Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, volcanoes... unstable wormholes, hellmouths, murder hornets, sharknados... When you're writing speculative fiction, the scope of disaster can be wild!

Do the local wizards cause occasional hails of turnips? Does Gondor have a tornado warning system? After a thousand-year flood, does magical FEMA show up to rebuild? Decisions about how your society plans for and reacts to disaster can imply a lot else about their infrastructure, government, religion, and other societal constructs.

Then there's the question of: Is the disaster the backbone of your plot, or just one plot element among many? That decision may shape the tone and even the subgenre of a book!

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Transcript for Episode 94 (tk)