Hickson Literary History & Criticism Words, Language & Grammar Writing & Publishing Magic

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Structuring Your Novel cover art
Outlining Your Novel cover art
Kobold Guide to Roleplaying cover art
Story Genius cover art
Save the Cat! cover art
Wonderbook (Revised and Expanded) cover art
Worldbuilding for Fantasy Fans and Authors cover art
The Art of Language Invention cover art
Story Structure: The Key to Successful Fiction cover art
MOAR! Monsters Know What They're Doing cover art
Video Game Storytelling cover art
Contemporary Fiction cover art
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo cover art
The Secrets to Creating Character Arcs cover art
Fiction Writing 101 cover art
"I Give You My Body..." cover art
All stars
Most relevant
Timothy Hickson has made a great tool for writers and worldbuilders. With good exemples and interesting breakdowns he aids you on a path of better writting.

A great study in worldbuilding

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The book was really easy to follow, with varied examples that made the points explained easy to understand. One reason I rated it lower for performance was due to the narrator mispronouncing several book titles/author names which confused me and took me out of following the point.

Great book for learning writing skills!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have this book in Kindle version and it's amazing. I like the book really much and I find it really helpful... That said, this Audible narration is just plain awful from the start. It sounds as if a robotic voice had read a pdf version outloud while someone is just changing the voice option every moment, so it starts first as super quick, then slows down insufferably for a second or two and so on and so on... I don't know why the guy who wrote the book haven't just done the narration himself - he has a great channel on YouTube where he doesn't narrate his own videos that this book seems to be based on. Didn't expect to be disappointed, but it is what it is... Great book, but the narration is below any minimum standards...

Poor narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.